Widrich: Early products should be embarrassing for lacking features, not being broken
Leo Widrich · Leo Widrich of Buffer: Top 10 Learnings Going to 10 Million · Jul 7, 2017 · at 22:21
Buffer co-founder Leo Widrich reinterprets Reid Hoffman's advice on product launches, arguing that first versions should be embarrassingly narrow in scope rather than dysfunctional.
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“I think this line, I think this famous quote from Reid Hoffman around, you know, you should be embarrassed by your first version, I think that also gets misinterpreted a lot, because it shouldn't be, you shouldn't be embarrassed by it from, Ah, you know, it shouldn't, if it completely breaks and, you know, it's completely unusable, that's the wrong type of embarrassment you want. I think the type of embarrassment that's good is the embarrassment of richness, right? You, you're kind of embarrassed because it's only this one feature and you wish you had done three more, but that's really the type of embarrassment you want, where it's complete in itself. We often talk about, like, it should be, like, not the base layer of a cake, but it should be a cupcake, right? It should be, and a cupcake in itself is complete.”
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