Things to keep in mind when preparing a launch

Lesson 017

Hi, my name is Kiyani and I'm a student of products. Some time ago, you subscribed to this newsletter because I promised to share with you some of the lessons I'm learning along my product journey. Here is one of them.

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when you changed the launch date for the third time

Today was supposed to be the launch of a product my team and I worked on for almost two quarters. This is the type of product you launch because you see an opportunity for your business to capture, but you're not sure yet that it will accurately fulfill your customer's needs. I call this type of product "surprise egg."

Everyone, at least most people, likes Kinder Surprise. These little chocolate eggs with a cute little surprise inside. This product is like a Kinder Surprise because even though in theory it seems like our users should like it, you can never be sure that they will before they start using it. This type of product typically begins as a simple MVP, the use cases are very broad and lack a strong differentiator from what already exists on the market. They serve as entry points for iterating and building a stronger solution that will eventually be robust enough to be real eggs, you know, source of protein. And human beings need protein. Do you get where I'm going with this? No? Anyway, the lesson I wanted to share today is not about eggs.

I want to share with you a few things I've learned about launching new products, which I had forgotten while getting ready for this one. We learn we fail, and we learn again, peeps. Here are 5 things to keep in mind:

• Time spend in improving the UX/UI should be proportional to the conviction you have in your product hypothesis

  When working on an MVP, it's sometimes hard to decide how much resource you should allocate to improving the UX/UI versus launching your product to gather feedback as soon as possible. A good rule of thumb is to determine your hypothesis, and how strong your conviction is, and base your quality bar on it. The more doubt you have, the less time you should worry about UX/UI and prioritize time to market. Early adopters can tolerate sloppy UX. They won't tolerate a beautiful but useless product, though. Don’t delay a launch by wasting time on making pretty something that has not be validated yet.

• Share information early — as soon as the product is in the QA stage

  Don't wait for the product to be fully functional before sharing information with the marketing team. The marketing team can start working on visuals, FAQs, etc., before the product is ready.

  Even if it's cringe-worthy, have a meeting with all impacted departments. I usually keep them all informed when I start working on something but I’m always reluctant to have a demo before all the bugs are fixed and the product is good enough, but it’s sometimes too late. Be comfortable sharing work in progress with people outside your team. It’ll also help them have more empathy for your team efforts. And if you can’t do a live demo to explain to them how it’ll work because a bug is blocking the flow, use the design you have on figma. You either embrace a flawed demo or accept to lose time. Either are fine, but own your choices.

• Add a week between the public launch and the moment your product is ready for production

  If you're working in a company with a sizeable customer team, once your product is ready, please calm down and realize that it won't be launched the day after. You should add approximately one week between the moment when it's working, QA validated, and all, and the public launch. The customer team needs to be trained to understand how it will work, and it might take a few days. The Product is not the only one deciding when something goes public as it impacts other stakeholder's workload too.

• Don’t forget to make a launch checklist and respect people time

  Have a launch list checklist with every element needed for the launch, the lead for each task, ETA, whether they are deal-breakers for launch, etc. Sometimes our head is so deep in our product and engineering work that we might underestimate the time it might take for other departments to work on what we need. Don't be a pain in the ass and give your colleagues enough time to get what they need before the launch. Here is a simple template I have used in the past.

• Don't rush a new product launch out of impatience

  As a product manager, I am eager to see my product shipped and in the hands of users so that I can receive feedback. Let’s be real, between the completion of my PRD and the actual launch, I am just in waiting mode (not literally I know but you get my point). As it is my responsibility to ensure that the product is shipped quickly by unblocking my team, I usually become more impatient as the launch time approaches. This is the moment when, as a PM, you need to stay calm and disciplined to ensure that all development efforts are not wasted due to a lack of preparation. Don't panic just because you see the finish line. Instead, follow your checklist in a disciplined manner and avoid rushing things. Otherwise, you may seem unprepared which is not in your best interest.

As always, keep in mind that advice should be tailored to the context. A company of 10 people, for instance, won't require as much preparation before a launch as a company of 200. The following are lessons that I learned while working at a certain-sized company.

Anyway, I hope you found this helpful. If so, consider subscribing or leaving a comment so I know you exist.

Until next time,

Impatiently yours 😫,

Ki