It doesn't matter if you own a simple blog or a complex web app, to survive you need to be mentioned on other news blogs and editorial news sources as often as possible. While you might look at being mentioned on news sources as publicity, in reality what you getting is far more important; you're gaining respect and acknowledgment. So next time you're thinking about how you can be mentioned on popular sites like TechCrunch, Mashable, GigOm, CNET, Wired, or any other on constant basis think about how you can build up on your reputation first and everything else would fall into their place much easier.

important: A full featured website that has done all the needed development up front and doesn't need to do much else is unfortunately newsworthy only once. If you don't need to innovate or improve on your perfection then there isn't much else news sites can talk about other than what they have said at the beginning. Take the examples of Truemors, Pownce, and Answers.com for example, they have not done any major updates or upgrades since the last time of their world wide web coverage. They haven't even redesigned their site and as a result you don't see them being mentioned on news blogs. Why is that? well, they don't have anything news worthy.

The trick of publicity savvy and business minded innovators is to draw a very complete and solid plan but release in phases. revealing all your cards at once doesn't do you any good but having something new to show for every few weeks keeps blogs on their tails as to what you have in store for them. Though most of the things you want to do are pre-planned but a multi phase release shows that you are constantly innovating under the hood, it also shows that you are pretty serious when it comes to taking care of business not to mention that you are trustworthy when it comes to taking care of people and that makes you newsworthy on a constant basis. Take the examples of FaceBook, Apple and Google, none of the news sites can't get enough of them, not because their are brand names but because they have something new that news sites can talk about. How do you think great brands are built anyways???

Back in my university days most student’s had a catch phrase “I’m a perfectionist” and they thought they’re god designers because of it. You probably know a ton of people who like to think they are perfectionist as well, you yourself might consider yourself a perfectionist . I admit I am one as well, but my ‘perfectionism’ is very different from the rest of the perfectionist in this world, i'm the second type!

Most perfectionists think they only get one chance to make an impact, and to make sure they develop something that makes the most impact, they end up sacrificing and losing everything.

What am I talking about?

Type #1 – Perfectionists by Result

Have you ever met a designer or programmer or even a businessman/woman who always seeks perfection. They don’t release their work until they think it is absolutely perfect. You might consider these people the talkers that never do the walking! To these types of perfectionists nothing is ever good enough, they always want the best. You’ve also probably noted that they are never successful either, or you might think this dude is up to something really big and hopefully, eventually, he/she will hit it big! You also have probably noted that you cannot criticize their work or process either, they are not open to ideas, they never listen. They are so engaged into their pre-determined minds that nobody is qualified to help them out so they just don’t accept it. Also to them is innovation is something that will only be applied once at the beginning of the project.

Whether it’s a designer seeking the best logo idea, or the programmer seeking the ultimate google/facebook/flickr killer app or even the businessman/woman only going after the big deals, these people are known as “perfectionist by Result”. To them the process of getting results is always in middle of accomplishing their goals right away. They set themselves up for disaster, and are easily discouraged.  

A great friend of mine, who happens to be very smart, is mostly perfectionist by result as well and he knows it. Together we tried working on several projects that never went anywhere simply because he wasn’t sure we could bring a million people to it without doing much. He was seeking that ultimate web app that would get the ripple effect, network effect, tsunami effect and global warming effect all by itself. Exactly 9 months ago we parted ways, I went touring the world and doing my own work while he went seeking his perfect project, we spoke a few days ago and he was still looking around, still nothing perfect enough had come his way!

The second type of perfectionists are not exactly the opposite of the ‘perfectionist by result’ but if you insist on putting an angel on it then they are different with a 90 degrees angel between them, the second type of perfectionists are…

Type #2 – Perfectionists who are in ‘Pursuit of Perfect’

To these people the process is just as important as the result; sometimes the process has an even larger priority. To these people results never come around, as soon as they achieve their first goal they move up the stakes and seek even better results. The way it works is that they develop something and release it even if it is not good enough, and then try to get as much feedback and criticism as possible, sometimes they release their half baked ideas with the notion that it is going to fail anyways so why not just try. After getting back all feedbacks and criticism they move on to making the project a bit better, and then they release it again to get the even more reaction. To them achieving ultimate perfection is impossible and they know it but their actual goal is to get as close to perfection as they possibly can. In a way, they are in Pursuit of Perfection and as a result perfectionists in their own way.
They constantly innovate, and as soon as they are done with one innovation they immediately seek other ways of improving and innovating the project. They are in a constant state of evolvement!

If you can remember how Flickr was 5-6 years ago or facebook 3-4 years or even Digg back in the day you see and feel how pursuit of perfection works in real life. In my many years of experience I have never seen a project be released perfect and take the entire industry by storm however I have many simple and faulty ideas get released and constantly get innovated and improved while the media can’t seem to get enough of them.

Case Studies

The case of a designer

Perfectionist by Result – A designer that only makes 1 to 3 logos that he/she thinks are brilliant designs and takes them to the client but the client says “this is not what we had in mind”, this designer will get angry, frustrated and would think to him/her self that if the client knew how to design he would have done it himself, there is a reason why I was hired and he should listen to me because of it. These types of designers get fired a lot or don’t get as many repeat business.

