When do you usually decide it is time to ship your product?

Question

How do you balance the urge to have lots of features, with the need to have a quick MVP ?

Ng Fang Kiang · Accepted Answer

I'm a bit of a perfectionist which is bad for a startup. But when I stop making everything perfect, I ship faster and do more things. I find that failing fast, acting fast and fixing fast is better than being a perfectionist.

I think at least build a stable MVP with some core features. Then, you can slowly build other stuff and adding more features.

Stefan Morris · Answer

In my experience, I find people abuse the concept of MVP - especially those in the marketing / sales department. Slapping together a product and shoving it out the door is not a good approach IMO.

With that said, you don't want to be trapped in Scope Creep Hell either, but that is pretty easy to avoid if you are disciplined.

I consider a Minimal Viable Product to be one that can hold its own in the market segment (has comparable features and **is stable**), but has at least one feature that separates it from its competition (otherwise, why would they choose your product?)

Once you have accomplished this, then you are ready to ship. All the other great ideas for your product can be developed in parallel with your growth strategy.

vivek · Answer

Good point @stefan_morris 👍 . MVP certainly seems to be thrown around a lot. It often also leads makers to feel overly pressured when they see others churning out MVP every week/month. 
As you rightly said, striking a balance and shaping your product to be stable, useful and have a lil edge is key.

vivek · Answer

thanks @jorcus 
 ohh i know that feeling Ng Fang Kiang ..same here. 
It often makes me feel like I am doing something wrong when I try to ship out products that are not maxed out with every possible improvement/feature.....and that's usually why a 2 week dev project turns into 6 months 😁  
but, like you said, I've also started to slowly shift from that mindset and instead focused on perfecting just the core features and shaping a stable MVP

When do you usually decide it is time to ship your product?

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