Underwhelming on Purpose: Why Your First 10 Customers Should See Your Product at Its Worst

Let's be honest—that fantasy of emerging from your founder cave with a perfect product, spotlights blazing, confetti falling, and the crowd going wild? Pure delusion. The truth is, most successful products began their lives as the digital equivalent of those awkward teenage photos you've hidden from Instagram. Gangly. Unfinished. Slightly embarrassing. And thank god for that, because your first launch shouldn't be your big one. It should be small, quiet, and—dare I say it—deliberately underwhelming.

The Myth of the Grand Launch (Or: Why Most Founders Are Setting Themselves Up for Failure)

We've all seen it: the countdown timers, the mysterious teaser campaigns, the breathless social posts—"Something BIG is coming!"—followed by the deafening silence when that something big turns out to be something no one actually wants. The grand launch is the entrepreneurial equivalent of proposing marriage on the first date. It's presumptuous, premature, and frankly, a bit desperate.

Having walked this path myself (and fallen into several potholes along the way), I've come to believe that the soft launch isn't just a safer option—it's the only option for founders who'd prefer not to immolate their cash reserves on the altar of their own assumptions.

The soft launch strategy isn't about being timid; it's about being tactical. It's saying: "I'd rather be embarrassed in front of 10 people than 10,000." It's acknowledging that your brilliant vision might, in fact, be utterly incomprehensible to the actual humans you're hoping will pay for it. This approach aligns perfectly with what research shows about why boring, problem-focused products succeed—they don't require market education or conceptual reinvention, making feedback loops quicker and more concrete.

Finding Your First 10 Guinea Pigs (Sorry, I Mean "Early Adopters")

The beauty of the soft launch is that it requires just a handful of users—specifically, ones who won't run screaming to Twitter when your app crashes for the fifth time in an hour. But who are these mythical creatures, these patient saints willing to test your half-baked creation?

They're not who you think. Your mum, your best mate, your former colleague who "believes in you"? Useless. All of them. They care about you, not your product. They'll tell you it's brilliant even as they're secretly wondering if you've lost the plot.

What you need are people with the problem your product supposedly solves—people who are desperate enough for a solution that they'll tolerate your janky MVP. And contrary to popular belief, these people aren't hiding in some exclusive founder clubhouse. They're everywhere:

• That person complaining loudly about your exact problem on Reddit? Direct message them.
• Industry communities where professionals moan about their daily struggles? Infiltrate them.
• Competitors' dissatisfied customers leaving one-star reviews? Slide into those DMs (with tact).
• Friends of friends who actually work in your target industry? Buy them a coffee, not to pitch, but to listen.
• Local meetups or conferences in your sector? Show up and shut up (meaning: listen more than you talk).

The goal isn't to find people who will like your product. It's to find people who will use it despite its flaws because they need what it does more than they need it to be perfect.

The Art of the Deliberately Underwhelming Demo

Now comes the terrifying part: showing these poor souls your creation. The trick here isn't to dazzle them with polish. It's to frame the experience correctly.

Start by dramatically lowering expectations. I mean really lower them. "This is very early, probably broken, and definitely ugly, but I think it might solve [specific problem they have]. Would you mind trying it and telling me if I'm completely delusional?"

Then, shut up and watch. Not what they say—what they do. Are they frowning at certain screens? Are they clicking frantically when something doesn't work? Are they sighing heavily? These physical reactions tell you more than their polite feedback ever will.

When they struggle (and they will), resist the urge to jump in with explanations or excuses. Every confused click is golden data. Every frustrated sigh is product development gold. You're not watching a user fail; you're watching your product fail the user. Big difference. This rapid feedback collection mirrors what successful companies like Product Hunt's viral app builders discovered—critical product insights emerge from watching real usage patterns, including latency issues, need for better overview pages, and discovering how users employ products for unexpected purposes.

Extracting Actionable Intelligence (Without Making People Feel Like Lab Rats)

After they've suffered through your demo, the real work begins: getting honest feedback. The problem? People are pathologically nice. They'll say your product is "interesting" when they mean "bewildering" and "has potential" when they mean "currently useless."

