#rob fitzpatrick

[omg-hellgirl]

If Mick Jagger was sexy in a way that no one had been before, then David Bowie was sexy in a way that no one has been since.

Rob Fitzpatrick, Gods of Rock.

[tsun-zaku]

[omg-hellgirl]

Full lips, long, thick hair, a waist the size of most people’s wrists — Jagger was so stridently sexy he either turned you on or terrified the hell out of you.

Rob Fitzpatrick, Gods of Rock.

[omg-hellgirl]

At the age of 21, in late 1963, Mick Jagger was sexy in a way that no one had ever really been before. Lots of people had been handsome, sure, but no one had been so ugly-handsome that it actually felt a bit threatening, a bit intimidating.

Rob Fitzpatrick, Gods of Rock.

[omg-hellgirl]

Here was a character who was so weird even his eyes didn’t match, a character so sexually ambiguous and alluring that generations have seemingly forgotten about, or forgiven, Bowie's love of the bright orange hairdo.

Rob Fitzpatrick, Gods of Rock.

[match-your-steps]

one part of me is like "send 'the mom test' by rob fitzpatrick to my parents they will think it's so interesting" and the second part of me is like "no don't do that, then they'll know when you're mom test-ing them" and the third part of me is writing this tumblr post

[melancholyflower]

"Popular culture has become too popular, too easy to consume, too widely broadcast and too accessible"

“Popular culture has become too popular, too easy to consume, too widely broadcast and too accessible”

(“La culture populaire est devenue trop populaire, trop facile à consommer, trop largement diffusée et trop accessible”) Rob Fitzpatrick – Setlist de la tournée Journal For Plague Lovers

Journaliste musical travaillant principalement pour The Guardian.

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[clublab]

Launch isn't the be all and end all; think ahead!

This week, Rob discusses how the launch of your product isn't the be all and end all. He argues that the post-launch is where you should really focus.

As well as being the founder of startup speaking platform dex.io, Rob is a Leancamp fellow and YC alum. He’s also bankrupted two companies so, when it comes to startups at least, he should know what he’s talking about. 

You have $10k and it’s going to cost $10k to finish the product and launch.

Great news?

Not exactly.

Launching in this situation is a mistake. Highly tempting, but still wrong.

You need runway to benefit from launching

Products require post-launch improvement, updates and maintenance. Your team requires food and a roof over its head. Users require an active support relationship to become evangelists. Investors require a team that’s able to move forward without them.

Running yourself out of money nullifies the potential of launching.

Launching isn’t the goal — it’s one of many tools that can push the business to the next level.

If you spend all your money getting there, you don’t have any time and money to make use of it. You’re then out of business unless you take off from a crude version 1 like Hot or Not (which, incidentally, is the most recent example I could think of in this category).

Sprinters don’t aim to stop on the finish line. They accelerate through it.

What are your resources? In the above example, it’s $10k. You might spend it on a launch under the misguided belief that the world will then come to you and very quickly sign some paperwork.

Ask yourself what you want from the world: Investment? Revenue? Validation? Feedback?

If an investor won’t sign the check now, they aren’t going to sign it when you’ve written another 10 grand’s worth of code. They already know you can write code. What are they really worried about?

I’d wager it’s evidence from the market.

Cheaper ways to enjoy the benefits of launching

Launching isn’t the only way to get real customer feedback.

If you’re launching to prove it to yourself, what then? You’ve got your evidence and are out of resources to make good on the opportunity you’ve discovered. Will you go three months’ burn beyond your initial cutoff point to raise money? Or 6 months beyond to find customers and then investors?

The only case I can imagine emptying the bank account to launch is if you have fully committed clients or investors who have explicitly stated that they are paying for this product the moment it launches (and even then, what are the payment terms? I once enjoyed 6 months of cashflow nightmares while a big media company took their time paying an invoice).

Otherwise, if you don’t have enough runway to continue beyond it, then “launch” is a red-herring. Ship some experiments, plant some flags, talk to the market, and find a cheaper way to achieve the business goals you are hoping launch would have provided.

By Rob Fitzpatrick

Do you agree with Rob and what have been your experiences of launching a product? We’ll be interested to see what you think, so please comment below.