Ship it, give it away briefly, take it away, and ask whether they miss it

The operating model in three pillars, in order: be profitable, have the investors call you, open source everything. The first pillar is a loop: ship a thing somebody else can go and use on their own (not a demo, not a prototype walked through on a call); hand it to people free for a short window; take it away with no apology; ask whether they miss it. A shrug means there is no why now and nothing to sell yet; a yes is the only thing that earns the right to charge. If you cannot get revenue at all, that is the problem to solve, and it is not a marketing problem.

Decided by. Nobody yet: a candidate for Dinis to read, comment on and decide (keep, rewrite, merge, cut, article first, later, not doing it).

Note. The register folds this into expert-founders ('do they miss it'); Dinis has made it a chapter of its own, and no idea in the register pointed at that chapter, so this is the chapter's centre. Quote worth keeping, word for word: 'Not to plan, not to pitch, not to architect. Ship.' The article also says getting a working thing into a stranger's hands is 'not overhead, it is the first real product you build'.

Where it comes from

For a startup, the most important question is whether they miss it Pillar one: ship something somebody can use; Then give it away, and then take it away; Can you charge, and can you charge at a profit? (newsroom)
I miss it, so it is working In short: 'When you do not have it, you miss it' (newsroom)
Price it, then give it away The step after 'do they miss it' (newsroom)

What it answers in the 2018 book

Be a founder answered written, Life Patterns
Feedback loops answered outline, Concepts

Where it goes

Chapter Ship it, and see if they miss it, part Start the company (drafting); topic Be a founder (or a one-person service).

Other ideas proposed for the same chapter: The miss-it test applies to the builders: if you can change it and still do not use it, something is missing, The speed of the loop from a comment to a feature is the moat, not the technology, SG/Send: first commit on 8 February, live on 13 February, Stripe on 1 March, ten paying customers on 2 March, a feature request shipped in 90 minutes, The technology worked and the use case did not: 'users buy credits, test once, and don't come back'.

Node idea:do-they-miss-it in graph.json; see it in the graph. Source: admin/content/graph/ideas.json.