The trick to getting real feedback is asking the right questions:

• Instead of "What did you think?" ask "What confused you the most?"
• Instead of "Would you use this?" ask "What would stop you from using this regularly?"
• Instead of "Did you like it?" ask "If you had to remove one feature, what would it be?"
• Instead of "How was the experience?" ask "At what point did you want to throw your computer out the window?"
• Instead of "Would you recommend this?" ask "Who do you know who would hate this product the most, and why?"

The goal isn't to get validation; it's to get the truth. And the truth rarely arrives in the form of compliments.

I once showed an early version of a product to a potential customer who smiled and nodded throughout the demo. "Great," I thought. Then I asked what would stop them from using it regularly. "Well," they said after a long pause, "I wouldn't use it at all because it doesn't actually solve my problem." Brutal? Yes. Valuable? Immeasurably. This approach of transparent feedback-gathering echoes what companies like Rare Beauty discovered when they launched their behind-the-scenes newsletter, sharing product development "bloopers" and admitting some customers found their famed liquid blush too pigmented—feedback that led to developing their powder blush line.

From Feedback to Fixes: The Rapid Iteration Cycle

Now comes the part that separates successful founders from the delusional ones: actually changing things based on feedback.

This is where egos go to die. That feature you spent three weeks building? No one understands it. That clever UI that seemed so intuitive? Turns out it's about as intuitive as assembling IKEA furniture while blindfolded. That core assumption your entire business model rests upon? Completely wrong.

Welcome to the real process of building a product people want. It's less about brilliant vision and more about stubborn iteration. Take the feedback, prioritise the most critical issues (hint: they're the ones that made users give up entirely), fix them, and go back to the same users. This iterative approach becomes even more critical when you consider that digital startups demonstrate greater success but face more complex challenges, with research showing that effective application of Lean Startup Approaches is proven effective in fostering business model innovation within digital entrepreneurship.

"I fixed those issues you mentioned. Mind taking another look?" This simple phrase builds more loyalty than any marketing campaign ever could. People love being listened to. They love seeing their feedback implemented. It transforms them from testers into stakeholders.

Repeat this cycle—show, listen, fix, repeat—until you reach a critical threshold: when users start asking when they can have it for real. Not because you asked if they'd buy it, but because they're volunteering to pay for it. That's when you know you've found product-market fit for at least a segment of your audience.

Transitioning from Soft to Hard Launch: Knowing When You're Ready

So how do you know when it's time to emerge from the soft launch cocoon and spread your entrepreneurial wings? It's not when your product is perfect—that day never comes. It's when your early users start becoming your evangelists.

Here are the signals that you're ready for the bigger stage:

• Your early users are actively showing the product to others without your prompting
• You're receiving feature requests rather than just bug reports
• Users are finding ways to use your product that you hadn't even considered
• You're no longer embarrassed when demonstrating the product (well, at least not mortified)
• Your conversion rate from demo to regular user exceeds 50% with your target audience

Even then, resist the urge to go from 10 users to 10,000 overnight. The smartest founders scale in deliberate phases: from 10 to 50, from 50 to 200, from 200 to 1,000. Each phase brings new challenges that would have been catastrophic if discovered during a massive launch. The stakes are particularly high when you consider that for SMB-focused products, endemic churn rates often hover around 3% per month, which can severely impact growth as momentum slows—making it crucial to nail product-market fit before scaling.

Remember: the goal isn't a perfect launch; it's a sustainable business. And sustainable businesses are built on products that solve real problems for real people—something you can only discover by embracing the awkward, humbling process of the soft launch. Once you've validated your approach with early users, you can begin implementing a systematic post-validation action plan to scale from problem discovery to sustainable revenue.

The truth about product development isn't that the cream rises to the top—it's that what looks like cream initially is often just froth. The real substance emerges through iteration, through the painful process of having your assumptions challenged and your ego bruised. So start small, start humble, and remember: the soft launch isn't just a tactic—it's the difference between building something people want and building something only you think they should want. The former makes money; the latter makes for a good cautionary tale at the pub. Choose wisely.