By shipping early and often you have the unique competitive advantage of hearing from real people what they think of your work, which in best case helps you anticipate market direction, and in worst case gives you a few people rooting for you that you can email when your team pivots to a new idea. Nothing can recreate the crucible of real usage.
You think your business is different, that you’re only going to have one shot at press and everything needs to be perfect for when Techcrunch brings the world to your door. But if you only have one shot at getting an audience, you’re doing it wrong.
“Real artists ship.” — Steve Jobs, 1983
I think Matt Mullenweg got the point: The longer you wait to bring your "new" product out to the world, the more "magic happens" for your fans and consumers. But do NOT wait for years to optimize and change your product, because no one will wait too long for it - the thrill will probably be lost after a couple of months.
Sometimes you have to push out a new version or a new product pretty fast to get consumer feedback and the chance to be the first on the market. Your 1.0 won´t be that perfect as a 1.5.3. or a 3.2 will be in future, that is for sure – but it will BE THERE.
