Ged’s comment reminded me of a great quote that someone once made in my presence. I wish I could remember who said it so I could credit them. But I can’t, sorry. It was someone VC-like from around the time that I was working at First Tuesday (it’s all a very different beast now!).
And we were talking about entrepreneurialism and he came out with the quote “Fail Fast, Fail Cheap”. It’s always struck me as the right way to go with things online. Do it quick, get it out there, see if it works. If it does, build on it. If it doesn’t bin it, change it, or improve it.
For me it’s one of the most positive patterns in the whole Web 2.0 thing and I’d love for it to be an attitude that permeates into some areas of the real world. Although obviously not things like aircraft safety ;-)
Years ago when I had hair and used to hold down two jobs and still have be ready for the weekend I used to contract at Corning’s optical fibre division, we used to have a ‘fast failure’ model on research projects. Do a quick and dirty prototype/experiment those that worked you put your budget in, the failures were a cheap learning experience.