As a result, it’s really more about what plans you have for making your product the best it can be 1 year, and 2 years, and 5 years down the road. And never failing to do something new.

I used to spend too much time worrying about the so called “first mover advantage” (which I now don’t put much credence in anymore) and all the what if scenarios of how deep I would be buried if one of the big boys caught on to what I was doing, of if someone with much better programming / design skills took my idea and made it “better”…

I’ve even wasted time on worrying about the music / entertainment “one hit wonder” model of doing something great and following it up with disappointments consisting of version iterations or even other projects.

The fact though, when it all comes down to it, we live in a “what have you done for me lately” world. There are apps and sites a plenty out there who started out great, and then faded into oblivion, because the follow-ups couldn’t capture the same level of excitement as the original. Alternatively, there are the same number of sites out there that started off with the unenthusiastic “nah” and have slowly grown into the biggest, most popular and profitable web properties around today.

I guess the question is, if you go big to start out, can you maintain that level of excitement over the long term? Or if you go small, do you have enough ammunition to eventually generate excitement?

The answer to that should be the only thing driving how you release — everything else is bloat that’ll wear you down physically and emotionally.

NOTE: You is being used generically here.