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Why product launches fail, how to find success with your next startup?

I know firsthand how exciting it is to launch something new. Bringing new ideas to life not only provides personal satisfaction but also an opportunity for company growth and contributes to brand recognition.

Launch is the official introduction of a product, service or white project to the market. During these events, the product meets its customers for the first time, product-related messages are conveyed to the target audience, and users are invited to try it. This concept is important not only for initiating sales but also for increasing brand awareness and establishing initial connections with users.

Launches generally occur when the product’s development phase is complete and the product is ready for market introduction. However, the right timing isn’t just about product readiness; current economic conditions, seasonality, competitors, and target audience readiness for the product are also important factors to consider. A well-timed launch ensures rapid product adoption and maximizes the impact of the event.

The most concrete examples of the right timing are the periods when brands like Apple, Samsung, and even Xiaomi introduce their new products. I’d recommend being more careful about the dates next time; all competitors are introducing similar products around the same time.

A successful launch ensures a strong product introduction, increases brand visibility, and raises consumer awareness. It also creates opportunities to gather product feedback, identify product shortcomings, and develop marketing and sales strategies.

However, even with successful launches, some launches don’t deliver the expected success. People don’t buy, use, or show interest in the product, and the products quickly fade into obscurity, becoming forgotten and relegated to the dustbin of history as failed examples. There are lessons to be learned from these situations, but that’s the subject of another series of articles.

In today’s business and product development world, it’s crucial to understand whether people truly need the product you intend to launch before launching it. This is the first thing brands overlook: jumping straight to the product and launching without any research.

However, even research that may seem trivial and simple at first glance can be enough to understand the problems people encounter with similar products on the market, which features are important to them, and how much they’re willing to pay for the product.

Trying to design and produce products that appeal to everyone is another significant handicap for brands. Trying to appeal to everyone creates a sense of disorganization and a scattered message risks reaching everyone. Therefore, before embarking on product design, it’s crucial to determine who you want to target, understand the target audience’s habits, and determine how they intend to use the product—in other words, their expectations.

Another significant problem with product failures is a lack of clear priorities. This means the product you’re launching isn’t among consumers’ most pressing needs. The shortcoming here stems from the lack of determination of whether the product is a must-have or a nice-to-have.

To avoid this and similar problems, it would be beneficial to establish a control group, conduct surveys with users who have already used the product, and thoroughly examine how competitors’ products are being used.

The first criterion for a product to be considered successful is that it fully addresses people’s needs; this is defined as product-market fit. This is where most brands fall short with the minimum viable product (MVP).

The purpose of an MVP is to present a product in its most basic form to a group of people and gather their feedback. Some companies completely ignore this, while others unnecessarily expand the product, overdevelop it and present the product as close to being ready for release as possible. This not only increases the cost of launch but also makes it difficult to understand which features people truly appreciate.

There are multiple metrics for measuring success. Attractive figures like the number of downloads, web traffic generation, or social media likes don’t technically provide a clear understanding of whether the product truly works.

More meaningful data should also be measured and tracked, such as how long people use the product, whether they respond, whether they decide to pay for the product after a trial, and whether they recommend the product to others.

Conducting A/B testing while the product is still in its early stages, testing the product with small groups of users, monitoring user usage habits, and determining whether the product truly fits the market can help determine whether the product will be successful.

The price you set for a product isn’t just about how much it costs; it should also align with the value the customer places on it. A price that’s too low can raise questions about quality, while a price that’s too high can discourage them from trying the product. To prevent this, it’s important to understand what customers find most beneficial about the product.

Pricing a product without testing prices is another crucial point. Instead of offering the product at a single price, experimenting with different prices, creating different packages, and offering free trial or promotional purchase options can help gain valuable insights.

Perhaps the most crucial factor here is clearly explaining the value offered to the customer. A customer should clearly understand why they should buy your product.

What problem does your product solve? How much time does it save them compared to competitors’ products? How much money does it offer? Which features are better than competitors’ products?

If the answers to such questions are presented in a strong and credible manner, even the most accurate pricing may not impact the product’s sales.

Designing and producing a product is just as important as launching it correctly. This strategy, called GTM (Go-to-market), is a crucial process that directly impacts the product’s success.

One of the biggest mistakes in the GTM phase is using the wrong marketing channels. It’s essential to know where the product’s target audience is and to conduct communication and marketing activities on these channels. Otherwise, the brand’s energy, marketing budget, and marketing time devoted to the product will be wasted on the wrong channels.

Distribution infrastructure is another important issue to discuss. If you’re selling a physical product, your inventory, warehouse, packaging, and logistics processes must function flawlessly. If you’re digital, your server capacity, payment infrastructure, integration, and analytics systems must function flawlessly. The product may be perfect, but the customer must be able to access it; if they can’t, the launch will fail.

