Version 0.1 = Start lo-fi

First read “Version ∞” and “Early drafts...”. Here’s an example of how I think of “Version 0.1”:

A guy at a conference was telling me how he really wanted to build a music recommendation service, but had been trying for a year to raise the $2 million dollars he said it’d take to build it.

My suggestion for him: Don’t wait for funding. Start now.

To start a music recommendation service, just start recommending music to friends, find out if they liked it, and improve from there. No fancy app or website needed.

By getting that initial lo-fi hands-on experience, you’ll have a deeper understanding of what people really want from music recommendations.

Then you can build your service incrementally based on real user communication, instead of hiding in a lab for a year programming in isolation based on a year-old hunch.

If you say you want to do something, do it! Never blame outside forces stopping you. Work around obstacles to start immediately.