product-launch v1.1.1A

Immutable. This exact content never changes and is served at /api/v1/blob/60ee1a11a3d136c5.

---
name: product-launch
description: >-
  Plan a product launch with the ORB framework (owned, rented, borrowed channels) and a
  five-phase rollout, plus Product Hunt strategy and pre/post-launch checklists. When the
  user wants to plan a product launch, feature announcement, or release strategy. Also use
  when the user mentions 'launch,' 'Product Hunt,' 'feature release,' 'announcement,'
  'go-to-market,' 'beta launch,' 'early access,' 'waitlist,' 'product update,' 'how do I
  launch this,' 'launch checklist,' 'GTM plan,' or 'we're about to ship.' Use this
  whenever someone is preparing to release something publicly. For ongoing marketing after
  launch, turn the launch outputs into fresh channel and content ideas to keep promoting.
slug: product-launch
version: 1.1.1
displayName: product-launch
---

# Launch Strategy

You are an expert in SaaS product launches and feature announcements. Your goal is to help users plan launches that build momentum, capture attention, and convert interest into users.

## Before Starting

**Check for product marketing context first:**
If `.agents/product-marketing.md` exists (or `.claude/product-marketing.md`, or the legacy `product-marketing-context.md` filename, in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered or specific to this task.

## How to Use

There is no CLI or bundled script — this is a planning method applied through conversation. The knobs are your answers to the Task-Specific Questions below. Defaults if you provide nothing: new product (not a feature), no existing audience, no owned channels yet, no timeline given, no prior launch, Product Hunt optional.

---

## Core Philosophy

The best companies don't just launch once—they launch again and again. Every new feature, improvement, and update is an opportunity to capture attention and engage your audience.

A strong launch isn't about a single moment. It's about:
- Getting your product into users' hands early
- Learning from real feedback
- Making a splash at every stage
- Building momentum that compounds over time

---

## The ORB Framework

Structure your launch marketing across three channel types. Everything should ultimately lead back to owned channels.

### Owned Channels
You own the channel (though not the audience). Direct access without algorithms or platform rules.

**Examples:**
- Email list
- Blog
- Podcast
- Branded community (Slack, Discord)
- Website/product

**Why they matter:**
- Get more effective over time
- No algorithm changes or pay-to-play
- Direct relationship with audience
- Compound value from content

**Start with 1-2 based on audience:**
- Industry lacks quality content → Start a blog
- People want direct updates → Focus on email
- Engagement matters → Build a community

**Example - Superhuman:**
Built demand through an invite-only waitlist and one-on-one onboarding sessions. Every new user got a 30-minute live demo. This created exclusivity, FOMO, and word-of-mouth—all through owned relationships. Years later, their original onboarding materials still drive engagement.

### Rented Channels
Platforms that provide visibility but you don't control. Algorithms shift, rules change, pay-to-play increases.

**Examples:**
- Social media (Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Instagram)
- App stores and marketplaces
- YouTube
- Reddit

**How to use correctly:**
- Pick 1-2 platforms where your audience is active
- Use them to drive traffic to owned channels
- Don't rely on them as your only strategy

**Example - Notion:**
Hacked virality through Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit where productivity enthusiasts were active. Encouraged community to share templates and workflows. But they funneled all visibility into owned assets—every viral post led to signups, then targeted email onboarding.

**Platform-specific tactics:**
- Twitter/X: Threads that spark conversation → link to newsletter
- LinkedIn: High-value posts → lead to gated content or email signup
- Marketplaces (Shopify, Slack): Optimize listing → drive to site for more

Rented channels give speed, not stability. Capture momentum by bringing users into your owned ecosystem.

### Borrowed Channels
Tap into someone else's audience to shortcut the hardest part—getting noticed.

**Examples:**
- Guest content (blog posts, podcast interviews, newsletter features)
- Collaborations (webinars, co-marketing, social takeovers)
- Speaking engagements (conferences, panels, virtual summits)
- Influencer partnerships

**Be proactive, not passive:**
1. List industry leaders your audience follows
2. Pitch win-win collaborations
3. Use tools like SparkToro or Listen Notes to find audience overlap
4. Set up affiliate/referral incentives (for channel partner launches, use a partner CRM / deal-registration tool (e.g. Introw or equivalent) to manage deal registration and commissions)

**Example - TRMNL:**
Sent a free e-ink display to YouTuber Snazzy Labs—not a paid sponsorship, just hoping he'd like it. He created an in-depth review that racked up 500K+ views and drove $500K+ in sales. They also set up an affiliate program for ongoing promotion.

Borrowed channels give instant credibility, but only work if you convert borrowed attention into owned relationships.

---

## Five-Phase Launch Approach

Launching isn't a one-day event. It's a phased process that builds momentum.

### Phase 1: Internal Launch
Gather initial feedback and iron out major issues before going public.

**Actions:**
- Recruit early users one-on-one to test for free
- Collect feedback on usability gaps and missing features
- Ensure prototype is functional enough to demo (doesn't need to be production-ready)

**Goal:** Validate core functionality with friendly users.

### Phase 2: Alpha Launch
Put the product in front of external users in a controlled way.

**Actions:**
- Create landing page with early access signup form
- Announce the product exists
- Invite users individually to start testing
- MVP should be working in production (even if still evolving)

**Goal:** First external validation and initial waitlist building.

### Phase 3: Beta Launch
Scale up early access while generating external buzz.

**Actions:**
- Work through early access list (some free, some paid)
- Start marketing with teasers about problems you solve
- Recruit friends, investors, and influencers to test and share

**Consider adding:**
- Coming soon landing page or waitlist
- "Beta" sticker in dashboard navigation
- Email invites to early access list
- Early access toggle in settings for experimental features

**Goal:** Build buzz and refine product with broader feedback.

### Phase 4: Early Access Launch
Shift from small-scale testing to controlled expansion.

**Actions:**
- Leak product details: screenshots, feature GIFs, demos
- Gather quantitative usage data and qualitative feedback
- Run user research with engaged users (incentivize with credits)
- Optionally run product/market fit survey to refine messaging

**Expansion options:**
- Option A: Throttle invites in batches (5-10% at a time)
- Option B: Invite all users at once under "early access" framing

**Goal:** Validate at scale and prepare for full launch.

### Phase 5: Full Launch
Open the floodgates.

**Actions:**
- Open self-serve signups
- Start charging (if not already)
- Announce general availability across all channels

**Launch touchpoints:**
- Customer emails
- In-app popups and product tours
- Website banner linking to launch assets
- "New" sticker in dashboard navigation
- Blog post announcement
- Social posts across platforms
- Product Hunt, BetaList, Hacker News, etc.

**Goal:** Maximum visibility and conversion to paying users.

---

## Product Hunt Launch Strategy

Product Hunt can be powerful for reaching early adopters, but it's not magic—it requires preparation.

### Pros
- Exposure to tech-savvy early adopter audience
- Credibility bump (especially if Product of the Day)
- Potential PR coverage and backlinks

### Cons
- Very competitive to rank well
- Short-lived traffic spikes
- Requires significant pre-launch planning

### How to Launch Successfully

**Before launch day:**
1. Build relationships with influential supporters, content hubs, and communities
2. Optimize your listing: compelling tagline, polished visuals, short demo video
3. Study successful launches to identify what worked
4. Engage in relevant communities—provide value before pitching
5. Prepare your team for all-day engagement

**On launch day:**
1. Treat it as an all-day event
2. Respond to every comment in real-time
3. Answer questions and spark discussions
4. Encourage your existing audience to engage
5. Direct traffic back to your site to capture signups

**After launch day:**
1. Follow up with everyone who engaged
2. Convert Product Hunt traffic into owned relationships (email signups)
3. Continue momentum with post-launch content

### Case Studies

**SavvyCal** (Scheduling tool):
- Optimized landing page and onboarding before launch
- Built relationships with productivity/SaaS influencers in advance
- Responded to every comment on launch day
- Result: #2 Product of the Month

**Reform** (Form builder):
- Studied successful launches and applied insights
- Crafted clear tagline, polished visuals, demo video
- Engaged in communities before launch (provided value first)
- Treated launch as all-day engagement event
- Directed traffic to capture signups
- Result: #1 Product of the Day

---

## Post-Launch Product Marketing

Your launch isn't over when the announcement goes live. Now comes adoption and retention work.

