It took dozens of years to create a good software. Recently read an article by Joel, which described the failure to understand the ten-year rule leading to crucial business mistakes. Here is what I‘ve learned from it.
* Advertising too much in v1.0. We all knew usually how rubbish the V1.0 is. If the market promotes too fast in the period of V1.0, everyone know that your software is just rubbish! ......Perhaps your following version is really good. But unfortunately, no high public praise.
* Running out of upgrade revenues. Don‘t sell the updates in a too low price for your original users. I knew it is really benefical for the customers. But it will break your pockets. A good way to earn big money is to sell year licenses . You even don‘t need to update your products :) tricky!
* Ship it when everything is ready. There is no possible way a business can survive if you don‘t ship anything for a dozen of years.
* Too-frequent upgrades. If no obvious improvement, please don‘t update your products too frequently. Nobody will try to cost lots of money and energy to use them.
* Overstaffing and overspending. Are you rich? yes. Are you rich for years? yes. Then are you sure you‘ll be rich for ever? Who will answer yes? ......Bill Gates? All right, don‘t waste your money on unecessay staff and expenses.
