When your product launch fails — and what to do about it

A story about go-to-market bottlenecks

What’s your go-to-market strategy and process for launching a new feature or product?

Whether or not companies have the budget to hire a go-to-market owner or simply choose to ignore their go-to-market process, one thing is certain: as companies grow and scale and develop more sophisticated products, the go-to-market process will inevitably stall somewhere in the organization or the new product launch may fail altogether.

What happens next is what I like to call “defensive go-to-market planning.”

Defensive go-to-market planning is essentially a reaction to go-to-market rather than a thoughtful proactive approach which includes all of the best practices I spoke about earlier for running a proper go to market strategy and product launch.

In other words, defensive go-to-market is similar to a soccer goalie watching his or her team try to score a goal but instead finds their offense trip up on their way to the goal while at mid-field.

What are some of the ways companies stumble on their way to product launch?

After launching several hundred products, my exposure to the diverse number of things that could possibly go wrong (or have gone wrong) in a go-to-market plan are endless. As a result, I can see risks and vulnerabilities immediately when implementing and executing a go-to-market strategy and launch. But many companies don’t have the luxury of hiring an experienced go-to-market strategist, so I have created a list of the top bottlenecks I’ve witnessed as a Product Marketer that may stall a product or service launch and how to fix it.

My hope is that when one of these many bottlenecks occurs, you’ll be equipped to handle the issue and resolve it immediately.

1. Internal readiness: We’re launching today. But are we really ready?
2. Resources: More engineering required.
3. Lack of leadership: There is no decision-maker.
4. Team Politics: Sales is fighting with Product and Marketing
5. Pricing: Leaving money on the table or charging too much?
6. A changing market: Did you just get leapfrogged?
7. International launch: They don’t speak Japanese in the UK.
8. Partner readiness: The integration is delayed, again.

1. Internal readiness: We’re launching today. But are we really ready?

Client facing teams don’t understand the value proposition and can’t articulate the messaging for the new product.

• What’s happening: If you take a proactive GTM approach, your Sales and client facing teams will have plenty of say in your product roadmap and alpha and beta milestones. If not, you’re likely delivering a final product to a Sales team that may not understand the full feature set of what they’re selling and why they’re selling it. You can recognize that this is happening when Sales and client facing teams are not able to pitch and sell the product at the frequency expected. The number of forecasted users or revenue growth with the new product fall far behind expectations.
• How to fix it: If you expect your Sales teams to go out and sell a product, they need to be able to have a say in what feature sets resonate with clients, how to articulate the value proposition and benefits of the product, the feature set and how it relates to other feature sets and the full suite of products available. Identify key internal stakeholders including client facing teams and new and existing clients to participate in alpha and beta feedback studies. Ensure all feedback is captured and disseminated to all key stakeholder teams.

Customers and internal teams don’t understand how the product works and training & support documentation doesn’t exist or isn’t delivering.

• What’s happening: The more technical, innovative or complex the product is, the more you may need to rethink your introduction of the product in the market. Further, every team and function in the organization should have access to how the product or feature set works and training materials (video, documentation, live recorded webinar). If someone missed the training, they should be able to find training in your system with a simple search. A Q&A with key stakeholders should be created immediately to answer any unknowns. (Assuming this is not a UI or UX design issue).
• How to fix it: Assuming you don’t have a Product Marketing Manager, ask PM’s and business leaders to work with the existing ecosystem to introduce new concepts and products with existing terminology until new users understand the product. Create a training video or host a company webinar to deliver the training across the company. Ensure basic support documentation is disseminated across the company in a centralized repository and is easily accessible.

2. Resources: More engineering required.

Product may require additional feature set before launch, but finances or talent resources are unavailable.

• What’s happening: Product teams require additional time, money or human resources to complete a product launch. Perhaps the product scope has changed and teams need to add new more complex feature sets. Finance teams are not working directly with key internal stakeholders to understand the full cost of a product & feature set. There is a relationship between feature sets and revenue expectations; additional features should be created with the expectation of additional revenue.
• How to fix it: Internal teams need to prioritize product sets and understand which feature sets are most important for launch based on market demands, customer needs, revenue, internal resources, ability, innovation. By creating a feature prioritization table, teams can account for all variables when deciding what features are most important for a product roadmap. The most important task at hand is to weigh different outcomes and create a product feature set and revenue forecast with the Revenue team since all companies have a budget.

3. Lack of Leadership: There is no decision-maker.

Leadership teams disagree on what to build, and the decision making process for the roadmap is left in a stalemate or indecision. Internal teams may not understand how to move forward or move forward in a silo.

• What’s happening: Executive teams and leadership fails to agree on roadmap and how to move forward. As a result, roadmaps are created that are not backed by data or strategy and internal teams are left without proper leadership buy-in. Rather than rock the boat, internal teams in this scenario are more like stay quiet when product features or launch efforts don’t align with initial objectives since they don’t know who to speak with about iterating on a product roadmap.
• How to fix it: The CEO and leadership teams should assign roles and responsibilities and what to do when stalemate occurs (democratic vote, CEO decides etc). Create a committee that assigns a revenue & growth metric to track progress of the product launch and share results with team on a regular cadence.

