Undercook Your First Product

Last week, we introduced Rule Four: Start Before the Gun Goes Off, and we laid out the newest challenge for our fearless Female Mavericks – getting comfortable living and working amidst a certain degree of imperfection. You’ll be operating in this less-than-ideal phase for some time. So best to jump right into the first Female Maverick Must Do for Rule Four and figure out the precise time to launch your product. (Yes, this will be before it’s fully baked.)

First, here's a look ahead at everything we’ll cover in Rule Four. 

When you are still in the process of perfecting your masterpiece, it can feel premature (and completely terrifying) to put it out there for the world, or at least your test market, to see. Debuting an undercooked product or idea goes against your perfectionist nature. But trust us, a little softness in the middle isn't just okay – it's a necessary evil.

It may seem counterintuitive. But the much greater risk lies in launching a polished product that’s consumed 100% of your capital and energy in order to achieve (your version) of perfection.

Why? Because 95% percent of new products fail. Yours, in its first iteration, probably will, too. It might be missing a feature that you didn’t initially think of as critical, but your customers do. Or your initial strategy to sell to one entry point at a company or one demographic could fall flat. Or maybe a more established competitor comes out with a similar product at the same time as you.

In any of these scenarios, the ability to go back to the drawing board with some investment dollars and some brain cells left is a massive competitive advantage.

Start with a Minimum Viable Product.

If you don't believe us, believe Jeff Bezos, the perpetually shiny bald oracle of e-commerce. He didn't build Amazon by launching a fully stocked online megastore. No, he started with books and a dream. His strategy? The Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

The MVP strategy calls for building a simple version of the product or service you want to launch. Then releasing it (early) to validate that your customer needs it and will pay for it. (Or, to figure out what features are needed so they will.) Going too big too soon is like creating your crown jewel in a vacuum. And is likely to send you so far into the weeds that the offering becomes unwieldy, unfocused and, ultimately, unsuccessful (we heard this from a friend…).

The startup highway is littered with really smart (and very well-funded) companies that ignored Jeff Bezos at their own peril. Let’s highly a few…

• CNN+: It was launched, lived and died in about 30 days. Around $300 million later, CNN figured out something they could have learned in market testing: People didn’t want a 24-hour news streaming service if they had to pay extra for it.

• Meta’s virtual reality: In retrospect, how could Zuck not have foreseen that the average millennial didn’t have an extra $800 to spend for a social game. Even those who could afford it didn’t have a bunch of friends able to shell out $800 a piece to play, too, and keep the game interesting. Just like that, $10 billion down the tubes.

• The Juicero Press machine: Our personal fave, for $700 this gem not only equipped you to make orange juice, but also to track and control the making of your orange juice remotely. It raised $120 million – investors included Kleiner Perkins and Campbell Soup Company –before realizing customers were just as happy to squeeze the packets included with the machine into a glass, add water and call it a day.

We could go on forever, but we’ll stop with just two more examples: Buffalo Wild Wings Mountain Dew Wings and New Coke. Ever tried them? Yeah, we haven’t either. Both massively funded new market introductions that didn’t last a month.

Dream big but execute with focus.

It’s good to think up every potential feature or capability of your product. But then you will need to ruthlessly cut 85% of your ideas out of your original design or offering. File them away under "Future Plans" (which you may ultimately rename, "Things to Laugh About Later").

For now, focus on the core value proposition. Maybe it’s to make something faster, easier, less glitchy. Maybe it’s to help a company address an emerging problem they aren’t ready for and don’t have an easy answer to yet. This was our meal ticket. Stakeholders started demanding public disclosures on various sustainability measures, and companies had no mechanism to measure, capture or disclose the information. We were ready to help.

Your idea can certainly be a lot more fun and less complex than ours. A to-die-for new clothing item, an event app to share with your friends or an easier way to track the latest workout trends…just to name a few. Or it could be extremely high-tech and serious as a heart attack. Whichever way you go, just make sure every product or service feature directly relates to your core value proposition. (Remember all the pain, suffering and market research you have done to validate your idea? Stick to what you have already proven will work.)

Plan on taking more than one shot at success.

You might not think you’re going to need a version two (or even a third or fourth iteration of your idea). We didn’t. We thought we had the perfect service upon launch. We were cocky, expecting to be trampled by buyers knocking down our doors.

They didn’t. In our case, our service was too early to the market, and its first generation lacked a crucial reporting component. Luckily, we had time to retool, build a software product, form partnerships and try again. And we were still quick enough to market to have a leg up over competitors, albeit less than we initially thought, but now with a better offering to sell.

The takeaway here is to stay focused on creating must-have product and service features and supporting them with a very targeted marketing strategy. Then, take a deep breath and release your baby into the wild. Think of it like sending your kid off to kindergarten for the first time. Things can and will go wrong. But you’ll be there to address any first-day hiccups and help them return even stronger the next day.

What’s Next?

We know, we know, you still think it needs to be perfect. But every time you think we might be wrong, quickly say to yourself, “Google+” or “Microsoft Zune,” and go to bed. Next week, we are going to swipe right on the ideal target audience. (Who doesn’t love a good Tinder or Bumble reference?) Taking your product to the wrong audience might be an even bigger startup faux pas than putting too much into your version one.