Never ship unless you can start getting traction right away. That should be your hard benchmark before putting something out. Shipping is a complicated process and shouldn’t be taken lightly. You need to invest in due diligence, MVP development and a myriad of administrative issues.

Are your processes and maintenance procedures fully documented? Have you fully checked all your servers for updates, security patches, etc. Have you fully tested your system? Is the feedback superb? Are beta testers recommending or talking about your product? No, then don’t ship.

Don’t put out a subpar product, because launching it will only compound the problem. Not only should the product be rock solid but all the growth hacking channels should be present – at least in their initial form. Because you want to start testing channels to gain traction. And this is the theme of this post, you ship because you want to gain traction. Not users, not money, not a couple of pats in the back but hard, cold and solid traction. You must strive to grow fast because growth persuades.

Impressive growth metrics seduce the press, investors and key employees. I call this “momentum management”, essentially the idea that, as a new institution every major launch is an opportunity to send your company to the next level in a “snowball” fashion. Every product release should carry financial, media and technical weights of compounding nature. Ergo, don’t ship if the product that you will ship is simply a me-too solution. Only ship products and iterations that could spark momentum and growth from one of the key stakeholders. I leave you with a great product launching guide by Blast Media. Enjoy!