Ask HN: How to promote a minimum viable product?

4 points by yodakohl 13 years ago | 3 comments

I spent the last few weeks in an emotional rollercoaster building a webservice. I finally got a minimal product working, but I'm way too biased to recognize if the product is valuable or on the wrong way. With zero users, my product desperately cries for some early feedback. On the other hand I feel insecure about releasing an unfinished product which may contains bugs and with just one core feature to an public audience. How do you promote a MVP, and how do you decide when it's time for a first release?

gdubs 13 years ago |

I'd say when it feels usable to you. Eating your own dog food is a classic piece of advice. When you can make use of the product and the experience isn't painful then it's (hopefully) going to be valuable to someone else. Design-wise, it doesn't have to be the most beautiful thing in the world, as long as it has a consistent personality. Maybe someone else can tackle the promotion question (its been covered here a bunch in the past). Promotion is an art in and of itself, that you should probably research as deeply as the coding side if you want to do it yourself.

abdophoto 13 years ago |

It's hard to know when. It depends on what you think a MVP is. Some think its an alpha. Others think its a beta. And some think it's a completely finished and polished product. I wouldn't shy away from doing a Show HN if you want real feedback.

argonaut 13 years ago |

Why don't you do a shown HN? You can always do another "launch" if you want. Airbnb "launched" like 4 or 5 times, if I recall.