leanI know that in startups you have to work hard. I mean really hard but at some point things start to slow down due to external reason such as waiting Appstore to publish the app or waiting some designs from the designer you hired etc.
What are parallel jobs an early startup can do in such cases?
Everyone is saying making new feature shouldn’t be the case unless your absolutely sure that your product and feature is what your customer needs. Is this phrase true in such cases?
I guess it depends a lot on what your goal is with the time.
Let’s not overlook the obvious answer: take a break! Just like you said, you’ve worked hard, really hard. Don’t send everyone home indefinitely, but if your product is out there and all you need to do is wait for app store approval, I don’t think a long weekend would be too much.
But beyond that, even, it really just depends on who you have working for you and what your approach is. I don’t think you have to wait to work on new features if everyone is super keen to get working. Features are fun, and surprisingly enough, they can feel like a break to work on sometimes. Get your people together and brainstorm what sounds like fun. Of course, these sorts of tasks should come last, so if you’ve got more QA or main functionality to write (a naïve person might assume you’ve done that all before launch, but I won’t go that far), do that. But working on new features can be a nice way to make progress, keep minds active, and still have a relaxed feel on the team. As long as your priorities are in check and you’re ready to shelf changes for a later time if you need to push out to production immediately, it doesn’t hurt to think about new features. Sometimes, that can even help make the main product stronger.
In other business approaches, it might be best to just start working on your next app. Clearly, many businesses don’t plan on a “next app,” but if you do, you might as well get started. You could even start branching out your current app to new platforms (if you’ve written a mobile app for Apple and Android, branch out a version to Windows Phone in your free time). You could also think about having a lite web companion (or vice-versa, a mobile app for your website) or something similar.
I think the main goal should just be to not give people busy work. Let them have fun. Keep them active if you can (just because it’s good for morale), but don’t press for things to do if there just aren’t any.
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