In my experience with Intense Debate and some other web projects, I found that it was more important to be first and considered the innovator than having a perfect product. “Perfect” meaning, tested for nearly every conceivable situation, gone over with a fine toothed comb, meticulously crafted, etc. Sometimes there was a problem with the product, but most of the time the benefit received from being the innovator and “first mover” was bigger than I had thought.
In the analog world is this true? If one’s company makes a product that is a first mover, innovative, and people want it yet it only has a minimal amount of testing, should the company launch?
I suppose every situation is different and as we always said in the marine corps, “situation dictates.” However, what if it were this simple?
On the web, launching a product like ID or some other newfangled web app is going to do little damage if it doesn’t work. The worst case scenario is someone uninstalls your plugin or never comes back to your site. After all, like many consumer apps, it is free. Because there was no investment other than a small amount of time on the consumer’s end, the consequences for the web company are, relatively, not that bad.
On the other hand, consider an arbitrary product like windshields as our real world example. Windshields, Inc (fake company) has a brand new windshield product made of 100% recycled material and slightly cheaper than the price of normal windshields. Incredishield (also a fake company) is a close competitor building a similar product. Is it plausible for Windshields, Inc. to release their product with minimum testing to meet the lowest standards in order to beat their competitors to market? Mind you, they are risking future product failure, their names would be tarnished, and they could go out of business. However, the reward is establishing your company with 100% recycled material windshields just as Xerox is to copiers and Google is to search and the financial windfall that goes with it.
Is this another case of “good enough” being good enough? It could make for an interesting case study.
