This little peril of wisdom is compliments of Guy Kawasaki and his “Art of Innovation” speech. Guy says that it is OK if your product has some crappy aspects in version 1.0, it is to be expected, but you better work the kinks out as soon as version 2.0 ships or you will be in trouble. His example is that if Apple would have waited for all of the great technologies, they would have never shipped the Macintosh.
I am not so sure that I agree wholeheartedly with this approach, I would take a slightly different approach to it. Instead of accepting the fact that your product is going to be crappy in version 1.0, but go ahead and ship it, how about reducing the features of the product and really nailing the ones that are in the product? That way when you ship it, it may have less features than you originally wanted, but the features that it does have are rock solid. Perhaps this is what Guy is getting at, but the way the statement reads it leads you to believe that it is OK to ship version 1.0 of the product and have it be crappy.
My real world experience recently with the don’t worry, be crappy philosophy was with Verizon and their recent upgrade to their FIOS TV manager software. I guess that they felt launching an upgrade to all of their customers that was crappy was OK, they could work the kinks out at a later date. Man were they ever wrong! I spent the better half of an hour last night trying to get the manager to work, and it was messing up left and right. Verizon customers would have been better off if they would have just left well enough along and left us with the old manager, but no. Now, I along with all of their other FIOS TV customers, are stuck dealing with the inadequacies of the product until they can fix it. I would expect this from a young company that is launching their product for the first time, but not from an established, mature company like Verizion. On second thought, perhaps I should not be so surpirsed.
Nonetheless, I think whenever you launch a product, make sure that the features that it does have work well, you can always add more later.
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ABOUT 15 MEANINGS
Will Kern's take on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Not really, but it is my take on startups, the web, life and everything in between. Have a question or just want to shoot me an e-mail: kernwill [at] yahoo dot com.
Funny…MY real world experience is with AOL. They epitomize the “don’t worry, be crappy” philosophy!
You didn’t even have to go out of your own company for an example!
LOL..thanks for a great term! I can assure you that it will be used a lot!
lol….that’s exactly how people feel about AOL! I’ve seen people afraid to download new versions, because they know there will be problems……….anything under 20% of testers having a problem will let them consider their software golden and release it. Such stellar first release AOL always has a Refresh test start within a very few weeks to work on the problems.
this blogger better look a little closer to home before going out and criticizing their neighbor.
@Shae,
I did not say nor have I ever said that we do not have some of the same problems I blog about. Please don’t think for a second that I do not realize our problems. I do not work in the group that owns the AOL client software, so I cannot personally make changes to solve the problem. If I did, I would work to make changes.
Will
ok so you agree aol is a pretty crappy piece of work.
we agree on that. Nobody in there is smart enough to make any changes either. It’s pitiful.
@Shae,
I did not say that AOL was a pretty crappy piece of work. I simply said that we have our share of problems. You are unfairly generalizing an entire company as crappy based on one of the many product offerings that we have.
Furthermore, I take offense to the statement you made that ” Nobody in there is smart enough to make any changes either”, considering that I work here. Once again you are generalizing an entire company (in this case the workers) based on one thing.
Will
Shae,
Wow! If you hate AOL so much and feel that everyone who works there is stupid, why bother using the software? Seems to me that you need to re-evaluate why you’re still associated with a company you feel is so crappy - and if you are who I think you are - why you’re even bothering to beta test their software. Your very public opinions lately are at odds with your actions.
First you said you did not work in the group that owned AOL and if you could make changes, you would
“I do not work in the group that owns the AOL client software, so I cannot personally make changes to solve the problem. If I did, I would work to make changes. ”
Then you said
“Furthermore, I take offense to the statement you made that †Nobody in there is smart enough to make any changes eitherâ€, considering that I work here.”
That confuses me then why you can’t make changes. I didn’t know if you worked there or not.
I don’t know D.P. but to that comment, though I have beta tested, I didn’t know that meant you had to love the company. Should beta testers be “yes” men?
Not important, it’s all just idle chatter.
Today I update from 9.0 Optimized SE to 9.0 VR (165), because I heard that VR was becoming mandatory. I still have AOL 8.0 installed in case AOL screws up another update as it did with a Connectivity update. 9.0 Opt still crashes.
AOL has not maintained basic functions like Help (finally working after 3 years or more of error 502), or web browsing (lots of blank screens).
Keywords were broken 3 times this week. Mail is now encumbered with ads.
@Shae,
What I meant was that I do not work in the product group that owns the AOL client software that you have issue with. If I was in that group, I would work my hardest to make changes for the better. I had issue with your statement because I assumed that you meant that no one within AOL was smart enough to make changes.
Anyways, like you said, it is all just idle chit chatter.
Will
I agree with Shae, AOL software is just awful. I have had many a headache attributed to that software. That is why I switched! I guess you have made a new company slogan for AOL ‘Don’t worry be Crappy’