What to finish before a launch and what to leave for later

The Marketing Leaders work group sorts a launch checklist into what has to ship first and what can follow.

Updated October 13, 2026

Have a named customer, a working path to the promised benefit, a few early users and a measurement plan ready. The full campaign, brand guidelines and every channel can follow.

Name the customer and the use case. Rachel Hepworth says Notion Projects launched to a broad audience without a sharp message for one customer, and the launch had little effect on engagement or revenue.
Walk through the first experience yourself. Brittany Bingham checks that someone can reach the promised benefit and that the team can see where people stop. For Fathom's new meeting experience, she would widen the audience once a small group captures a meeting and comes back for another.
Set up three measures before inviting anyone. Micah Moreau tracks each visitor's source, whether they complete the action the launch promises, and whether the same cohort returns, with spend by source alongside.
Leave the polish for later. Vineet Mehra, Kira Klaas and Rachel each put the full campaign, brand guidelines or every-channel rollout on the can-wait list. Kira would let the first cohort's questions shape those materials.

Group chat with Rachel, Brittany, Kira, Vineet, Micah — the Marketing Leaders work group

Question:

What needs to be ready before a launch, and what can wait?

Vineet MehraChief Growth and Marketing Officer at Chime. Former Chief Growth and Marketing Officer at Ancestry

Before launch, I want three things ready: a member benefit the product actually delivers, a clear way to explain it, and a measurement plan tied to the money we will spend. At Chime, I work closely with our CFO on payback periods and return on marketing investment. That discipline should be in place before the first major media dollar goes out.

thinkwithgoogle

The full creative library and every channel rollout can wait. Start with a story grounded in the people you serve, then learn which message and channel earn attention and drive use. Chime uses actual members in testimonial ads, and our work on onboarding and conversion keeps changing through experiments. That gives the team room to improve the launch while keeping the product promise steady.

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Brittany BinghamVP of Marketing at Fathom. Former VP of Marketing at Guru

The launch checklist needs a hands-on pass through the first user experience. Can someone reach the promised benefit, and can the team tell where people stop? That check makes the message and product path accountable to actual use. When we launched Fathom’s new meeting experience, we could point people to specific things they could try: bot-free capture, live notes in the desktop app, and integrations with ChatGPT and Claude. The announcement also gave them one place to see what was new.

A polished video and a complete catalog of features can wait while the team checks whether the new experience fits how people work. At Fathom, the signal I care about is repeat use: the HubSpot app had more than 20,000 active installs at year-end when it received the Most Used App award.

Rachel HepworthCMO at Harvey. Former CMO at Notion

The launch date got ahead of the product experience when we shipped Notion Projects. We aimed at a broad audience and packaged features that included existing capabilities, without a sharp message for one customer. The community called us out, and the launch had little effect on engagement or revenue.

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My must-have list would be: 1. A customer and use case you can name plainly. 2. A working path for that customer to reach value. 3. A few early users who have tried it, shown you where they get stuck, and can describe what they actually did. 4. Enough education to get the next users started. For Notion AI, we invited community members into the alpha and beta, learned their use cases, and gave them access and guidance ahead of launch so they could share their own experience when it went live.

YouTube

A complete feature set and a polished campaign can wait. The first Notion AI release was AI Writer; we moved quickly with an alpha and waitlist, then built on it.

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Kira KlaasVP of Corporate Marketing and Brand at Later. Former Director of Brand at Brex

I’d put audience and positioning on the must-have list. Before announcing, the team should be able to say who the launch is for, what changes for that person, how the offer differs, and how each product message fits the larger company story. I’ve seen launches treated as isolated announcements when they could build toward a shared narrative; launch coordination and sales enablement matter, but a clear foundation makes those assets coherent.

Substack

The must-have execution layer is smaller than a full brand system: a working customer experience, a clear landing page and core message, and agreement on who approves and supports the launch. My brand-building framework starts with the opportunity, agreement on the approach, and resources before activities, then uses what we learn to iterate. Comprehensive guidelines and a polished campaign across every channel can wait if the first experience works and the team can learn from it.

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Vineet MehraChief Growth and Marketing Officer at Chime. Former Chief Growth and Marketing Officer at Ancestry

Brittany’s repeat-use test should also govern how much we spend after launch. I would release to a focused audience once the benefit works, then expand paid media as evidence of continued use and acquisition payback comes in. The measurement windows need to fit the investment: direct response captures current demand, while brand work builds future intent. I’ve argued for measuring how long brand investment keeps contributing to direct response, because judging both on the same immediate conversion window can lead to poor budget decisions.

thinkwithgoogle

Question:

Micah, Vineet wants a measurement plan tied to spend before major media investment. For a small launch, which measures would you set up before inviting users, and which would you add after seeing first use? Please ground your answer in public work and cite public sources.

Micah MoreauVP of Growth at OpenAI. Former VP of Growth Marketing at DoorDash

For a small launch, I’d set up three measures before inviting anyone: the source of each visitor, whether they complete the action the launch promises, and whether that same cohort returns to use it again. Keep spend by source alongside those counts. That lets you see whether a weak result starts with the audience, the message, or the product experience. I’ve challenged the claim that a team simply needs more customers when it cannot show evidence that acquisition is the constraint.

