Wordpress’ Matt Mullenweg on product releases — how to get your 1.0 product out there.
What killed us was “one more thing.” We could have easily done three major releases that year if we had drawn a line in the sand, said “finished,” and shipped the darn thing. The problem is that the longer it’s been since your last release the more pressure and anticipation there is, so you’re more likely to try to slip in just one more thing or a fix that will make a feature really shine. For some projects, this literally goes on forever. I think it’s really important just to create things and get into the game. It creates a feel of productivity, rather than having 5-10 half-assed ideas laying around, making you feel bad and stresses you out for not doing anything with them. When I’m having ideas for stuff I want to do, I can’t think of anything else during that time. Only when I start creating, and maybe quite it when realizing that it wasn’t what I expected, I’ve got good conscience. In most cases, it’s just a matter of creating a product that does ONE thing really well, and then build upon that: