Stargazers in the tech world like to focus on the shiny new products that are launched like rockets into the digital cosmos. Yet the tech landscape is littered with the broken wings and crumpled fuselages of the product launches that didn’t quite make altitude.
Built In Colorado set out to discover the difference between successful product launches and the ones that didn’t get off the ground. First off, the numbers: empirical studies have shown that failure rates for new products have remained around 40 percent for decades.
Timing is also important. A study by Gartner explains that 45 percent of product launches are delayed by at least a month, and of those, 20 percent failed to meet their internal targets. The good news: 78 percent of product managers who viewed internal collaboration as one of their top three goals experienced low product failure rates.
We sat down with three Colorado tech companies to narrow down the key strategies for getting product launches successfully into the stratosphere. We learned that internal collaboration, gathering feedback and refining go-to-market strategies are all critical factors in making product launches a big success.
Alex Jansen is head of product at Neat Loans, a platform for real-time home financing. He believes that while not all product launches are immediately successful, they are all opportunities to gather feedback, identify user needs and make important changes.
What’s one key step you take early on in the product development process to set your team up for a smooth and successful launch?
Ironically, a smooth and successful launch is understanding that launches may not always be smooth and successful.
Every product launch is an opportunity for immediate feedback. A truly successful launch process is about figuring out what requirements you are solving for. The key is to focus on the user’s needs, the customer journey and to get the stakeholders involved in the process early.
Small companies have the ability to go straight to stakeholders, versus the slower and more formal process that can weigh down larger companies. Plus, big companies aren’t always trying to move quickly. Some major tech companies outline KPIs for success first, run experiments to evaluate processes at a smaller scale, launch beta programs, and then begin rollouts to production in small batches over several months. However, moving slow and steady isn’t an effective model for startups. For startups, it’s imperative to get the feedback to make fixes and improvements as necessary.
A truly successful launch process is about figuring out what requirements you are solving for. ”
How do you balance the desire to build the “perfect” product with the need to hit deadlines and get a product to market as quickly as possible?
Another pitfall in product development is the desire to build the “perfect” product. When balancing deadlines with developing the perfect product, good is the enemy of great. We aren’t trying to build something perfect, but we put the effort in to build something good and take the product to market as quickly as possible. We’re trying to move quickly and support strategic initiatives.
As for an example of how this plays out in real life, I think back to a time when I launched a product for one of our internal teams. It became clear immediately upon launch that our audience’s vision and our execution didn’t match up. Despite this miss, the launch provided our internal audience with a real-life product to respond to, and we were able to create a better, faster product two weeks later with their more helpful feedback upon seeing the initial version. Sure, we could have attempted to spend additional weeks or months gathering intel up front, but the learnings we gathered after the launch were far more effective and productive. In this way, a “miss” can create a better understanding much faster for everyone involved.
What’s a crucial lesson you’ve learned about product launches over the years? How do you apply that lesson in your current work?
The most crucial lesson I’ve learned in my years of product development is this: take stock of what you’ve already built and see if it still works. It sounds simple, but it’s quite underrated. In my opinion, you’re never done with a launch. You don’t just throw it over the fence and move on, never to return to it again. You always need to be able to reevaluate ideas; even terrible ideas, and vice versa. What was a great idea and product launch a year ago may no longer serve the company today. And what was a terrible product idea months ago may finally be relevant. Be open to that. Pay attention to that.
At Sovrn, a platform for content creators, VP of Platform Products Brian Bouquet believes that the key to a successful product launch is to collect feedback in the early stages, build a minimally viable product and refine the go-to-market strategies as the product moves to general availability.
What’s one key step you take early on in the product development process to set your team up for a smooth and successful launch?
We perform R&D with customers. Before we invest in an idea, we test several iterations of the idea with publishers (our primary customer). A “test” could be a clickable wireframe, a low-code example of how the feature works or a functional prototype running in production. Our goal is to learn from customer feedback and iterate to customer value as quickly as possible — before we build what’s minimally viable. Ideally, many of the ideas we explore never get launched. For the ones that do, we have higher confidence in their success, plus we refine our go-to-market strategy as we move from alpha to beta to general availability.
