I really like this sentence:

"[Let] your product trickle out when you think it’s good enough to get people excited, then listening hard for excitement. If you hear some, figure out where it’s coming from, and do more of that"

(OP's emphasis)

I would expand this premise by saying that a launch should be about unveiling the company, not the product.

Once the product trickles out and gets adopted quietly you establish a track record of results. THEN you can tell the world about the wizards behind the curtain, what is next and what is in it for customers, partners and investors. The purpose of the launch should be to accelerate your momentum, not create it where it does not exist.

I like the sentiment of this post. I'm in a situation right now with our own Johnny and new products coming to market, and I fear he is staffing up for a big push at launch without actually thinking about adding value.

However, this post comes across as just a complaint against marketing in general. He says, "but marketers who busy themselves marketing can destroy value as readily as they create it" but doesn't lay out the case of how that happens. Nor does it explain why Johnny's push to launch is a bad thing.

I was hoping the post would articulate why "Johnny" is a "bad thing," because I have an instinctive feeling that the author is right, but unfortunately the explanation falls short.

I think that the "bad thing" about "Johnny" is that he's all sizzle, no steak. When the focus on the product is lost, there's only so much even the greatest ad guru can really do (with enough talent, money, and determination to succeed I think that a great marketing campaign can be enough -- but that's for the rare company that already has the money, when most new business just have the drive).

There's a certain fetishization of the Launch that's been happening lately. What should be one (small) step in an iterative process, has become (for many), their startup's raison d'etre. It's something that needs to happen, and it's certainly an easy milestone to point out, but focusing on it is rarely productive.

Building a company is more like watering a plant than birthing a baby. Emphasis on the Launch is built around the idea that there wasn't anything and then, poof, the business is fully formed and developed. Businesses are rarely, if ever, made like that, so building in those assumptions in your marketing and development process are going to start you down the wrong path from the start.

I want this article to be true, but I don't think it is.

Early Twitter was a barebones product, and their brand was the fail whale. Yet they skyrocketed starting with well-planned marketing at SXSW.

FriendFeed was a reliable, slick and sophisticated product. They relied on user advocates for their marketing. They did get bought by Facebook for $50MM, but never grew to more than a million users.

He said in the article: "Look… some products need a Launch... But for a lot of businesses, it’s better to get there as part of a product-driven process."

All your examples are social networks that need a critical mass of users before there is any point. You can't have a social network without people.

For many products, the user experience doesn't depend on other users, so they don't need the same level of marketing.

> He knows trade show girls.

Of the dozens of trade shows I've been to, trade-show girls are good for one thing: Collecting contact info of horny guys.

The resulting lead lists had incredibly low signal-to-noise. Then again, I've never worked in the adult game arena.

The term horny guys is kinda redundant..

I can think of 50 products that won because they out-marketed a better competitor. It's hard to care about something you don't even know exists. Its hard to feel loyalty without an emotional hook. Marketing exists to do those things.

You cannot argue against the function of marketing in a waterfall framework. Then praise the lean methodology. For this to be apples to apples, you should compare waterfall to lean, and marketing to no marketing (an extreme form of which would be to have no web presence).

The way I see marketing is things that need to be done but a hacker might not enjoy doing.

I don't think the article is arguing against marketing. He's arguing against the 'launch' as the focus of marketing, and suggesting instead that building a brand should be the focus of marketing.

Building a brand is a long, ongoing process. You need to have a self-consistent set of values, and those values need to show through in your products. (I mean, there is more to having a brand, but without those consistent values, the other stuff doesn't matter.)

You can have a launch strategy while building a brand, the two are not mutually exclusive.

I find it really ironic that this article comes from an "ad man" and a "principle of a strategic marketing firm" because he knows very little about marketing.

My point exactly, launch as a focus of Marketing or any other dept. for that matter is a bad thing and is an example of the Waterfall method.

Also, building a brand and marketing sound similar but are very different. In personal terms, you, as a brand would be 'what others to think of you', and marketing is 'what you say about yourself / present yourself'. Sales is how you 'turn an audience into followers'. Since sales = marketing + brand, in the analogy above 'audience to followers' = 'what you say about yoursef' + 'what people think of you').

Great article. I disagree with the notion that 'launch is for amateurs'. Launch may be at times for amateurs, but it's really great for the big names, as well -- seems like Apple does pretty well with its launches...

I think that the real point of the article launch is really not so good for amateurs -- though amateurs might want to wait for a big launch in order to release their product, which can be a bad idea.

Advice here is really for new companies and products that don't yet have an established emotional connection (i.e. 'brand') with their target audience. So, rather than launch first and hope to stumble in to some sort of resonance with users... reverse the process and first build the brand through end-user experience with the product, then launch. :)

I agree-Brand builds businesses.