Concept
Small Batches
Working in small batches means finishing and releasing one small slice of work before starting the next, so customers check each piece while mistakes are still cheap to fix.
Batch size is how much work piles up before reality gets to check any of it. Most builders default to big batches without noticing. They design every screen, then build every screen, then launch. It feels efficient because you stay in one kind of work for weeks. The hidden cost is that a mistake made in week one gets copied into everything built after it. You only find out at the end, when fixing it means redoing a month. In The Lean Startup, Eric Ries shows this with stuffing envelopes. Folding, stuffing and sealing one envelope at a time beats the assembly line. One reason is that a letter that doesn't fit gets caught on the first envelope, not the hundredth. Small batches don't mean less work. They make each lesson arrive sooner and cost less.
A real-life example
Maya is building a booking app for her yoga studio. Her plan is to design twelve screens, build them all and launch in three months. Instead, in week two she gives one screen to twenty members: a simple class schedule with a "reserve" button. Half of them try to book through the studio's Instagram link, not the app. That single finding reshapes ten screens she hadn't built yet.
How to use it
- 1List everything you planned to build before launch. Then cut it down to the smallest piece a real person could use or react to this week.
- 2Put that piece in front of a few customers. Before building anything else, write down what surprised you.
- 3Let what you learned decide the next slice. If a batch would take more than two weeks to reach anyone, split it again.