Lessons from failure: worry about your first 10 customers, then 100, then 1k

If you build a perfect product that can handle thousands of users but no one uses it, is it still perfect?

That’s one of the lessons James Bright learned while working as the VP of Engineering of a social network for adults that never got off the ground. Bright, a veteran of the local tech scene, declined to name the startup, but he did detail what he learned from the experience in this blog post.

For one, don’t “over-engineer,” he said. Don’t worry about handling a thousand customers when you don’t even have one.

Worry about 10 users, then 100 users, then 1,000 users. Each 10x or 100x of growth might make you re-evaluate your implementation, but you have to get there first.

Bright, who’s worked at dot com-era companies like Verticalnet and Reality Online, is currently building his startup CollectedIt! It’s a platform for collectors. He’s also part of the Philly Startup Leaders accelerator.