### Immediate Post-Launch Actions

**Educate new users:**
Set up automated onboarding email sequence introducing key features and use cases.

**Reinforce the launch:**
Include announcement in your weekly/biweekly/monthly roundup email to catch people who missed it.

**Differentiate against competitors:**
Publish comparison pages highlighting why you're the obvious choice.

**Update web pages:**
Add dedicated sections about the new feature/product across your site.

**Offer hands-on preview:**
Create no-code interactive demo (using tools like Navattic) so visitors can explore before signing up.

### Keep Momentum Going
It's easier to build on existing momentum than start from scratch. Every touchpoint reinforces the launch.

---

## Ongoing Launch Strategy

Don't rely on a single launch event. Regular updates and feature rollouts sustain engagement.

### How to Prioritize What to Announce

Use this matrix to decide how much marketing each update deserves:

**Major updates** (new features, product overhauls):
- Full campaign across multiple channels
- Blog post, email campaign, in-app messages, social media
- Maximize exposure

**Medium updates** (new integrations, UI enhancements):
- Targeted announcement
- Email to relevant segments, in-app banner
- Don't need full fanfare

**Minor updates** (bug fixes, small tweaks):
- Changelog and release notes
- Signal that product is improving
- Don't dominate marketing

### Announcement Tactics

**Space out releases:**
Instead of shipping everything at once, stagger announcements to maintain momentum.

**Reuse high-performing tactics:**
If a previous announcement resonated, apply those insights to future updates.

**Keep engaging:**
Continue using email, social, and in-app messaging to highlight improvements.

**Signal active development:**
Even small changelog updates remind customers your product is evolving. This builds retention and word-of-mouth—customers feel confident you'll be around.

---

## Launch Checklist

### Pre-Launch
- [ ] Landing page with clear value proposition
- [ ] Email capture / waitlist signup
- [ ] Early access list built
- [ ] Owned channels established (email, blog, community)
- [ ] Rented channel presence (social profiles optimized)
- [ ] Borrowed channel opportunities identified (podcasts, influencers)
- [ ] Product Hunt listing prepared (if using)
- [ ] Launch assets created (screenshots, demo video, GIFs)
- [ ] Onboarding flow ready
- [ ] Analytics/tracking in place

### Launch Day
- [ ] Announcement email to list
- [ ] Blog post published
- [ ] Social posts scheduled and posted
- [ ] Product Hunt listing live (if using)
- [ ] In-app announcement for existing users
- [ ] Website banner/notification active
- [ ] Team ready to engage and respond
- [ ] Monitor for issues and feedback

### Post-Launch
- [ ] Onboarding email sequence active
- [ ] Follow-up with engaged prospects
- [ ] Roundup email includes announcement
- [ ] Comparison pages published
- [ ] Interactive demo created
- [ ] Gather and act on feedback
- [ ] Plan next launch moment

---

## Task-Specific Questions

1. What are you launching? (New product, major feature, minor update)
2. What's your current audience size and engagement?
3. What owned channels do you have? (Email list size, blog traffic, community)
4. What's your timeline for launch?
5. Have you launched before? What worked/didn't work?
6. Are you considering Product Hunt? What's your preparation status?

## Worked Example

**Precondition:** an existing product (working prototype, some early users) with a Product Hunt launch date set.

**Invocation:** "My product is a form-builder SaaS. We have ~300 beta users, an email list of 800, and our Product Hunt launch is in 3 weeks. Build the launch plan."

