A Few Ideas About Launching Your Startup.

1. Planning is guessing. So until you test your hypothesis about the value of your product and about the market, you don’t really know what will work or what will not. Get out of the building and start testing what you think about your idea in relation to your customers and the market.

2. Identify the target customers for which your idea can serve (best). You must have had this set of customers in mind before launching. And if the customers you earlier thought about aren’t the right people who want to use your product or service, quickly look for other sets of customers. That is the point of launching fast in the first place — to learn about who the real customers are.

3. Start with something minimal by building an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) ­ and experimenting forward to see what works. The warrior knows the full truth about the enemy only in the battlefield — where the real action happens. No true warrior relies on researching and planning to discover everything about the enemy. To have the full knowledge of the enemy, he must have some real contacts with the enemy at the point of battle.

4. Launch fast. Present your MVP now to your target customers without delay.

5. Where should you launch? At an event. In the cafe. In your bedroom. In your office. On a platform. Wherever you think your prospective users or customers are. Where and how you launch isn’t so much important as your launching fast and doing what customers want. You don’t need any launching ceremony or public fanfare. Do you know the day Facebook launched? Twitter? Instagram? LinkedIn? Amazon?

Aha! Launch today without waiting for any public fanfare (there should be private fanfare, nevertheless!).

(More ideas about launching in the Marketing Section and Growth Section for startups.)