4. Team politics: Sales is fighting with Product and Marketing

Who owns the success of a product? If you can’t answer this question, then you’re likely suffering from what I like to call “the hot potato problem”. Allow me to provide additional context: Product blames Sales for the failure of product adoption. Sales blames Product for creating a de-scoped or “1.0” version of the product that was in the initial ask. Marketing stays neutral or refuses to create marketing programs and assets based on an undeliverable product.

• What’s happening: Decisions are made in silos rather than through a cross-functional collaborative effort. Individuals are afraid of taking the blame for the wrong product decision and may not feel safe to voice concerns or risks during the build of a product or feature set. There is no agreement between Sales and Product teams on the product roadmap.
• How to fix it: In this case, roles, responsibilities and a deliverables schedule have not been created and assigned. If any of these scenarios above exist, create a RACI chart and hold cross-functional key stakeholder accountable to the decision making process. Ensure neutral transparent data is brought into the GTM process and have written agreement between Sales & Product teams on what version 1.0 of the product looks like and what version 2.0 and beyond will include.

5. Pricing: Leaving money on the table or charging too much?

Customers don’t quite understand pricing models. Neither does Sales.

• What’s happening: Finance teams oftentimes leave it to Product teams to define pricing methodologies without testing the pricing model with clients and sales. If pricing is confusing for sales, it’s likely to be confusing for clients.
• How to fix it: Ideally, the price for a product or feature should be discussed before a product is built as the price will shape the development of the product offering. If it’s too late, Product, Sales & Finance should work together on revenue forecasting and unit economics in order to understand the opportunity cost for the price of a product or feature set. Test out different types of models from a one time fee to subscription while in beta and A/B test the pricing models if you can. In my experience, charging in a beta provides the most accurate measure whether clients would actually pay for the product. Internal teams should know what range they can negotiate with clients.

6. A changing market: Did you just get leapfrogged?

Competition is heating up, and customers are no longer that excited about the product that you’re building.

• What’s happening: The market environment has changed dramatically since internal teams decided to build a product or feature set. Your competitor has pushed out a product that is superior or easier to use than yours.
• How to fix it: Assign one person, usually a Product Marketer to own competitive analysis and increase the frequency in which products are released to ensure the market knows you’re in development for the feature set. Encourage any customers interested to participate in beta so their contributions can make it into the product roadmap. Going forward, attend all relevant conferences and read all blogs and other resources associated with the industry. Encourage a Sales and Customer Success leader to host weekly or bi-monthly regroups to talk about market implications, competition and what they’re hearing from customers.

7. International launch: They don’t speak Japanese in the UK.

Successful adoption of a product in the United States is failing in an international market.

• What’s happening: The product was never properly tested in the new market. Language, cultural, regulatory and operational readiness were likely not understood. Not all markets are the same and there will always be dependencies that need to be considered in a foreign market. Oftentimes there are a wide array of factors as to why a product that was successful in the US won't work elsewhere.
• How to fix it: Talk to product teams in other locations and create a separate go-to-market process if the market represents a large enough opportunity for the company. Ensure that you’re working with new and existing clients in the new market in alpha and beta. Work with a local specialist to understand market implications and competition.

8. Partner readiness: The integration is delayed, again.

Partner or 3rd party feature sets are misaligned with existing product roadmap.

• What’s happening: Platform B2B companies usually need to integrate with other companies that offer a technology or service that doesn’t make financial sense to build in house. Product roadmaps are developed with partner product teams and without the alignment of the business sides of the house.
• How to fix it: The interpretation of the initial details of the integration may fluctuate dramatically by the time the product build gets into the hands of product and engineering. This may impact the offering, or timeline of the launch. Ensure that the partner’s technology is in fact tested and available in the beginning, and ensure that product, engineering and business development teams all define exactly what feature sets will be available and when together.

Partner technology offering changes during the engineering sprint or the Partner is acquired or acquires a technology that is similar to yours.

• What’s happening: The integration negotiated weeks or months ago no longer makes business sense for the partner and the integration is off.
• How to fix it: Not much that you can do here, but it’s important to have a contingency plan with partnerships and negotiate worst case scenarios and retainers into the deal so you’re not walking away with a complete financial loss.

If your product faces operational or adoption issues when launched, you’ve likely encountered one of these major bottlenecks, and it may be time to hire a go-to-market owner or Product Marketer to own and manage all of these efforts for ensuring that this product reached the market successfully.

If you have minimal time to create a robust strategy, the two minute go-to-market plan is a basic framework that you can use to cover a majority of your bases prior to launch.

Success goes to the prepared. Or the lucky. But luck isn’t scalable.

For anyone interested in learning more about how to launch products successfully, please visit Operization.com, and stay in touch!