I think this is inaccurate. One, you can control your exposure while your product is crap. It’s just unlikely you’ll saturate your market before you can improve the product, if indeed your company is capable of improving the product.
Additionally, the downside isn’t “customers won’t use us bf they were burned”. It just creates a bump for the sales process to overcome. It’s an impediment to a sale, not a blocker.
Finally, before p/m fit, you need to be optimizing for learning over all else. More customers, even if they have a bad experience, brings more feedback. Also, you will have an asset - email list - of people who have signed up because you’re solving a problem they have curiousity / interest in.
Look at mongo. They’re now pretty successful by most evaluations, and they did this exact thing. Outside of Hn, very few remember how they over promised and under delivered.
Additionally, the downside isn’t “customers won’t use us bf they were burned”. It just creates a bump for the sales process to overcome. It’s an impediment to a sale, not a blocker.
Finally, before p/m fit, you need to be optimizing for learning over all else. More customers, even if they have a bad experience, brings more feedback. Also, you will have an asset - email list - of people who have signed up because you’re solving a problem they have curiousity / interest in.
Look at mongo. They’re now pretty successful by most evaluations, and they did this exact thing. Outside of Hn, very few remember how they over promised and under delivered.