I’m just going to lay it down in small words: “If you build it, they will come,” is a crock of shit.

To borrow a phrase, if I had a nickle for every time a website launch was delayed on account of the imperfections…

As a web programmer, I see a lot of projects come and go. We depend on the project manager’s ability to say, “We could spend more time polishing and adding features, but let’s get this in front of some eyes,” which is a hard thing to say, I’ll admit, because there are 10,000 things that could be better.  If you happen to be the project manager, then that burden is on you.

And what makes it even harder is this strange voice in your head that says, in no uncertain terms, that as soon as you upload those files,  all the world’s web traffic is going to come crashing down on your web server.  We start to believe that Google will index those pages in their first five minutes of life rather than the week(s) we know it takes for everyone else’s sites to be crawled.  We start to picture the angry emails about god-knows-what wrecking havoc in someone’s personal life because there are two instances where someone’s name is spelled wrong.  What could be worse?

Yeah, but that’s not how it works.  Uploading some files will probably not register with many people at all.  In fact, it’s really anticlimactic when you’ve been cranking out an app or site for weeks and then the moment of truth…is quiet.

I know it’s really hard to picture a world where no one is paying attention to you, but don’t be fooled.  That place is real and it’s called the Internet.  I’m not talking about your Twitter account or your Facebook page.  I’m talking about your new site.  Your new application.

There will always be a sea of reasons to wait on a launch, and only one reason to go ahead and do it.  (Hint: Progress.)

So you, programmer, in the back with the Redbull and Cheetos,  I only have one thing to say to you:  Quit being a pansy.  It’s time to launch.