An unreleased product is like having a lottery ticket. So long as the product isn't released, you can maintain hope that you have a winning ticket. In the case of software development—be it through time or through money—it's one expensive lottery ticket. This leads many entrepreneurs, like myself, to delay launching products. It's a way to avoid the pain and stress of checking the ticket. You start worrying about minutiae like the color of buttons and the terms of service. Every feature you think of is critical, and no one will use the product without it. But the truth is, thinking of products as lottery tickets is not necessarily correct. There are plenty of products that start slowly and gain customers over time. The way I see it is that you have two main options. One, think of a new product as a lottery ticket. Two, think of a new product as a tool that you'll need to promote and tinker with until it becomes indispensible to some group of customers.
If you go with option one, then you should probably share as many product ideas as you can in their most rudimentary form and work more on the ones that gain traction. After all, the more lottery tickets you have, the better your chances of winning. This is not the option I'm currently taking. I'm more interested in learning how to consistently build great products, without necessarily having a million-dollar-idea as a head start. If you go with option two, here are a few ways you might avoid suffering from Lottery Ticket Affliction.
These are the tactics I'm using for Learnly—an app for teachers to create and share assignments. I'll be documenting my efforts at this slow and steady growth (starting from zero customers) in a series called "From Zero". Credit to Erik Weizer for the lottery ticket analogy that this post is based on.