Pursuit of Perfection – This designer makes 10 to 20 logos and takes it around, asking from friends, family to other professional or even the client or client’s employees. What he’s looking for is not that “ONE” logo that the client would love but all the criticism and feedback he can get to improve his design. Eventually towards the end of the process he selects 3 of his logos that include what he likes, what the client would love and the industry would appreciate and takes them to the client for the final decision. the client is happy because a lot of thought and respect has gone into the design, it had been tested and polished and it’s ultimately safe and good for his business. His business is thriving because of this, the more people understand the attention that has gone into the work the more they will appreciate it and would refer you to other people. This is how Buzz start to go around.

Conclusion

We might think that people don’t notice change or improvements but the fact of the matter is they are paying close attention because people are constantly on the lookout for bigger, better things. For example if you move around the menu items in Flickr or Facebook everybody will notice, you will not be liked if you move them around for no reason, but at least it makes them wonder if something has changed in the site or not.

If you’re working on a project and always think that it’s not good enough and that the light at the end of tunnel is not visible to you, just release what you’ve got, let people help you to figure things out. What do you have to lose, really! By spending all your time and effort making something that would never be perfect all you’re doing is losing time and personal motivation. Feedback and Criticism are the 2 things you can get as quickly and as freely as you want, everything else takes too long and cost too much.
 

While all projects are different from one another but there something they all have in common. To have a successful website or any other type of business you have to go through the process. If you think success goal is a million dollars you have to realize that before you can make a million you have to make your first $100, then your first $1000, then $10,000 and so on until you get to your goal. Even if you achieve your goal doesn’t mean that all if safe and you don’t have to worry anything else. With every dollar you make you add a dollar to the things you have to worry about.

Things to consider, if you’re starting a blog or have blog, there are more 125,000 blogs that come out everyday, more than 2,000 web services launch every week and many more other sites like ecommerce, corporate and portfolio sites. The biggest problem is that the internet users in general grow by only %3 to %5 a year, so all the new sites as well as the older sites compete for relatively the same piece of the pie.

Before the start of 3 Phases

Before you jump into the mayhem of getting through the 3 phases and becoming successful you need do a few things so that you can enter Phase #1.

What you need to do:

1. Research
2. Plan
3. Brand
4. Strategize
5. Develop a functional product or service
6. Do some tests

***If you’ve done all of above and now are ready to jump in then who am I to stop you so let’s get to it.

3 PHASES OF SUCCESS

Survival

Basically the survival of the fittest, the more prepared. You don’t necessarily have to have feature full or absolute perfect product to enter, as long as it’s functional and delivers what you have promised. Also you don’t to have a lot money, having money is a bonus but not the differentiator.

125,000 blog/day, what you want to do is separate yourself from majority of these other blogs. %99.99 will fail before they even enter survival phase, if you are on the same ship as them, well guess what, you will fail with them.

This phase requires you put in as much energy and resources as you possibly can. 18 hour work days are just beginning, you have to market your brains out, and sometimes you have to invent new ways of marketing and promoting your site. At the start of this phase nobody gives a crap about you, your product or services no matter how brilliant and unique it is. This is when survival of the fittest gets a whole new meaning.

Survival is also about knowing that while you’re working your butt off there are tens of other projects that are trying the same thing. If you have a new blog and dying to get a mention by other more popular blog owners then consider this, most of the popular blog owners wait out the opportunity simply because they don’t want to write about a blog that could die in a few weeks not to mention that they are constantly being bombarded with your own competitors and they can only mention a very few at a time so they rather bet on the safer projects.
Survival is not something you accomplish like passing a test. It is something you have to do day in and day out. For as long as you have competitors fighting for a piece of your traffic you’re stuck in survival mode.

Some of the site currently in Survival Mode: TechCrunch, Mashable, Twitter, Yelp, Glam, Federated Media, BlogAds, OpenID,

Some of the site downgraded to survival: Microsoft, Yahoo, YellowPages, Skype, Technorati,

Establishment

Still survival, but it’s on a different level. It’s when you have overcome all challenges and now you’re on your way to becoming mainstream. Your challenge is not about getting traffic but about keeping traffic. Innovation has become your biggest hassle, your competition is fierce and ruthless, and your server and maintenance costs are going through the roof.

It’s a great place to be! But if you’re not careful and aggressive somebody else will take your place and send you back into the first phase.

Establishment phase is like a VIP room, you may have a chance to get in but seats are limited only the best get in, but if they don’t keep at it they will be asked to leave.

Some of the site in Establishment: Google, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube, FireFox, ING Direct, DIGG,

Leap

The dreamland, or could be hell. In this phase your biggest problem is the users that use your site or product. They are very demanding, they want constant innovation and if something goes wrong everybody will talk about it. I’m not going to get into this too much.
 There are only a few website in this phase that I can think of. Like Ebay, Amazon, and … 

NOTE: This website is mostly about the Survival Phase. In my Opinion if you are in the Establishment or Leap phase then helping you is beyond me what you need is big consulting companies like BCG,  McKinsey and Bain