Launching Your First ProductI have really mixed feelings about project launches. It’s the culmination of many hours of blood, sweat, and tears, but once the product gets going, there’s still work to be done. Normally you get either one or the other, but what if you’re a startup? You have to learn to do everything and plan for the chaos that is launch.
Building a product is integral to launching it, but you need to be able to brand it and promote it. There’s an experience which should go along with a product, some things just make sense, others need documentation and similar materials. All of these need to be polished and reconciled with the branding efforts going on. Then, you have to distribute and move the whole thing and turn it into profit.
The Product
Without a product, there can’t be a launch, but the product is just the biggest piece in the puzzle. Your product is the foundation, but a foundation without walls and a roof, or at least a plan, is a waste. “If you build it, they will come,” doesn’t cut it anymore (barring pure luck). What makes your product worth using?
As you build your product, you need to understand the workflow and what it offers to potential customers. What does it do, who does it help, and why should anyone care? If you can’t answer these questions, your product may be at best a me-too product or even a complete loss. There’s focusing on a niche, and focusing on a niche which doesn’t exist. Who is this product actually for?
While this question should have at least a tentative answer before undertaking development, sometimes the goalposts get moved. You’ve tested for one workflow, sometimes your hand gets forced and you have to make radical changes last minute. Focus on what your product provides, what it makes easier, who it’s made for, and similar so that you can more easily focus on everything which goes along with the product.
For instance, if you’re writing a dictionary app, is it for native speakers or language learners? Is it bidirectional? Does it come with any example dictionaries, or do you provide them? What can it support? Is there a technical requirement for the users to get started? Each answer gives you a scope which can help hone the functionality down to something which makes sense. These are the questions you need to ask to build your brand, so you can build the experience to sell the whole package.
Selling an Experience
Branding sets the expectations, the product is what you deliver, and the experience is what you sell. You don’t see a commercial just telling you the name and type of a brand of mustard; you see someone over a grill excitedly putting it on a bratwurst at a party full of attractive people. A spicy mustard will try to portray itself as lively and exciting, while a plainer mustard will use a family gathering or “tradition”.
Most people don’t care about the mustard, they care about what it means in their life. What does your launch stand for and what ideals does it exemplify? How do you make specifications come alive and live up to an idealized dream or experience?
As your product solidifies, be it workflow or design, who is it being created for? What does your target audience want and expect? Obviously, most products aren’t targeting a single homogeneous group, but what ideal is compatible with the largest subsection of this group without being off-putting to the rest? If it’s inconsistent, what can be done to rectify the issues before launch?
Brands can lean into these as they become established. The brand becomes part of the experience. I don’t buy something like Sony audio equipment because it’s the objective best, I buy it because it’s predictable and has consistently lasted. There are better options, but being able to know something hits a certain baseline consistently can be more than enough to make the experience enticing even if it’s not exactly what someone is looking for. The features feed into the ideal when done right, and the ideal feeds into the brand.
Building a Brand
Your product is the implementation, but your brand is the ideal. Each generation of Battlefield games will take place in a different war, real or imaginary, but the brand itself is going to deliver as a semi-realistic, fun-oriented FPS centered around multiplayer. The product differs with each launch, but the abstraction for the brand remains the same. There is growth and development, but it stays organic.
If you have previous launches, what does your new product add or change about the brand and how can it grow to reach that change? If not, how can you make there be a uniform expectation as to what your product will deliver? If your brand is new or undefined, what do you want it to stand for?
If a product is simple, you may want the branding to focus on what it brings the person using it. On the other hand, if a product is complicated, you want it to focus on something like the flexibility it offers. Try to show what a perceived con can bring to the product. The specifics don’t really matter as long as they’re in line with the product, the experience being pushed, and whatever exists for the brand. Target the strengths and gloss over the weaknesses.
Set a baseline that your clients can depend on. What does it take for you to believe in a brand and how can you deliver it? Is your brand focused or is it accessible? Think of it in these terms and build it to match.
This can be hard if you’re a small shop, but once you can put a brand that someone might want to buy in place, you can know how to better refine it. You aren’t drinking the metaphoric Kool-Aid to lie to yourself or your clients, you’re drinking it because you believe in it. Buy into your brand and turn it into an experience that sells.
Polishing a Brand
Most people have associations with brands they bought whether they want to or not. These associations can create inertia or build resilience to change. As a brand gets more polished and a consumer trusts it more, it gets harder for them to move away without a compelling reason.
Something may be cheaper and equivalent, but it becomes a gamble. A brand which consistently succeeds can survive a fluke (usually), but your first impression can turn people off of you forever. Set the expectation and live up to it, or you risk getting pigeon holed.
Your brand becomes the culmination of the experiences and ideals of what you’re selling. Behringer started selling budget gear and has been unable to fully shake the reputation despite pivoting their business. You want to polish your brand, but if you change models, no amount of polish will reshape what you’ve already done.
Even though Behringer’s audio equipment has gotten to be good enough to beat some of the majors in certain arenas, it’s still viewed as “value equipment” because their reputation has followed them. Rebranding can help, but there is a limit. You may have to still hunker down and live up to your current brand expectations for the pros while trying to reinvent the cons.
Polish enhances what already exists. If you polish garbage, you don’t get something nice, you effectively get a pig with lipstick. The other side to this is that if the idea is rough around the edges, the right polish can push it ahead. Don’t polish the failure, polish the winning pieces and reinvent the rest as you can.
Making It Move
What is your product and what itch is it trying to scratch? What experience are you selling and how does it feed into the brand? A product should sell each experience in a manner which fits into the overarching goals of the brand. Every piece works together to forward the narrative.
Accentuate the strengths which play into the brand. You can have different experiences you sell which seem almost contrary, as long as they don’t highlight weaknesses or conflict. A bag can be sold on quality and affordability in one breath, then resold as something reliable for camping without an issue. You can’t push it as a luxury good, and a budget solution too though.
How do you make sure each product fits the ideal of the brand and can be sold as an experience? How do you derive experiences from the brand based on the product? Focus on the strengths, skip over or mitigate the weaknesses, and find a common ground.
The product is only part of the process. You need to zip it all up in a use case for your target audience and a way to deliver. Make your product succeed by remembering it’s a piece of the greater whole you have to deliver. A seed is more than its kernel, even though the shell is useless on its own. The kernel is what matters, but everything else helps increase the odds of winning success.
Featured image by Alexander Kliem from Pixabay