After first use, add a cohort view of repeat behavior and a simple acquisition cost for users who actually reach value. Once you increase spend, test incremental return rather than treating every tracked conversion as caused by the ad. I’ve publicly pushed marketers to measure causal return on spend.

X At small volume, those early rates will be noisy, so use them to find the broken step before setting a major media budget.

Question:

Rachel, Micah wants a reason to expect customers back before launch. With Notion AI's alpha and waitlist, what evidence was enough to invite the first users, and what evidence would you require before a broader release? Please cite public sources.

Rachel HepworthCMO at Harvey. Former CMO at Notion

For the first Notion AI users, an alpha and waitlist let us put AI Writer in front of people quickly, while the product was still taking shape. The founders had seen the opportunity early, and we got an alpha out within a few months. I would treat that as enough to invite a small group to learn, rather than proof that a broad launch would work.

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For a broader release, I’d want alpha and beta users to show concrete use cases, point out where they get stuck, and describe the value in their own words. At Notion we brought community members into those early versions, used their feedback to prepare customer education, and gave them time with the product before asking them to share their experiences at launch.

YouTube I’d then check whether the first cohort reaches an activation action tied to later paid use, since freemium conversion can take weeks or months. That link has to be tested as more cohorts mature.

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Question:

Brittany, Rachel would track an early activation action, while Micah wants to see the same cohort return. For a launch like Fathom’s new meeting experience, what would you need to see before inviting a wider audience? Please ground the answer in public work and cite public sources.

Brittany BinghamVP of Marketing at Fathom. Former VP of Marketing at Guru

For Fathom’s new meeting experience, I’d invite a wider audience after a small group can install the desktop app, capture a meeting in the mode they chose, use the live notes, and come back for another meeting. Our public launch described bot-free capture, a desktop app with live notes and a scratchpad, and ChatGPT and Claude integrations. Those give us concrete actions to check instead of counting announcement clicks alone.

I’d review where those first users get stuck and whether they return before widening distribution. A first successful meeting tells us the path works; another meeting gives us a better signal that the experience fits their work. I would keep the larger education library and broader channel push on the can-wait list until the first cohort can complete that loop.

Question:

Kira, Rachel would invite a small alpha before broader proof, and Brittany wants someone assigned to act on feedback before expanding. Which materials and team owners must be ready for the alpha versus the broader launch? Please cite public sources.

Kira KlaasVP of Corporate Marketing and Brand at Later. Former Director of Brand at Brex

For an alpha, I’d prepare a short invitation that names the customer and use case, one page showing how to get started, and a way to report confusion or failures. Assign a product owner to fix what users encounter and a marketing or research owner to collect their language and test whether the promise makes sense. A small messaging test with target customers belongs here, before the team spends to distribute the story.

Substack

Before the broader launch, I’d want the product and marketing leads to agree on one plain-text positioning brief, then give sales and support the same explanation and an owner for updates as feedback arrives. At Brex, during our rebrand, we wrote down the different lines leadership was using and agreed which idea should lead. That decision kept competing internal messages from becoming the public story. A full set of brand guidelines and a campaign for every channel can follow once the first cohort’s questions have shaped the materials.

Substack

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Frequently Asked Questions

How do you choose an ideal customer profile?
Start from a segment incumbents underserve or from your most retained users, check it in customer conversations, and keep it narrow enough to change your message. Move the core positioning to a new segment once its payback and retention beat the core.
How can you tell if your positioning is working?
Newcomers can explain the benefit and act on it, they name your brand when shown the benefit without a logo, and a matched test group activates and pays back better than the old message.
How do you plan a product launch?
Agree in writing on who the launch is for, gate on the demand signal closest to revenue, give early-access users time with the product, and measure lift against a holdout.
When is a partner program worth building?
When partners already help customers succeed and the team can repeat the sales handoff. Before that, run a small integration pilot and measure activation, retention and support cost.
Which channels bring in technical buyers?
Founder-led outbound when setup is heavy, a self-serve trial when an engineer gets value in one session, and narrow paid search aimed at the trial task, judged on activated accounts.

All go-to-market questions →

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you choose an ideal customer profile?

Start from a segment incumbents underserve or from your most retained users, check it in customer conversations, and keep it narrow enough to change your message. Move the core positioning to a new segment once its payback and retention beat the core.

What to finish before a launch and what to leave for later

Marketing Leaders

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you choose an ideal customer profile?

How can you tell if your positioning is working?

How do you plan a product launch?

When is a partner program worth building?

Which channels bring in technical buyers?

Your ideas, super powered.

What to finish before a launch and what to leave for later

Marketing Leaders

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you choose an ideal customer profile?

How can you tell if your positioning is working?

How do you plan a product launch?

When is a partner program worth building?

Which channels bring in technical buyers?

Your ideas, super powered.