This is a second column  from an entrepreneur and lawyer Yrjö Ojasaar (pictured), who’s a fan of TigerPrises.com.

Your product is not just the innovative new app/gizmo you invented. Customers usually expect an “out of the box” single source solution for their needs. The more assembly, coordination and troubleshooting the product requires, the cheaper the customer expects to get your app/gizmo (all the way down to zero on the web).

Already several decades ago Philip Kotler explained in his seminal book Marketing Management:

“The augmented product of IBM is not only the computer but a whole set of accompanying services, including instruction, canned software programs, programming services, maintenance and repairs, guarantees and so on.

IBM’s outstanding position in the computer field is due in part to its early recognition that the customer wants all of these things when he buys a computer.”

Nevertheless, startups are still often surprised by how much marketing, service, support, training, updating, distribution, and logistics is required to sell their innovative app/gizmo.

So the biggest product related mistakes are:

1. Delaying launch till perfect weather

You have to get your product out to the customers quickly and get immediate feedback in order to find out if it really is as useful and innovative as you claim its is. You also need to know asap! how much are your customers willing to pay for your gizmo (even the slow VCs like to see some back-up for your business plan projections). Very few startups will have enough time or financing to achieve their “perfect product” before initial release. In this sector you better get to “good-enough” version 1.1 quickly, because if you run out of financing mid-process — there will never be a version 1.2, much less perfection.

2. Adjusting to market feedback

Very-very rarely do companies actually hit the jackpot with their first product, initial design or original idea. Customer feedback often reveals unexpected and sometimes rather unpleasant surprises about your v.1.1 product (as explained above – this is a good thing). Reid Hofman’s (founder of LinkedIn) advice – “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”

It is how well you react to customer feedback that really determines your startup’s future.

If potential clients just don’t “get” your product, it is often cheaper to change the product than to change clients’ ideas about the product. Retraining customer habits is harder than retraining your spouse’s habits, and even more expensive. If you don’t have the money to make the changes to the product – you have to go and raise the money with that exact story – you seek investments to meet growing customer demand!

Without satisfied pilot and repeat customers – neither the organic growth business plan, nor the venture capital fundraising model (with its pesky customer due diligence research) will work. Thus, if your startup cannot adjust to customer demand – it’s days are already practically numbered (cash on hand divided by your burn-rate equals time to get your stuff together).

Yrjö’s first column on mistakes start-ups are making is here.