Write the launch post before you build
Amazon’s Working Backwards method starts with the press release, not the code. Steal it for your next build.
The usual indie path: build for three months, launch, then struggle to explain why anyone should care. The explaining was the hard part all along. You just saved it for last.
Amazon CTO Werner Vogels described the company’s “Working Backwards” process on his blog in 2006. You start with the customer and write the press release first, and it has to be very clear and to the point. Next comes an FAQ covering the questions people raise when they read it, then stories of customers using the product, then the user manual. The point, he explains, is to see the product the way the outside world will, not only the way the team sees it from the inside.
Before you write more code, write the announcement: a headline, who it’s for, what changes for them. Then list five questions a skeptic would ask and answer them. If the post is hard to make exciting, you just learned something cheap.
The example
- Instead of
- “Introducing v2.0: a completely rebuilt architecture with powerful new AI features”
- Try
- “Upload your podcast episode and get a full transcript and show notes 5 minutes later”
Before you flush
Write a 150-word launch announcement for the feature you’re building now, plus five questions a skeptic would ask about it.