Dog shit is the new dog food … and that’s a good thing. Too many startups are still too afraid to ship it. I advised two startups yesterday who both were in the same situation of over analyzing and over stressing their first release. They had too many features on their alpha list and were just making things more complex than it needed to be. My advice to both: Just ship it! Cut it down to the bare minimum for you to do something with it, and ship it. Dog food doesn’t have to be pretty. It’s going to be 75% wrong. That’s the point. Who cares if it’s shit. Eat that dog shit and make it better. The sooner you actually put it up live, eat it, and invite some friends to eat it, the faster you will improve it.