I have found that it takes four attempts to succeed at anything that is “hard”. Whether it be launching a startup, applying for a job, or simply writing an essay — you are never going to get it right on your first try. Or your second try. MAYBE you’ll get it on your third. But in my experience, you will get your best results only after the fourth attempt.
I apply this philosophy for both 10Pens and Keeples. Instead of naively hoping that the projects will succeed the first time, I ASSUME the first try isn’t going to be quite what I expect. Instead of hoping for success, I hope for feedback — so that we can learn from our first experiences and try again. It is even on our product roadmap to have several iterations of the projects. Basically, our plan is to have one iteration of Keeples development, where we actually build the website. Then we market it. While we are marketing Keeples, we have one iteration of developing 10Pens. Then, while we are marketing 10Pens, we go back to the drawing board for Keeples and try again using the feedback we got during our marketing phase. That is, we build one website, then test it out on a population. Then we build it again, and repeat. I plan on putting at least four solid attempts into each project, 10Pens and Keeples, before I even think of calling it quits.
You could argue that you may not have the time nor the resources to try four times on a project. However, I would argue that if you are not capable of trying again after you fail, then you probably should not be launching a startup in the first place.