How do you balance the desire to build the “perfect” product with the need to hit deadlines and get a product to market as quickly as possible?
As a mid-sized company in high-growth mode, we don’t have the luxury of “perfect.” Instead, we focus on the velocity of experimentation — a metric we track across all teams. We plant a lot of seeds, as we’re never a hundred percent sure which ones will grow into profitable business lines. As a guideline, we try to scope every version smaller than 6-8 weeks of development for a team of eight engineers. Then, we gather feedback from customer interviews and application telemetry to determine if we’re on the right track. From there, we pursue perfection (without ever fully realizing it). First-mover advantage is great, but the best products built using tight customer feedback loops usually win.
We don’t have the luxury of ‘perfect.’ Instead, we focus on the velocity of experimentation.”
What’s a crucial lesson you've learned about product launches over the years? How do you apply that lesson in your current work?
Don’t define go-to-market strategy at the end of the product development cycle. If product development is the process of solving hard problems for customers, then go-to-market strategies are the actions to build customer awareness for your solution. Both need to happen in parallel. At Sovrn, we test positioning, pricing models and customer acquisition channels during our test phases. We rarely get things right the first time, and create better outcomes for our customers when products launch.
Evan Stalter is product manager at Outrider, a platform for autonomous yard operations. He believes that cross-team functionality is critical in aligning messaging and executing on strategies for effective product launches.
What’s one key step you take early on in the product development process to set your team up for a smooth and successful launch?
The stakes are high when it comes to product launches because “you never get a second chance to make a good first impression.” Early in the development process, define the launch plan in broad strokes — key objectives, target audience and key stakeholders. Having this framework, you can fill in the details as you progress toward the launch.
The launch plan is a coordinated, company-wide effort to introduce the product to the world, not something that magically happens. Product is the glue between engineering, support, marketing, sales, legal and communications. This cross-functional team meets regularly and with increasing frequency as the launch approaches to align on messaging and execute tactics.
One of the most common misses of a product launch is planning for what happens next. How will you measure against your objectives? How do you maintain interest in the product release? What impact is the new product having in the market and with sales? How is the product performing? Make sure your product has momentum post-launch by keeping the launch team engaged in executing against the plan.
This cross-functional team meets regularly and with increasing frequency as the launch approaches to align on messaging and execute tactics.”
How do you balance the desire to build the “perfect” product with the need to hit deadlines and get a product to market as quickly as possible?
When it comes to launching a product, I think about market and product maturity. If it’s a new market, being a first-mover gains competitive advantage. But if it’s an established market with lots of competition, delivering value to customers is more important than time to market. On the product side, launching version one means going out sooner rather than later to get customer feedback and iterate on features and functionality. If you’re releasing a new version of an existing product, take your time and ensure the product meets customer and user expectations.
At Outrider, we are pioneering a new market category with a new product. This means we are hyper-focused on two areas: one, getting to market quickly to maintain our first-mover advantage and two, releasing our product early and often to get customer feedback. Except for safety, we don’t wait to perfect our product to get to market because we’re clearing the passage for distribution yard automation.
What’s a crucial lesson you’ve learned about product launches over the years? How do you apply that lesson in your current work?
The first critical lesson that I’ve learned from product launches is not to try to do everything yourself. Lean on the experts on your launch team for support. No one knows support better than your customer success leader. Ask everyone on the launch team to think through what could go wrong and what corrective actions would need to be taken. Think of it like a failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) for your launch.
When it comes to product launches, the second critical lesson that I learned is to pay attention to all disciplines — even if it’s not your area of expertise. If you’re more of a technical product leader, make sure to cover the marketing and sales sides of the launch. If you’re a market-facing product leader, ensure the engineering and support bases are covered.
