Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway
August 9, 2010 | 26 Comments
Fear of launching has been talked about rather decisively by Rob Walling and Kevin Hoctor, two software business people I really admire.
I’ve been working on Lapsus since September 2009. I’ll be frank – I’m disappointed with where the application’s at after a year of work.
Version 1, version 1, wherefore art thou?
Every bit of advice points clearly towards releasing earlier rather than later. Andy Brice recommends releasing after 6 months, and Rob and Mike of the Micropreneur Academy reckon 6-8 months is the sweet spot.
So after a lot of indecision, I’ve finally decided to take the plunge. Version 1 will be on sale some time in early September. There, I said it. *Shudder*
The thought of releasing Lapsus as it currently is makes me feel really embarrassed, but maybe that’s a good thing. Asking people to pay for it is the best way of knowing if the application has a future.
I’ll be mitigating my fear a little by releasing Lapsus to small batches of my mailing list – the first 20 will get an invitation to purchase, then a week later the next 50, the next 100 and finally I’ll open it up to everyone.
Feel the fear…
I’m afraid that Lapsus won’t be perfect. I’m afraid people will find bugs that I can’t track down and fix. I’m afraid people will not buy Lapsus. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to handle the pressures of daily support email.
…and do it anyway.
As Kevin Hoctor quite wisely says:
“Being afraid is natural. Letting fear dictate what I do or don’t do is just plain nuts.”
So, to quote Han Solo in Star Wars:
“Here goes nothin’”
Wish me luck!
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26 Responses to “Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway”
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Yay – Good luck on version 1! I’m looking forward to trying it out and giving you feedback, so hopefully your mailing list is not alphabetical!
Hey Jeremy. Thanks for the nice words. You’re about 220th on my mailing list, so you should be able to try it out in late September/early October. Thanks for sticking with me and I’m looking forward to your feedback.
Fine! Fuck your lizard brain (“Linchpin”, Seth Godin) and release it. Good luck!
Yeah, Nic. That lizard brain is going *down*.
Er… unless it’s a biological imperative that cannot be removed. Ahem.
Hey John,
I’m still here, watching from the sidelines. You remember our little chat a while back, right? Maybe you want to go back to that if you don’t.
Basically, what you’re doing here is giving yourself an excuse to keep pushing the deadline further by not setting a concrete date (although you should and could) and trying to lower expectations once it (maybe) does get out.
I still think that is absolutely the wrong way to corner an oversaturated market like time tracking. Where you need to be extraordinary, bold and remarkable to even be noticed, let alone make an impact. Who is going to believe in Lapsus if you don’t?
I’m preparing a talk at TEDxRheinneckar these coming weeks, and I am pondering including your example – albeit anonymously – in a segment about professionalism. Software engineers have an advantage in the business world because they can fail privately a lot more; but this also leads to them not shipping until it may already be too late. Hope you don’t mind.
Cheers,
Berthold
PS: As a seasoned thespian, that quasi-shakespearean quote makes me die a little inside. Essentially, what you’re saying there is “Why are you version 1?”. Julia doesn’t ask where Romeo is (hiding right next to her), she decries her fate, being a starcrossed lover due to them belonging to feuding families.
I also just realised that the latin meaning of lapsus is “minor mistake” – was that intentional?
Berthold
Yes, I remember our chat very well. The gist of it, I believe went something like:
In terms of a concrete date, I’m going to be opening up Lapsus to a batch of people on my mailing list to buy on 8th September.
You’ve certainly got yourself a point when you say I’m not being bold. That’s because I don’t feel bold. I feel anxious and worried. I think it’s better to be honest about this rather than surround myself with an air of fake confidence. I’ll start acting with confidence when I feel confident.
The feedback I’ve had so far from potential customers though, tells me that although I’m not being bold, what I’m trying to do is unusual. Maybe “extraordinary” or “remarkable” is pushing it, but certainly unusual.
Please feel free to use me as an example of not shipping. I’d be happy for you to use my name as long as you mention my product.
Sorry about the mangling of Shakespeare. I’ve fully exposed my ignorance here. And as for the name, I liked how it sounded. I researched what it meant before picking it, but didn’t really think this mattered. Plus names don’t really matter anyway.
