Article

The Art of Shipping Early and Often

David Mack · Y Combinator Blog Free Intermediate

A YC founder explains how his team cut their MVP build time from three months to hours once they committed to shipping the smallest possible v0. It's a practical account of what shipping fast looks like in practice, including the psychological resistance you'll feel doing it.

  • Perfectionism and fear of criticism are the real blockers, not technical difficulty.
  • Define a v0, the smallest thing that tests the idea, and time box building it.
  • Share work in progress constantly. Feedback compounds when it comes early, not at the end.
Open on ycombinator.com ↗

It answers 2 questions

  1. When is my product 'ready' to launch?
  2. What does a 'soft launch' actually look like, and is it just a cop-out for being scared to ship?

Read with it

  1. Video · ~13 min How to Plan an MVP Michael Seibel (YC)
  2. Basecamp's battle-tested, opinionated system for shipping meaningful work in fixed cycles without endless backlogs, a primary... Basecamp / 37signals Book · free online book Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters Ryan Singer
  3. The definitive talk that reframes launching from a one-shot event into a repeatable tactic, exactly this category's thesis. YC... YC Startup Library Video · ~25 min How to Launch (Again and Again) Kat Manalac (Y Combinator)
  4. This is the most concrete walkthrough of how to test a niche when you have nothing built yet: put up a page describing the... kromatic.com Essay · ~15 min read Fake Door / Smoke Test Kromatic (The Real Startup Book)
  5. Michael Seibel, who ran YC, makes the blunt case for shipping something almost embarrassingly simple and learning from real... Y Combinator Startup Library Video · ~10 min video How to Build an MVP Michael Seibel
  6. This is the founder essay that made the case for validating before you build, from the person who did it with Buffer. Gascoigne... Medium (Joel Gascoigne, co-founder of Buffer) Essay How to successfully validate your idea with a Landing Page MVP Joel Gascoigne
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