Launch based on the size of the bet, not the size of your ambition. Most features deserve a silent or soft launch. Save the big-bang for genuinely new products or major pivots. Linear's principle: launch early, launch often, launch multiple times.
Launch Tiers
Tier 1: Silent Launch
Ship it, turn it on, see what happens. No announcement.
Use for: Bug fixes, minor improvements, internal tools, infrastructure changes, experiments.
Checklist:
- Feature is behind a flag or gradually rolled out
- Monitoring/alerting is in place
- Rollback plan exists
- One person is on point to watch metrics for 24 hours
Tier 2: Soft Launch
Ship it, tell existing users, collect feedback before going wide.
Use for: New features for existing users, significant UX changes, pricing changes, beta programs.
Checklist:
- Changelog entry or in-app notification written
- Help docs updated (or created)
- Support team briefed with FAQ
- Feedback collection mechanism in place (survey, feedback button, Slack channel)
- Known limitations documented
- Rollback plan exists
- 1-2 week feedback period before going wide
Example: Launching real-time collaboration — Changelog: "Edit together, see cursors live." Support FAQ covers latency expectations and max concurrent editors. Roll out to 20% of teams for 3 days via feature flag, then 100%. Rollback: disable WebSocket sync, fall back to polling. Feedback widget live for 2 weeks. Success metric: % of teams with 2+ simultaneous editors.
Tier 3: Big-Bang Launch
Coordinated, public, designed for maximum reach. Expensive in time and attention.
Use for: New product launch, major pivot, rebrand, entering a new market. Maximum 2-3 per year.
Checklist:
*Product*
- Feature complete and tested at scale
- Onboarding flow tested with 5+ new users
- Performance benchmarked under expected load
*Content*
- Landing page or product page live
- Blog post / announcement written
- Demo video or screenshots prepared
- Social posts drafted for launch day and day +1, +3, +7
*Distribution*
- Email to existing users scheduled
- Social media posts queued
- Community posts drafted (relevant subreddits, Slack groups, Discord)
- Product Hunt launch prepared (if applicable)
- Influencer/partner outreach done 1 week before
*Support*
- Support team briefed and staffed for launch day
- FAQ and known issues documented
- Escalation path defined
*Measurement*
- Success metrics defined before launch (not after)
- Analytics tracking verified
- Daily review scheduled for first week
Post-Launch
Regardless of tier:
- Day 1: Watch metrics. Fix anything broken. Respond to all feedback.
- Day 3: First retro — what's working, what's not, what surprised you.
- Week 1: Decide whether to iterate, expand, or pull back.
- Week 2-4: Write up learnings. Update the roadmap based on real data.
Guidelines
- CRITICAL: Default to Tier 1 or 2. Upgrade to Tier 3 only with strong justification. Over-launching creates announcement fatigue.
- NEVER launch without a rollback plan. If you can't revert, you're not ready.
- ALWAYS define success metrics BEFORE launch, not after. Post-hoc metrics are just storytelling.
- NEVER launch on a Friday. Launch Monday-Wednesday to have the week for monitoring and iteration.
- ALWAYS have one person on point for the first 24 hours. Launches without owners drift.
- NEVER do a big-bang launch for features with known bugs. Soft launch first, fix, then go wide.
*Built on Linear's "launch multiple times" philosophy. Skills from productskills.*