The launch-early, fail-early mantra
Launch leo. Acha ujinga.
A few weeks ago, I talked about the high standards and expectations we give ourselves and allow society to give us. The system of rewarding success and punishing failure irrespective of factors. Where the end justifies the means and the means are never allowed to justify the end.
Well, Let me begin by telling a story about a male and a female. Then I will explain the Mantra.
I was once in a club with JC and Jose. Shooting pool as usual. And thence passed a hot mamma. By hot, I mean HOTTT. I am not talking about the average Kenyan gals who run on MS-DOS and 1 GB Ram. This chic had it all. If she were a Cyborg she MUST have been running on an over-clocked Core i7, and Ubuntu. She had all the supporting documents and a very nice, big and bouncy future behind her.
So I told Jose, who was oogling : “The worst thing you can do to a hot chic in a club is FAIL to talk to her. No female leaves home just to go sit at the counter looking hot and pretty. Every woman wants someone to talk to her and engage her in intellectual intercourse. The aim should never be to take her home. Far from it! Let that be determined by how smooth your vibe is, how drunk she gets or how cold the morning threatens to be.”
“What if she puts me off?”, He asked. “She is too hot for a guy like me.”, he said. I was disappointed.
“If you think that, then it IS true. You are as smooth, confident and hot as you let yourself be.”, I retorted.”The worst thing a woman can do is say NO or give you attitude. What else? Hawezi kupiga!!”. I was getting angry, so I decided to show Jose How it is done. “Watch this”.
The gal again passed by us and being the observer, I noticed a small bit of fluff on her hair. “Excuse me”, I said. She stopped and gave me the, what-can-you-offer look. I gave her the simba-mla-vitu look. Then stretched and took the fluff off her hair. And I said. “There. You are now perfect.”.
She smiled. “Nice cologne you got”, She said. “Well, babygal, At least I have ONE nice thing. You have at least 7 nice things. And I have only looked at you for 2 minutes.”, I said. I introduced her to my boys. And let us just say, the night went on well.
“Boys, females love originality and something DIFFERENT”, I told them.
The Mantra
Ok. Sasa tuongee biz. Achana na madem. Madem ni wasee fake? Sio? Shoga wewe! Madem ni wa wanga!
We have a sickness in Kenya. A mental one. I prefer to call it the code-test-and-test-until-every-bit-works-100% syndrome. Or in short, Ujinga. Yes, I know, I have been a victim of this. Alot.
You code a system for 6 months, do a demo and get feedback, go back and possibly redo 60% of the code again. Add 10%. Etc. Buda, system itawahi isha kweli?
Meanwhile, some non-techie idiots come along, launch a replica of your system that just has 10% of your functionality, make millions, steal all the TV and paper headlines, win awards, screw all the fine biatches while you are burning midnight oil.
“That system ni fake sana. Hata haina 1/8th of the features yangu iko nayo! Hata hawaja-implement SSL vipoa. Hawaja-optimize jQuery ama SQL cycles zao.”, you say, consoling your stupid self. I know. Been there.
And then comes the lessons
- People will not sit there waiting for you to finish your system. Odds are that ONLY you knows what your GRAND-MASTER plan is. Give people something to play with.
- People don’t care how good your final system will be. They will not fail to use/register for an inferior system because you are ‘Launching Soon’. Fuck that! Launch today. That is why we have ‘Beta Versions’. Gmail was in BETA for 4+ years. A period during which they got 200M+ users and BILLIONS of USDs. From a system ‘yenye haijaisha’. And there you are hoping to finish your ‘system noma’ soon?
- Think of the hot gals you see in the club. They always go home with the ugliest, fattest, smelliest dudes. Wewe bado una-poze na Gucci kwa counter. The gals are not fake or loose. Ni wewe uko slow and shy. Try launch early next weekend. Utaamka una-smile. And your soaps will last longer.
What is better? Launch leo and fail, while you still have time and psyche, ama lunch in 2014 and still fail?
Heh!
Acha nisambiwe nimeongea mbaya.
Back to code.
Wazi!
