I fundamentally disagree with the thesis that because a product is centered around a "lifestyle brand," it is ineligible for lean, iterative development.<p>As someone currently investigating a product like this as a side project, I definitely see the warning of only having one chance to show off your product to an audience. However, the fallacy is the assumption that you have one audience.<p>For example, I am much more willing to burn my reputation with someone coming inbound from an AdWords click over someone coming from the front page on reddit. Why? The person in the latter case has significantly more political capital and has much more influence in accelerating my growth.<p>I think a much more safe strategy is to validate your assumption that pushing something to the front page of reddit will yield a good impression of your brand by building up to that launch through experiments carried out across much smaller, more disposable audiences.<p>I mean, this is precisely the sort of product space Eric Ries was in with IMView. He was offering teenagers a great chat experience, and was able to iterate on his product until there was a solid brand behind it by spending just $5 a day on AdWords.