6 Mistakes That Will Kill Your Product Launch

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29/05/13 10:166 Mistakes That Will Kill Your Product Launch

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6 Mistakes That Will Kill Your Product

LaunchOver the past 10 years Ive created many businesses. If you looked at my business

life on a timeline you would see that my first few businesses didnt do too well,

however, as the years went on I slowly became more successful.

Why? Because Ive learned from my mistakes.

One mistake I learned to avoid is that you have to move fast when it comes to a

product launch. Dragging your feet will kill your launch. Here are six common

mistakes that lead to procrastination, and how to avoid them.

1. Not Working Fast EnoughNot meeting your product launch deadline can be deadly. A lot of people are

anticipating the launch, including the press and your investors, and if you fail to

meet it and dont have a really good reason, people may doubt your ability in the

future.

Even if you and your team think that six months or nine months or whatever time

youve promised seems like a long timedont waste it! Get to work right away as

soon as you can. Its much better to finish before your deadline than it is to finish

after.

I think we are all probably guilty of wasting time when we think we have a lot of it.

Heres my recommendation to avoid doing that:

Give your team an internal goal this is the goal that you are not sharing with

the public. The purpose of this goal is to keep your team motivated early on.

Give yourself time to re-evaluate Your internal goal should be far enough

from the real deadline to give you time to evaluate. As things may not go well.

Give yourself meaningful landmarks to hit Your internal goal should be

made up of five or six landmark goals that gauge your progress in a meaningful

way. For example, you could set a goal for prototypes, user testing round one,

etc.

Also, try to avoid one of the most common mistakes that new entrepreneurs make:

never make promises you cant keep.

2. Unsure About The Problem

A slow product launch might be caused by you and your team not understanding

the problem your product is supposed to fix. This could lead to a number of

problems:

Confusion Not everyone is on the same page, so when you communicate to

your team what you want, they hear one thing because they understand the

problem differently.

Conflict Theres a chance if you and your team dont truly understand the

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problem that youll end up fighting. It may even come across in subtle ways,

like not putting in long hours or turning in sloppy work.

Control In a really bad situation you may find yourself fighting for control of

the product with other team members. This will surely sink any kind of effort.

What Ive learned from my experience and mentors is to over communicate! If you

dont feel like your team understands the problem, ask them how they see it. Do

they have it right and do you have it wrong?

Its important to always ask questions and never assume. It can be easy for

entrepreneurs to ignore people or advice, and forge forward without taking in

consideration what the people around them are saying. Remember, arrogance

diminishes wisdom.

Besides, communication is just as much aboutlistening as it is aboutspeaking.

Here are some tips on listening better:

Allow people to speak first.

Pay close attention to what they are saying. Dont think of your response while

they are talking.

When they are done talking, repeat back to them what you thought they said

and ask them, Is that what you said?

Before you answer, ask yourself, Wheres the truth in what they said? Find the

common ground.

3. Fear Of Users

Seriously, youd think that if you were launching a product youd be in love with the

thought of engaging customers. But not every one behind a product launch is the

out-going type. Heck, if he or she is an engineer, they like tinkering with the toys

and not talking to the customer.

This can lead to putting off not just the launch but necessary prototype tests.

Ignoring users can lead to a product that users dont want.

If youre the kind of person who isnt big on dealing with users, then you need to

find someone else to do it for you. If you cant for some reason, or really want to

do it yourself because you believe thats a great learning lesson for you, then

follow these tips:

Treat the interaction with users like a game Create a goal thats personal

to you and will help motivate you to engage with your customers. This could beas simple as talk to 10 users every day.

Ask someone to join you I know people who feel uncomfortable talking to

strangers, so to help them get over that they always bring someone along who

isnt uncomfortable. After spending some time with this person and learning

from them, then you can try it on your own.

Put a barrier between you and the user Sometimes you dont need to talk

to the user face-to-face. It may be through surveys, emails, a dashboard or

even phone call. If you can control the situation, go for it!

4. Fear Of Failure

Starting a business, especially one that will get a lot of attention, can cause some

people to procrastinate because they are afraid to fail. They dont want to launch
http://www.kissinsights.com/http://www.quicksprout.com/2011/10/17/the-startup-guide-to-building-a-killer-sales-team/http://www.quicksprout.com/2009/11/19/how-being-a-patel-made-me-somewhat-successful/


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their product because they think people will look down on them or their product

wont measure up to the competition.

It can be tough if you are bringing a product to market thats supposed to beat a

current customer favorite. This is why you have to be tough-skinned and a little bit

of an egomaniac as an entrepreneur.

Bill Nguyen is an interesting serial entrepreneur who claims he makes the same

mistakes over and over again with each launch. If you think about it, this flies in the

face of conventional wisdom. I wouldnt recommend his approach, but you have to

hand it to himhes got guts!

Are you afraid of being judge or failing? Here are some tips to help you overcome

that fear:

Ask yourself whats the worst thing that can happen if you fail. Can you live with

that? You probably can.

