The Art & Science of a Product Launch

When everyone's looking at you to deliver magic on product launch day, what actually matters? And how do you stay sane when ~50% (or more?) of product launches miss the GA date?

When everyone's looking at you to deliver magic on product launch day, what actually matters?

And how do you stay sane when ~50% (or more?) of product launches miss the GA date?

I've survived dozens of product launches across my career—some triumphant, others that I've erased from my memory. Through the victories and the "learning experiences," I've discovered something crucial: there's a method to the madness, but it's not what most launch playbooks will tell you.

The Truth About Product Launches

Let's start with an uncomfortable reality: not all products we launch are actually worth the effort. (Yes, I said it.) A Harvard professor, Clayton Christensen says, "Nearly 30,000 new products are introduced each year, and 95% of them fail." Ouch. But every PMM reading this knows it's kinda accurate. I don't know how many of these are tech/cyber products, but it just illustrates the point, and it also makes me look smart by referencing Harvard.

> "Nearly 30,000 new products are introduced each year, and 95% of them fail."

Half the battle of a successful product launch starts with having a product that works, offers some innovation, and might actually be adopted by a predefined target audience. Some might argue great products market themselves—look at McKinsey's model of minimal advertising, or Sony's PlayStation 5 with demand so high they couldn't keep up with production. Who needs PMM, right?

But for those of us in cybersecurity who don't have the luxury of launching the next PS5, we need to guide and help our product and engineering friends bring products to market.

The Product Launch Requirements You Need to Succeed with Speed, Indeed (I like to rhyme)

I've seen it all: wildly over-engineered processes with enough checkboxes to make your eyes bleed, and dangerously simplified approaches that ignore cross-functional alignment entirely. And I fully appreciate that this might be over the top if you are a solo PMM in a small startup, so let's assume that this is for vendors that are somewhere in the middle, in terms of having some complexity in the org chart. Assuming that's true, here are five non-negotiables:

1. Find an Executive Sponsor

Self-explanatory. Without someone upstairs who cares (rhyming again), the launch will fail.