See, this is what your announcement could have looked like. Put yourself out there. Externalise your deadline, instead of giving soft targets like “around August/September”, “by the end of the year” “early September”.
Let me rephrase and you tell me whether this was what you meant to say:
>>I have finally decided on a release date for Lapsus 1.0; early subscribers to my mailing list will be able to purchase the software on September 8th for $XY, with the general release two weeks later on September 22nd.
I would like to thank all those who waited for me to finally release this unique time tracking software, and all the beta testers and business wizzes who helped me along the way. One special mention goes out to XYZ, this would not have been possible without your advice and experience. Thank you.
Lapsus 1.0 will have these features
- xxx …
Support for the following will be added in the upcoming version 1.1, which will be made available to all owners of Lapsus 1.0 free of charge and is scheduled for release on February 8 2011:
- yyy …
Please feel free to leave feedback right here or send me an email, and I will get right back to you. Happy tracking, everyone.<<
Wow. No, I didn’t mean to say that. I mean to say exactly what I said. It seems that you want to tell me precisely what to do and say. I’m sure it’s coming from a place of wanting to help, but I’m finding it pretty patronising.
If you had lots of experience in shipping products and acknowledged that every business is different rather than offering specific advice on how to act from the comfort of the sidelines, maybe I’d be more inclined to take what you said seriously.
Fair enough, you should take what I’m saying with a grain of salt. I have no proven track record of releasing apps. But I’ve stood in the trenches, and I’m always willing to share some of the insights I gained to try and help people. After all, when prompted you were willing to commit to a deadline, which is a definite step forward.
And if you say you meant exactly what you said, I suggest you take on the point of view of somebody interested in your app and estimate what “I’m disappointed with where the application’s at”, “feel really embarrassed”, “I’m afraid people will find bugs that I can’t track down and fix. ” or “I’m afraid that I won’t be able to handle the pressures of daily support email.” is saying to them. People appreciate honesty, but they don’t buy products out of pity.
When I say any of these things, my goal isn’t to engender pity. My goal is to tell people how I’m feeling. I’m aware that this will put some people off buying, but I think that’s fine. I’m becoming more aware of the drawbacks of sharing everything, but I’m happy with what I’ve written here. My goal with this blog has always been to share what’s on my mind and how I’m feeling. I’m aware that most businesses would see this kind of sharing as commercial suicide, but I think there’s a business advantage with transparency.
In terms of trying to predict how people are going to react, the only person I can really write for is me. I can’t guess how others are going to react. All I can do is write as clearly as possible about what I think and feel. Some people will appreciate that. Others won’t. And that’s OK.
If you assume people come to the website of your app to read about how you’re feeling personally, you’re doing the right thing. This isn’t what transparent businesses are about though.
I also find it hard to believe that you should be so lacking in empathy that you can’t begin to guess who you’re talking to and what they are going to think about your app after hearing how you’re feeling about it. You’re asking them to trust you with their money, after all.
If I greeted potential clients with phrases like “I don’t think I’m the right guy for this job” or “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to handle this” or even “I really am not satisfied with the work I’m doing”, I would get no business whatsoever. Hence, I only use these phrases if I really do feel I shouldn’t take a particular job.
I don’t assume people come to my app website to read about how I feel. I think that people who read my blog might want to know a bit about the person behind the company.
The blog right now is very personal. I’ve also been using it as a tool to motivate me and hold me accountable. I think once my app is out and bringing in some income I’ll want to move the current content to a different blog and reserve the current space for company stuff – as you say, the things people buying my app care about. But that’s for the point when I actually have customers.
We all have doubts. Your approach seems to be to not verbalise them. Mine is to tell people. If you constantly feel like you’re not satisfied with the work you’re doing, the answer isn’t to ignore these feelings and cover them up, but to express them and do something about them. I accept there are times when expressing how we feel isn’t helpful, but if this is the norm rather than exception, there’s something wrong.
If people don’t want to pay for a product made by someone with doubts about their ability, then they shouldn’t buy Lapsus right now. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with saying that. I don’t believe in pretending to feel more confident than I do just to close a sale. For me, the more important thing is to be honest, then people can make their own minds up about whether to buy or not. I also think that although this will put some people off buying, others will appreciate my openness and honesty.
