POSTED BY DAN YOUNG

A curious human behavior occurs when there is a perceived sense of urgency; people tend to feel rushed and act in unusual ways. Rather than take a sensible approach, they act on emotion, assumptions and intuition to make critical decisions.

Many entrepreneurs and startup founders act the same way. When they feel that sense of urgency—that the product needs to ship—they oftentimes make decisions based on emotions and assumptions that lead to disastrous consequences.

At DXY, we often have conversations with entrepreneurs looking to take advantage of the tech bubble. With each successive tech story glorifying another popular mobile app, they feel a sense of urgency to get something into the app stores right away. This pressure sometimes becomes so great that they fail to recognize that their “baby” app idea is in fact ugly.

Let’s be honest, no one likes to hear that their app idea sucks. It’s human nature to think that the idea we just came up with is great and everyone will love it—just like a newborn. Add in a sense of urgency to share this brilliant idea to the rest of the world and you have the makings of a startup disaster.

Aspiring entrepreneurs need to keep a few things in mind when getting ready to embark on a mobile project. The first is to lose the feeling that you have to get something out into the app stores now—you don’t. The app stores are saturated with over 600,000 apps, most of which are destine for perpetual obscurity. Well planned and well engineered apps are the ones that get recognized, not the ones that are rushed. Therefore it’s best to take a step back and see if the baby’s indeed ugly.

Market research is one of DXY’s not-so-secret tools. We test everything we build. May it be the concept or the color pallet, it is important that our target users like what we’re doing and that the software fits a niche. Many times what seems like a good idea isn’t. Target user feedback is one of the most effective tools in building quality software and it’s a tool few entrepreneurs ever use.

Take the time to test your idea. Don’t assume you know what your target users want. Build wireframes and sketches; test the idea again. Test your idea again. Be humble and patient with the feedback you receive. The more you test, the more you can evolve your idea into a well-designed, elegant mobile app that users want.

Don’t rush your ideas into production. All of the money and resources available cannot make a mediocre idea into a success. Color had 41 Million USD in funding and the support of some serious heavyweight tech moguls. It failed because they rushed a marginal idea into production that should have died in testing. Keep your sense of urgency under control and your senses about you. In the end, a well vetted idea will always be more likely to succeed.