This Mistake Kills Businesses Before They Begin
TLDR – Here’s why “Close to Perfect” is good enough to launch.
In my consulting, I’ve come across a lot of different businesses who have a great idea, would fill a genuine need in the market, and even come up with a clever hook for their brand. Normally, you’d think these businesses would be destined for success.
But there’s a mistake most prospective small business owners and pre-entrepreneurs make that kills their chances of business success even before the business goes live.
Trapped in Eternal Pre-Launch
It’s tempting to think your website or product needs to be perfect before sending it live to the public. No one wants to be remembered as the business that shipped a crummy initial product. But unless your launch is a very high-profile one, not many people will notice if your business launch isn’t perfect.
In fact, most times “close-to-perfect” is better than perfect.
That’s great news for entrepreneurs preparing to launch their next project.
Marketing Profs. recently published 5 Things to a Close-to-Perfect Website Launch that explains how you don’t need to be “perfect” and polished before launching your business. Instead, if you have the right items in place – careful planning, the right technology, etc. – you’ll be much more likely to succeed:
From messaging to feature-building, don’t try to make things perfect before you launch. Know how long you’re willing to spend on each stage and when it’s “good enough.” It’s important to deliver a product you’re proud of, but embrace the practice of constant iteration: Launch a great site, but continue to optimize and perfect the experience after launch.
Expert copywriter Bob Bly has a similar quote:
“I’m a non-perfectionist,” said Isaac Asimov, author of 475 books. “I don’t look back in regret or worry at what I have written.” Be a careful worker, but don’t agonize over your work beyond the point where the extra effort no longer produces a proportionately worthwhile improvement in your final product.
Be excellent but not perfect. Customers do not have the time or budget for perfection; for most projects, getting 95 to 98 percent of the way to perfection is good enough. That doesn’t mean you deliberately make errors or give less than your best. It means you stop polishing and fiddling with the job when it looks good to you — and you don’t agonize over the fact you’re not spending another hundred hours on it. Create it, check it, then let it go.
By getting the right items in place instead of endlessly tweaking, adjusting, etc., your business will be in a much better place to succeed.