I see this as a stage in my self improvement – it won’t always be like this. I’m going to be moving past this anxiety at some point, at which point I’ll communicate this. I think in a year or so I’ll be feeling much more confident.
Incidentally, there are lots of other successful people for whom sharing how they’re feeling about business doesn’t seem to have done them any harm. Kevin Hoctor is one such person.
Correct, I’m suggesting that your self-doubts aren’t your USP. The only thing you’re communicating is the problems you’re having, which tells readers that you may not be competent to do what you do – I dare you to point out a company that thrives on publicly declaring incompetence.
I have never heard of Kevin Hoctor, but if transparency is working out for him it’s more likely that he’s actually displaying the confidence of coping, and offering solutions rather than problems.
There is a world of a difference between saying “I don’t think I can do this” and “I’ve been having trouble with it, so I doubled my effort”.
No. I’m not communicating the problems I’m having. I’m communicating the doubts I have. There’s a big difference. I’m not saying “I can’t support this product” or “I have a problem supporting this product”. I’m saying “I’ve never done support before, so I’m anxious about it.” It’s an unknown. I’m not saying I’m incompetent to do this, I’m saying I’ve never done it before so I don’t know how competent I’ll be. I want to offer customers an excellent experience, so I think I’ll be fine. But that doesn’t mean I’m not worried about it. I think a certain level of anxiety is a good thing – it means I’m going to take it seriously when I do start supporting my product.
My exact words were:
I’m not saying I’m having problems with any of these areas. I’m saying these things are an unknown, so I’m anxious about them. I’d say that’s a good thing.
Let’s hope your potential clients have the same understanding of semantics as you do and share your interpretations. How “I have never done support” is going to foster trust, I’ll be interested to see. Guess I will have to wait until September 8th.
If I may, John, your discussion here has encouraged me to one day buy your product (I’m trying it now). Berthold seems to have good intentions but takes the marketing approach: make a lot of noise, be self confident, declare that you are the best and you will become successful.
Now that may truly be how the world works, I like to go against it. Personally I’d much sooner buy from an independent software vendor with a personal story. Now I know there’s a human behind your product instead of a bunch of suits. I like your it already.
I’m sure there are more people like me. Good luck!
@Kristof: Thanks for the kind words and the encouragement. It means a lot to me. Hopefully there are enough people out there with your attitude to support the development of Lapsus into the future.
John: Incidentally, since it’s been about a week since you planned to release lapsus for sale to your top email subs, how are you doing saleswise? Mind sharing your conversion rate and/or further plans for release?
Kristof: I fail to see how you read “Declare you are the best” into my proposed post. All I did was cut through the angst in the original. If you have a good product that people want, all you need to tell them is how they can get it. I’m still pretty sure that would lead to more confident buyers and thus to more sales.
Let us know when you buy lapsus, will you?
Bethold: I’m very pleased with the sales I’m getting. Lapsus is still very minimal feature-wise and has a some teething problems but I’ve had some good feedback from customers. I’m not going to share sales figures, but some people are buying and right now, that’s good enough for me.
John,
I’m an independent software developer myself, and let me just say thank you for “launching”. You have a feature that was well worth what I paid. I’ve seen many paralyzed by “it’s not good enough yet”. FWIW, I think was time.
Now, just keep adding features and raising the price (you know, assuming us early adopters get to not pay you again for a little while
)
Thanks for the kind words and encouragement. I’m having second thoughts about releasing on Monday to the world – Lapsus is a bit too unstable for my liking, so I may delay until the end of the week and give myself more time to fix the serious stuff. I’m still not sure quite what to do yet, but it’s nice to hear that someone is happy! Thanks again for the encouragement.
How’s the release coming along? Next Monday, right?
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/09/the-myth-of-preparation.html
I’ve still not fixed the bugs in Lapsus to my satisfaction, so I’m going to be working hard over the weekend. But the issues haven’t been fixed by Monday, I won’t be releasing.
I see that you haven’t released. This would be a great time for a blog post letting people know about the delay, explain the problem and the solution you’re considering and give a new release date.
You know, if you were into that “being open” thing.
I’m currently still fixing the issues in Lapsus. I’m not going to give another release date as I don’t know how long it’s going to take and I don’t want to end up disappointing people.