does launching fast make a difference ?
I heard bill gates saying one day that one of the most thing that he regrets for doing when he was the CEO is launching Microsoft Phone System to late. he also said that Android won the market because it launched to early.
but when we take a look at facebook for example, it's came to late but won the market.
what do you think ?
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If you build the wrong thing or you execute poorly, then it doesn't matter if you're early. If the market is attractive enough, someone more competent will catch up and pass you. However, if you execute well, then yes, it generally helps to be earlier to market.
It's worth nothing that the above mostly applies to winner-take-all markets. In winner-take-all markets, customers flock to the #1 offering, which usually has some way to fend off competitors. For example, Facebook and Instagram have strong network effects. Harvard, Y Combinator, and the New York Times have strong branding. Amazon has massive cost savings from its economies and scale. Uber can operate at a loss due to VC funding. Etc. These advantages are difficult for competitors to dislodge.
Not every market is winner-take-all. Arguably, most aren't. People have been hiring engineers, opening restaurants, selling courses, etc. for centuries. There are still promising new businesses that pop up there every year.
Finally, I'd note that sometimes being early to market makes it harder to execute well, because you're stuck with the burden of figuring things out, educating customers, etc.
I agree! "Fast Second: How Smart Companies Bypass Radical Innovation to Enter and Dominate New Markets " is a good read (or at least a good set of examples) on why it can be good to be a "fast second", rather than first.
There are lots of factors that determine the success or failure of a product ...FaceBook for instance..was late to the market..but had better/more features and targeted a great demographic...college age kids ...
Myspace was the dominant player at that time , but didn't anticipate/pivot/innovate when little Facebook entered into the market and paid the price .
Its not about speed..its about...Product quality...market timing and Consumer perception of a product
Consumers only have so much money to spend..and despite what you may see on the news...these are still very hard economic times for many......potential users/buyers of your product..have a budget....rent , kids , fuel costs ....these MUST be maintained .
@SUPERViLLAiN
market timing, that's it.
I don't think it's about launching early. It's about not launching too late.
As @csallen said in his comment here, if you're executing poorly you don't have any advantage for launching early.
Anyway, spending too much time to perfect your product can make you launch too late. Check @alchemist comment. He recognizes that his Elixir screencast business would have been more successful if he would have launched two years earlier. But even 1 year earlier would have made the difference.
That's why you'll see that most of the indie hackers with a launched product are not advising to ship as fast as you can. They are advising to strip the MVP as much as you can. As a result, you're going to launch as early as you can built that MINIMUM viable product. It's a perspective thingy. Makes sense?
thank you, it's clear now ^_^
I think the message about launching early is respect to product completeness rather than entering the market before competitors. Facebook came to the market late compare to other competitors but launched early with only few features and didn't wait to have a robust complete product.
One quote I can remember worth mentioning is "If you're not embarrassed by your first launch then you launched too late" which means ship products early so you'll get feedback from the user to know if you're on the right path or you need to pivot. Just my 2 cents.
I think my tiny Elixir screencast business would be much larger if I'd started two years earlier. A lot of the lists and recommendations for places to learn Elixir were written years ago. Many of the learning resources are out of date and abandoned, but the lists remain and have substantial SEO juice. It's a fairly substantial advantage for those older competitors that haven't quit to be getting a steady stream of traffic from old Quora posts, blog posts etc that show up at the top of google searches.
It's not the ultimate deciding factor, but if search engine traffic is your primary channel then I think there's a clear advantage to being earlier.
If you're a huge company like MS, search engine traffic isn't the primary channel. Their problem was trying to make it like their desktop software. I don't think anyone building a UI from scratch would think it was a good idea to put a tiny start button on a phone.
You do not default win a market just because you are early. That is such a weird comment. There are other reasons why Android is still around and the other one tanked.
It is better to launch later, for instance, Chrysler had a several decade heads start over Toyota... Toyota Won! Sony's Walkman vs Apple's iPod... iPod Won! Yahoo search vs Google search... Google Won! It is all about innovation and execution! Happy Monday!