This week, founding Figma marketer Claire Butler outlines everything you need to do now to prep for your big debut.
How to Launch Your Startup Out of Stealth, from Figma’s First Marketer
Founders building in stealth know that “Are we ready to launch?” isn’t a clear-cut yes or no question. It’s more of a sliding scale. You’re likely wrangling with a ton of variables at once: When’s a good time? Can you nab that press exclusive? Which features do you absolutely need to launch with?
Claire Butler is a good person to turn to for advice here. As Figma’s first business hire, she helped the founding team emerge from stealth. But choosing the when, where and how of that launch was no easy decision.
“We launched without multiplayer, which sounds crazy, because Figma is a collaborative online tool,” she says. “But it was going to take another year to finish building it. This pushed us to just get out there without our key feature, saying multiplayer was coming and committing to that, knowing it wasn’t done.”
Butler says answering these hard questions that factor into your launch timing calculus is ultimately a great positioning exercise. Even if your product is still a ways away from being ready, she thinks it’s worthwhile to start working on your launch plan sooner rather than later. Why? Crafting your launch messaging forces you to articulate who you are and where you’re headed. “Do the prep work to launch now so you can back into the decisions you need to make about your product and vision,” she says.
On The Review, she walks us through her step-by-step guide to prepare for the big day. She shares:
- Advice for picking your launch date. Just put something on the calendar now — even if it’s so soon it makes you sweat. “There’s no way you’re going to launch and think it’s perfect. You’re not going to feel totally ready no matter what,” says Butler.
- The three core artifacts you need to force product marketing decisions. No abstract discussions of your product roadmap here. Actually draft your website copy, company announcement post and founder social post. “The worst thing you can do is get stuck in a massive brainstorming file where you’re making tables about features and benefits,” says Butler. “Even well before you’re ready, creating launch materials will force you to sharpen your positioning.”
- How to choose the right channels to share your messaging. Butler lays out detailed considerations for your distribution strategy, from navigating PR down to asking your old roommate for a repost. “You can’t just put your launch posts out there and hope for the best,” she says. “You have to pre-seed it. To this day, that’s how we treat launches at Figma. Nothing is left to chance — we plan every detail with so many people ahead of time.”
Thanks, as always, for reading and sharing!
-The Review Editors