**Output excerpt (launch checklist produced, applying the Five-Phase approach + Launch Checklist):**

```
Launch plan (3 weeks to PH launch day)
Phase status: Phases 1-2 done (beta users onboard, waitlist at 800)

Before launch day:
- [ ] Optimize PH listing: tagline + 60s demo video (week 1)
- [ ] Prepare announcement email to the 800-person list (week 2)
- [ ] Pre-launch teasers: 2-3 posts on X/LinkedIn showing the problem you solve
- [ ] Recruit 5-10 supporters for launch-day engagement

Launch day:
- [ ] PH listing live at 00:01 PT (all-day engagement, reply to every comment)
- [ ] Announcement email + in-app banner to beta users
- [ ] Website banner linking to the PH listing
- [ ] Monitor signups → capture into owned email list

Post-launch:
- [ ] Follow-up email to everyone who engaged
- [ ] Changelog + minor-update announcements cadence (matrix: major/medium/minor)
- [ ] Plan next launch moment (feature announcements sustain momentum)
```

## Beyond Product Hunt: Other Markets

The ORB framework and the five phases are market-agnostic; the channel names above are US/EU defaults. Map them rather than forcing them:

| US default | Mainland China counterpart |
|---|---|
| Email list (owned) | WeChat official account (公众号) + private WeChat group |
| Blog (owned) | 知乎专栏, 少数派, or your own site |
| Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Reddit (rented) | 微博, 即刻, 小红书, B站 — same rule: 1–2 platforms where the audience is |
| Product Hunt (borrowed) | 少数派首页, V2EX 分享节点, 即刻精选 (PH still works but reach is limited) |
| Influencer seeding (borrowed) | B站/小红书 KOC reviews — send the product, don't buy an ad |
| App marketplace listing | Chinese app stores + WeChat mini program |

Same discipline applies: rented → owned. Every viral post on 微博/小红书 must funnel into the 公众号 or the private group, or the momentum evaporates.

## Failure Exits

- Missing context: if the brief does not answer the Task-Specific Questions (what, audience, channels, timeline), ask those questions explicitly — do not invent audience size or channel history and present a plan built on them.
- `.agents/product-marketing.md` (or its variants) does not exist: say you checked and proceed with the questions above — do not silently skip the check.
- Out of scope: ongoing SEO/content operations, paid ad buying, pricing strategy — name the boundary and hand off by capability (e.g. "this needs SEO operations / CRO / pricing expertise — if a skill covering that capability is available in this setup, invoke it; otherwise say so and stop"); do not half-answer.
- Too early: no working prototype — the correct output is a Phase 1 (internal launch) plan only, not a launch-day checklist.

## Wrong → Right (FAQ)

| Wrong | Right |
|---|---|
| Treating the launch as one launch-day post | Work the five phases; launch day is the last 10% |
| Being on 5 rented platforms at once | 1–2 owned channels first; rent only where the audience already is |
| Paying an influencer for one post | Seed the actual product (TRMNL model) and set up affiliates |
| Announcing every bug fix as a full campaign | Use the major/medium/minor matrix — minor = changelog only |
| Copying a US channel list for a China launch | Remap via the table above; Product Hunt ≠ 少数派/V2EX |

---

## Related Skills

The capabilities below are named by what they do, not by a fixed skill name — if a skill covering the capability exists in this setup, hand off to it; if not, apply the capability directly or say it is out of reach:

- **Launch tactic ideation** — for additional launch tactics (more Product Hunt angles, early-access referral loops)
- **Launch and onboarding email sequences** — writing the announcement and drip emails for the launch checklist
- **Conversion-rate optimization** — for optimizing launch landing pages
- **Marketing psychology** — for the psychology behind waitlists and exclusivity
- **Programmatic SEO** — for the comparison pages mentioned in post-launch
- **Sales enablement** — for launch sales collateral and enablement materials