Prefinery

Beta is a mindset — not a product life-cycle stage.

When in beta you’re focused on working with your customers to build a better product.  Why would you ever want to stop listening to your customers?  Why would you ever want to stop improving?

The term beta has been given a bad rap.  Beta’s good name has been soiled by companies’ overuse of the term — slapping the label carelessly on products for indefinite periods of time.  I couldn’t agree more with 37signals’ Getting Real, which encourages not using beta as a cop out for your lack of commitment to delivering a finished product.  That’s certainly bullshit.  However, there’s more to beta than just a label.  Smart companies stay in beta forever.

I’ll admit that when I first started Prefinery I was viewing it as a one-time expense for companies passing briefly through the beta phase on their way to public launch.  However, I’ve changed my thinking on this entirely.  Companies and products are constantly developing, changing, iterating and improving.  Prefinery is at the intersection of product development and customer relations and will provide value no matter where in the life-cycle a company may be at a given moment.

Use the beta label in moderation, but never move out of beta mentally.