Launch Right! Launch Now!
Michal Berman
mic@embarkonit.com
866-616-8452x4

Objective
Share my experience at launching over 60
products for companies like Firefox, Yahoo, etc
so as to get you a checklist or run through in
your minds that gives you the comfort to make
the right decision at the right time

Mic Berman
 Education
 Rotman Global MBA, Dean's List
 Schulick BAS Hon.
 Coaching, Language, Piano classes
 Family
 Born abroad
 Family international and now scattered around the
world

Mic Berman
 Experience – launching over 60 products and
Services

Translating your Mission into Desired
Outcomes

Gotta love Peter Drucker
 “There will always be, one can assume, a need
for selling. But the aim of marketing is to make
selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to
know and understand the customer so well that
the product or service sells itself” Peter Drucker

It starts and ends with the customer
 Value of customer loyalty
 Coffee machine is the wrong question – it's not
about features it's about benefits, what is the
customer looking for
 3 things to know your customer:
 Know who your customers are (be able to paint a
picture like your best friend)
 Understand what they need (not what you think,
what they actually need)
 Deliver better value than competitors (understand
who your competition is and why)

Tools you can use
 Use cases
 Agile development
 Free resources
– Sun SSE program
– SIFE, other groups
– DemoCamps
– The Web
– Your “enemies”
– User forums
– Investors willing to make small investments
(think big, go slow) and not willing to make any
at all

Launch checklist
 What am I launching? Alpha, beta, full product
 Why am I launching now? What are my
business objectives
 When will I launch? Are there outside
contextual influencers that should be
considered
 How will I launch? Do I have a marketing plan,
do I have a customer support plan

Resources
 Sketching User Experiences – Bill Buxton
 The Four Steps to the Epiphany – Steven Blank
 http://www.slideshare.net/embarkonit/product-
management-1390507

Hope that helped
 Call or ping any time
 Mic@embarkonit.com
 Micberman or michalberman (twitter and most
Messenger clients)
 Toll free 866-616-8452x4
 And almost always at StartupCamps or
DemoCamps