In addition to developing marketing channels and ensuring product availability, it’s also crucial for sales and support teams to understand the product thoroughly and communicate it effectively to customers. First and foremost, the product seller must understand which problems the product solves and how, which product features are important and why, and how the product differentiates itself from competitors to persuade potential customers to use it.

For these reasons, when preparing a GTM plan, the costs and returns of each channel should be calculated, and if possible, pilot tests should be conducted.

The timing of a product’s launch is as important as launching a good product. For example, during economic downturns, consumers avoid spending money with uncertain benefits. A competing brand might steal the show with a similar product before launch, and seasonal products might be introduced in the wrong season and when demand is low. Therefore, sometimes failure stems not from the product itself, but from the timing of its introduction.

It’s perfectly normal for consumers not to embrace every new product immediately. Some innovations require consumers to change their habits. Even if a product is beneficial, a consumer may remain wary of it unless they know how to use it or are accustomed to it.

Therefore, when launching a product, it’s crucial to examine the market calendar, monitor competitors’ plans, and analyze the general economic climate in which the product will be launched. If necessary, the launch size can be reduced, and a beta version can be launched with a smaller audience, reducing risk. This allows for real-world user experience to be gathered. This way, the product becomes more powerful when launched at the right time.

Another crucial factor affecting product success is accurately conveying the product’s features to customers. One of the most common mistakes in product communication is that product messages are unclear or too complex and technical for everyone to understand.

If a product message isn’t clear enough for the intended audience to read and understand in one go, people may not understand how the product will benefit them. Frankly, most people won’t give you a second chance to hear what you have to say. Therefore, simple communication language and clear, direct messaging that addresses the consumer’s needs should be the focus.

I always talk about storytelling in marketing communications, and I value it; it’s another crucial element missing from launches.

People don’t just buy a product anymore; they buy the purpose behind it and the problem it aims to solve. Narrating the gap the product fills in the customer’s life and how it provides convenience is a good marketing strategy. Creating an emotional connection with a product increases its memorability and likelihood of being recommended.

A product launch has been decided upon, and the product’s features to be highlighted are being clarified; however, different teams have different expectations for the product. For example, someone in upper management might demand that exciting but low-impact features be highlighted and prioritized, while overlooking key features that users will need most. Such prioritization-related issues prevent the product’s true value from being realized and can lead to poor performance at launch.

Good and strong communication between teams is crucial at this stage. If the teams marketing, selling and back-end operations aren’t working towards the same goal, the messages conveyed by each unit will likely be mixed, processes will be disrupted, and the integrity of ongoing marketing communications and campaign designs related to the product will be compromised.

It’s important to remember that even a small disruption during the launch period can have major consequences. Therefore, internal communication and team alignment should be prioritized, and all of these should be aligned for the success of the launch.

The final and most important item on this topic concerns resource planning and budget. When the required team for launch, the time allocated, the product to be produced, and the budget required for marketing are kept low, achieving the targeted sustainable growth of the product becomes difficult. To avoid this, it’s necessary to define responsibilities, ensure good coordination, and ensure everyone is working towards a common goal.

During product launches, teams often struggle with vanity metrics, which are superficial and easily obtained metrics that don’t provide in-depth information about the product.

Among these are prime examples: views, likes, downloads, and followers. However, to gain a detailed insight into a product’s success, more information is needed. What matters is whether these superficial metrics create a meaningful change in user behavior and, ultimately, how quickly this translates into revenue.

Another major measurement mistake is not clearly defining key performance indicators, KPIs. If a team doesn’t understand what defines a product as successful, they may be spending their energy in the wrong areas. This wastes time and can make the launch appear underperforming. Therefore, aligning every department around the same goals is critical for effective measurement.

To overcome issues related to key goals, setting a maximum of five goals before the launch will help prevent potential problems.

The percentage of users who take the first valuable step toward a product (activation rate), a user’s 30-day status, customer acquisition cost (CAC), total customer revenue (LTV), and the percentage of customers who abandon the product and never return (churn rate) are among the most commonly used metrics in this field.

Furthermore, creating dashboards that are updated daily and weekly are important methods that enable teams to take real-time action based on the situation and enable rapid strategic changes when necessary.

Compliance with legal regulations is essential, especially for products related to healthcare, finance, and businesses that require the collection and processing of personal data.

A product that fails to comply with these regulations, regardless of its quality, may not be able to enter the market; this prevents the product from reaching the end user, and penalties may be imposed.

Product compliance with regulations should be incorporated into the development process from the very beginning, and this compliance should be carefully verified at every stage. Product planning should be conducted in accordance with legal regulations, external audit mechanisms should be implemented, and product modifications should be made when necessary.

Legal regulations regarding data privacy and data protection have been established in various parts of the world. Laws such as the GDPR in Europe and the KVKK in Türkiye clearly define how user data is stored and processed. It is clear that a product that violates these rules will not only erode user trust, but also have legal and financial consequences. Even minor errors in compliance can have significant and lasting consequences for brands.

For further read…

Photo by ilgmyzin on Unsplash

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