There’s definitely something scary about releasing a product that isn’t as perfect as you imagined.
As a project manager, I’ve had that voice in my head, too:
“Oh yikes, we’re launching PrepJam in just a few months — it has to be absolutely perfect!”
But here’s the thing: something I’ve learned from my experience is that we’ll have a much harder time getting there if we don’t let go of perfection.
In just a few months, we’re launching PrepJam.com— a self-service platform for running cybersecurity preparedness exercises at scale. No sales calls. No friction. Just sign up and start training your team.
Don’t get me wrong — our product is solid. We trained over 5,000 security professionals in 2024 and even won a cybersecurity award. Pretty cool, right? But going from a full-service enterprise model to a self-service platform means we must build an automated ecosystem that can support the product standing on its own — out there in the world, all alone.
We’re doing it because we want to help cybersecurity people run cybersecurity preparedness exercises that actually excite and spark the conversation about cybersecurity as a team effort.
Sure, we could build something highly sophisticated and complex that meets every user’s needs. But that would take a lot more time.
Then I think about the well-known stories in tech that show us how sometimes timing beats polish. When paired with an iterative improvement process, launching early can lead to huge success.
Take Amazon, for instance. While you were busy trying to get Doom to run on Windows 95, they launched their first version — just a basic online bookstore. Three years later, Google launched a barebones search engine with a clean interface, focused only on relevant results. And Instagram? When it launched 12 years later, it was just an app with filters and minimal features. These products started small, but with continuous improvement, they became the giants we know today.
The list could go on, but to me, there’s a common thread in all these stories: bravery. Just like the little piggy — they went to market.
How Do We Plan to Get There in Time?
Minimal viable everything. We’re applying the mindset beyond just the product itself.
The idea is simple but not easy: don’t let perfection stand in the way of progress. It’s not that we lack ambition — we just know that the urgency to make PrepJam available to everyone is our top priority. Let’s dream big, start small, and keep iterating. In other words: MVP.
“Perfect is the enemy of good.” — Voltaire (probably).
The Minimum Viable Product (MVP) concept, introduced around 2000 and popularized by Eric Ries in The Lean Startup (2011), aligns with our mindset. It ensures that we deliver a product that meets the urgent needs of our users and allows us to continuously improve based on their feedback.
Expectations for new tech products are high. The user experience has to be smooth, bugs fixed, tone of voice on point, all wrapped in a slick design. Can we deliver all that in just a few months? Short answer: no.
Applying an MVP mindset — everywhere — is a challenge for our team. We have to let go of the idea of delivering something perfectly the first time around and focus on what we know: a cybersecurity preparedness exercise on PrepJam creates a level of engagement that few cybersecurity professionals have experienced before.
Preparedness at scale, with the thrill of a summer party — an interactive cybersecurity exercise that resonates and engages. And if the CISO gets some extra time on her hands, stays compliant, avoids hassle, and looks good doing it? Then we’ve delivered something special.
Did I mention urgency? The urgency here is not just about launching quickly, but about making our product available to the cybersecurity community as soon as possible. That’s why we’re not just applying the MVP mindset to our product — we’re applying it to everything, to ensure we deliver value to our users in a timely manner.
Some Advice for Your Go-To-Market Mindset
Don’t Lose Sight of the Why
We want the world to have access to high-quality cybersecurity exercises — and we want it now. That is our “Why”. We already have the foundation: research-based content and proven results.
If our why was to impress with the smoothest experience ever, we’d launch this product in a brand-new coat and spend a lot more time on design. But that’s not our why.
Make sure you establish a strong sense of your core mission - your Why - and stay focused on it. Don’t be distracted or tempted by things outside of that scope.
Define Your Minimum
Every feature, idea, and task must earn its place. Before saying yes, we ask a single question:
Do we need this so the user can sign up and run a preparedness exercise on the self-service platform?
If the answer is no, it’s a no — not forever, but for now. It moves to the backlog and waits its turn. After launch, we start the “yes” process. So keep your eyes on progress, define your key question, and ask it often. Make it a habit. Your job isn’t to build everything. Your job is to launch the minimum that unlocks value.
Idea Bank and Feedback Loops
In a process where the answer is often “no,” it’s essential to have a safe place for the good ideas that didn’t make the cut. Ensure everyone knows where this is, and keep the bar low for adding ideas — even the not-so-well-thought-out ones.
When launching an MVP, the real value is in what you do next. Feedback loops are crucial. We’re building accessible ways for users to share feedback and help guide us from day one.
Keep the good ideas alive — even if they don’t make it into this round. A strong backlog of potential features and improvements helps us continuously innovate and adapt to user needs and market changes.
Are We Following This Advice?
Yes — but definitely not to perfection. That would miss the point entirely.
Because even imperfect product launches can succeed if they solve a real need and evolve based on feedback.
So if we want to go to market with our product, we need to prioritize without mercy — and avoid becoming the little piggy that stayed home.
Let’s jam!
