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Why we picked it This is the fullest, most honest version of the Reid Hoffman line you have heard quoted ("if you're not embarrassed by the first version, you launched too late"), written out as an actual argument by Eric Ries, the person who built the Lean Startup idea. It is a starting point, not a rule: Ries's real claim is that quality lives in your customer's eyes, not yours, so waiting to feel proud can just mean polishing things nobody asked for. Read it before you spend another month making the ugly version prettier in private.
The Entrepreneur's Greatest Asset: Embarrassment
From Next Big Idea Club by Eric Ries ~6 min read
- No matter how long you wait, you will be embarrassed by v1, so shipping later mostly costs you the feedback that tells you what to actually fix.
- "Good enough" is judged by customers, not the team, and the two often disagree (Ries's IMVU users loved a feature the team was ashamed of).
- The point of shipping early is to learn which rough edges matter and which do not, before you invest in polish.