Remind yourself that failure is a good teacher.

Remember that thousands of successful people have failed multiple times.

Find successful people whove failed and ask them to talk to you about how

they dealt with it.

Hang out with people who support, love and encourage you.

Never give up.

Remember that you have as much right to launch a product as anybody else.

If you do these things you may not get the same guts as Nguyen, but youll get a

jolt of self-confidence that can carry you to that launch.

5. Being Distracted By Too Many Things

This is a real killer for entrepreneurs. You probably love to work and solve

problems, and when you do this, if youre like me, you may end up getting involved

in a lot of things. Entrepreneurs are overachievers, which is a good thing, but it can

spell trouble when it comes to launch time.

How do you avoid working on too many things? Simply focus. Your task for the

next few months should be nothing but get your product ready for launch. Here are

some tips to help you focus:

Create a minimal viable product, so things move faster.

Plaster your product launch date everywhere so nobody forgets.

Remind yourself and your team all the time of their singular focus.

Eliminate anything thats a distraction, whether its too many dinner dates or

even press interviews. Sure, its important to build momentum up, but a failed

product launch will kill any kind of attention you get.

6. Perfectionism

Perfectionism is simply re-working a product over and over, trying to fix every

single bug and erase every single bad design element so the customer gets a

perfect product. Thats really the traditional, big corporation idea product launch.

Unfortunately its very expensive to operate that way because your idea may not

be the customers idea of perfection, leading to a product that users dont want.

You dont probably have deep enough pockets to make that mistake even once.
http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/08/minimum-viable-product-guide.htmlhttp://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/160/bill-nguyen-startups


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Oct 31, 2011 at 2:12 pm

Oct 31, 2011 at 3:12 pm

Oct 31, 2011 at 7:53 pm

These days its pretty common to get a product to 33% launch-ready before

releasing. Thats an acceptable, proven practice, but you can still suffer from

perfectionism when it comes to beta testing.

How? There are two ways:

Define exactly what 33% is Do you and your team have a clearly defined

picture of 33%? Did you work this into your business plan? Do your investors

understand that picture, too?

Whos responsible for identifying 33%? An important aspect to a good

team is someone who can hold you accountable. If you have a partner, he or

she should hold you accountable. If you are a single founder, then you should

appoint someone, maybe a mentor, to hold you accountable. If you dont have

this person, you can fall into perfectionism.

Its important that you communicate clearly what stage your product is in when it

launches. Everybody knows that the first generation of Apple products is going to

be buggy. Thats why only innovators and early adapters are the only ones who

typically pick them up.

Conclusion

You have to work hard to be a successful entrepreneur. You have to put in 80

hours a week and sacrifice time with family and friends. Dont let a delayed

product launch flush all that work down the drain!

What other things can stall a product launch?

About the Author: Neil Patel is the VP of Marketing of KISSmetrics and blogs at

Quick Sprout.

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Faizan Elahi

Very informative article. Thanks.

QJ

This is a really good article. I can see a few things here that I suffer from and am

trying to fix.

Shamelle@BetterBloggingWays

Trying to do too many things all by yourself is a problem that I face and often see

other bloggers go through as well.

I think its important to prioritize and delegate/outsource. Otherwise, things can get

overwhelming!
http://www.betterbloggingways.com/http://bestbloggingtools.com/http://quicksprout.com/http://kissmetrics.com/http://www.quicksprout.com/2009/11/04/finding-the-right-business-partner/http://www.myanalyticsapp.com/auth/google_oauth2http://blog.kissmetrics.com/6-mistakes/#comment-11051http://blog.kissmetrics.com/6-mistakes/#comment-11047http://blog.kissmetrics.com/6-mistakes/#comment-11045


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Nov 01, 2011 at 5:37 am

Nov 07, 2011 at 2:08 pm

Dec 14, 2011 at 7:14 am

Jan 13, 2012 at 6:34 am

Mar 04, 2012 at 12:13 pm

Jun 11, 2012 at 11:42 am

Jun 21, 2012 at 1:02 am

Nov 02, 2012 at 1:21 am

XuDing

I agree, as a solo entrepreneur, you will have too many things to worry about.

Matthew

Some great tips here. Something that should be considered when developing any

kind of product.

Le Roux

Just a heads up: Because your sidebar is has a fixed position you cant see most

of it unless youre running your browser fullscreen and at a fairly high vertical

resolution.

Number 7 ;)

Neon

I was searching for solution of my problem and this is the same problem Im

getting, its really helped me to find and fix my problem. Thanks

Omari Celestine

These are definitely some great points and Being Distracted By Too Many Things

is one of the main ones I know off.

SEO

These exact things happen with every 9/10 launches and the toughest part id to

identify the mistakes :)

Pooya

I couldnt agree more with the over communicate part (which is not popular with

most people). My rule, is to always say everything 4 times (at least) and then ask

for confirmation (to see if everyone is clearly on the same page).

CityDomo

Cool Checklist, Will Follow :)

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6 Mistakes That Will Kill Your Product Launch