23 · Launch

Week 24 · 25 hours

Objective

Run a launch that actually sells a meaningful share of the run, with a plan rather than a hope.

Why it matters commercially

Launch is not a day; it’s a sequence. Brands that “launch” by posting once and waiting sell nothing. The mechanics below are unglamorous and they work.

Core concepts

The launch sequence

Phase	Timing	What happens
Build	Weeks −8 to −2	Process content, list building, sample teasers, stockist conversations
Announce	Week −2	Date, price, quantity, sizes announced. Waitlist push
Early access	Day −2 to 0	The list buys first. Honour this precisely — it’s why they joined
Launch	Day 0	Public. All assets live
Sustain	Day 1 to 30	Content continues, reviews collected, stockists announced, press follow-up
Tail	Month 2+	Restock notices, size-specific pushes, events, second-wave content

What to actually publish

You have something almost no new brand has: six months of documented process. Use it.

• The teardown photographs from Module 2
• The taped last and the flattened mean forme from Module 4
• The first sample and what was wrong with it, honestly
• The comment sheet, redacted if needed
• The factory, named, with photographs if they permit
• The cost reality, if you’re comfortable — a genuine cost breakdown is rare and gets shared
• The wear test

This material is more interesting than a lookbook, and it does the specific job a new brand needs done: establishing that you know what you’re doing.

Press and seeding

Realistic at your scale:

• Small independent publications and newsletters covering footwear, design or your local scene. They’re accessible, they reply, and their readers actually buy. Pitch with a physical sample offer, not a press release.
• Individual writers, not publications. Find who covered a comparable small brand and email them personally.
• Seeding pairs to 5–10 people whose taste is credible in your space. Not follower counts — taste. Give them the shoe, no obligation, no contract. Some will post, some won’t. The ones who do are worth more than paid placements.
• Not paid influencer campaigns. At your budget the money is better spent on inventory or better photography.

Budget 10–15 pairs of your run for seeding and press. That is a real cost — model it as such, not as free.

Paid advertising

Honestly: at a $10k total budget and 250 pairs, paid acquisition is usually the wrong call. A first-time brand’s cost per acquisition on Meta commonly exceeds the contribution margin on a single-SKU footwear product with no repeat purchase yet.

If you test it, do so with a hard cap ($300–500), a single clear objective, and stop it the moment cost per acquisition exceeds your contribution margin. Don’t learn advertising and footwear manufacturing in the same quarter.

Launch-day operations

The unsexy checklist that determines whether launch day goes well:

• Every SKU has correct inventory loaded and tested
• Test purchase completed end to end, including the confirmation email and the packing slip
• Test a return and an exchange
• Size guide live and linked from the product page
• Shipping rates and zones configured and tested for every country you’ll sell to
• Tax/VAT settings correct
• Pre-order customers’ orders fulfilled first, before public sales
• Packing station stocked: cartons, tape, cards, labels
• Auto-responses and an FAQ ready for the questions you’ll get 40 times
• Someone (you) is available all day to reply within the hour

Selling out is not the goal

The goal is a healthy sell-through at full price with happy customers, and enough cash to fund V2. Selling out in an hour at 250 pairs means you underpriced or under-produced — which is a fine problem, but don’t engineer artificial scarcity to fake it. Your scarcity is real; say the real reason.

Do this

1 · Launch plan (4h). A dated sequence, phase by phase, with the exact assets required for each and the day each goes live.

2 · Content bank (8h). Prepare the entire launch-window content set in advance — process posts, product posts, the founding story, the FAQ. Do not plan to make content during launch week; you’ll be answering emails.

3 · Press list and pitches (4h). Twenty individual writers/newsletters. Personalised emails, sample offer, sent in the announce week.

4 · Seeding list (2h). 5–10 people. Sizes collected in advance. Pairs reserved.

5 · Operational dry run (4h). The full checklist above. Actually test the return flow. Actually place a test order.

6 · FAQ and support templates (3h). Sizing, shipping times, returns, materials, restocks, “when’s the next colour.”

Deliverable. A dated launch plan; a complete pre-made content bank; twenty personalised press pitches sent; a seeding list with pairs reserved; a completed operational dry-run checklist including tested return and exchange flows; an FAQ and support templates.

Self-check

• What are the six phases of a launch sequence?
• What content do you have that almost no new brand has?
• Why seed for taste rather than follower count?
• Why is paid advertising probably wrong for you right now?
• What must be tested before launch day?

Traps

Launching without a list. If you get to Week 23 with no email list, delay the launch and spend four weeks building one. Launching to nobody wastes the drop.

Making content during launch week. You’ll be doing customer service. Bank it in advance.

Fake scarcity. Your scarcity is genuine. Manufactured urgency from a brand nobody knows reads as desperation.

No plan for the tail. 60–70% of your run sells after launch week. Plan that period as deliberately as the launch.