Christian Wiklund is the cofounder and CEO at unitQ.
My startup recently launched a major product update—a rollout that was filled with both triumphs and challenges. This is my second startup as CEO, and it’s safe to say that building and rolling out a new product or feature in the market is a process that’s always filled with surprises. Despite your best intentions, things aren’t always going to go according to plan—even if you had planned well and far in advance.
Still, there are many fundamentals startups might follow to make a product update as smooth as possible. Before I share those, I’d like to quickly describe one spoiler to our new launch. The good news was that we had an overwhelming amount of interest in the product. The challenge was that our initial rollout plan didn’t initially scale to meet the demand, forcing us to be nimble and revisit our rollout strategy.
The moral of the story here is to be prepared for failure or success and to expect the unexpected. And even with success comes friction, which, in our case, was quickly meeting the demand for our new beta technology.
Along the way, I learned these six tips for startups to leverage during major product launches and updates.
1. Translate your vision.
Great ideas are one thing. But it’s entirely another story when it comes to translating your vision and getting buy-in from your team to execute to ensure product quality. That’s why it’s important to share your vision as broadly within your company as possible. After all, your employees are the ones that are going to be doing the work associated with your vision.
2. Trust your team.
Let’s cut to the chase here. You must have faith in your employees to carry out your vision—from the customer success team, public relations and marketing to operations, engineering and development. It’s that plain and simple. Don’t forget to get as much internal feedback as possible in this process, and make sure your team has the right tools and resources to carry out your vision.
3. Create a launch plan.
Beyond having the wherewithal to develop a new product, planning its development and launch is critical. The plan should set clear and measurable objectives leading up to and after the launch. Don’t forget to include a budget and, as experience would have it, a flexible budget. Marketing, public relations and analyst relations should all align on messaging, deliverables and rollout timing—all while working closely with the product developers. The developers must be assigned their own measurable sprints, and there must be two-way communication to ensure that launch campaigns don’t over- or under-promise. It’s important to remember that telling the world the story about the what of the new product is just as important as the messaging about why the new technology is important.
4. Prepare the customer support team.
Make sure your customer support or success teams are steeped in the nuances of the update. They’ll likely be inundated with questions about how the new technology works. Targeted, educational messaging for customers—including how to access the rollout—might go deeper into the weeds compared to the campaign targeting prospects and the general public.
5. Deliver your update.
You should have already informed users about the upcoming new technology. You’ve built up all this energy around the pending rollout, and now it’s time to deliver. What you don’t want is complications when it comes to getting your new product into the hands of excited customers. This means your roadmap must set customer expectations of product delivery. This foresight will reduce customer friction and increase brand reputation.
6. Listen to customer feedback.
Waiting for a product to be perfect means it will likely never reach the public. So, consider launching initially with a beta. You’d be surprised how often your users find bugs or friction with your initial release. Listen to your users—they’re a great resource for how your product is performing—and iterate accordingly. Engaging with your users will create trust and loyalty, too. Best of all, customer feedback can provide your team with invaluable guidance to better your products and services—regardless of whether they’re in a matured state or were just rolled out.
A major product update isn’t just about a visionary idea. It’s a long and nuanced journey that includes getting your team on board, having faith in them, delivering your product and listening to actionable insights from user feedback along the way.
And remember, even a successful launch will have its hiccups no matter how well you planned. That’s the nature of business—startup or not.
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