We're launching our MVP next week! |
Hi Reader,
My team works with a lot of designers. We build shops for artists, graphic designers, stationery designers, jewelers, crafters, and clothing designers. This usually means they care about every little detail, from color schemes to margins to typeface kerning. We love working on this kind of detail!
At the same time, I sometimes get frustrated during these projects because the shop owners are leaving so much money on the table! Either they don't have an ecommerce site, or their site is performing poorly. We could take a few weeks to get something up that works well for them and then continue working on it. Instead, we sometimes spend months hammering out these tiny details while their old site limps along or they aren't yet set up to sell online.
This is when we'll push for a Minimum Viable Product, or MVP. Not everyone goes for it! Sometimes getting things perfectly on-brand is worth the wait. But with an MVP, you can get sales, and things can hum along nicely from the start. Then you can work on improvements and add new features individually as they're ready. Or you can work on a bigger redesign behind the scenes while the interim site is up and making money.
This reminds me of that quote by Ira Glass that went viral years ago:
“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners. I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be. It has potential. But your taste -- your taste is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you.
“A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting creative work went through years of this. Our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you’re just getting started or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal, and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline, so that every week, you will finish one project. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap and your work will be as good as your ambitions. It’s gonna take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
Now, this is about getting good at making the work. I also see how it applies to just getting things out there for people to see and use, even before you feel ready. The nice thing about a website is that it's never done. That means you don't have to get it perfect before launching it. In fact, there are many positive things about launching before you're ready:
- You can get feedback to help you decide what to focus on
- You can view your analytics and decide what to change
- The earlier you launch, the more money you can make
- Usually, most results come from the foundations, and all the little details that make it feel perfect to you don't end up making a substantial financial increase
I'm thinking about this now because we will launch our MVP for you to see next week! I'm cringing a bit because I want it to be much more. But if I wait to show it to you until it's perfect, you'll be waiting a long time. And apart from that, I'd likely head in the wrong direction and put work into things that no one particularly wants. It's much better to have it out there and see what works and what doesn't before investing a ton of time into it.
I can't wait to show you phase one of our project next week!
Can we help you with your site? Sometimes people hesitate to contact us to start a project because it seems huge and daunting. The nice thing is that there's a lot that we can do for your site very quickly that can really pay off. Then, as your site grows and makes more money, we can return and work on the details that initially seemed so daunting. It's not all or nothing.
Our Simple Shopify Design project doesn't take much time and is our most affordable website project. It gets you up and running quickly with a modern site using all of our best practices. There's a super fast and affordable version, and we have some optional upgrades that include branding, SEO, email marketing, and more personalization. It's a great base to start with as an MVP and then build on over the months, adding in features and making more customizations. Get pricing for that by filling out our interest form here.
