Define "Launch"

Arcade has a big week this week.

On Monday we're opening up Arcade to its first 10 customers. We're pushing a new website live, sending some emails, making some announcements, and more. It's gonna be a big week.

When starting a new project, I have the habit to use "when we launch" as a cornerstone of communication regarding timelines and goal-setting. We were using it all the time on our Zoom calls and Slack to frame some conversations.

It wasn't until we started getting into arguments about what needed to be done that we realized we never actually defined "launch". We know it means some form of "something about this is becoming public", but we never specified what the heck we're launching, what's included, what that will look like, and more.

For our team, Dan set us on the right tracks and made it clear that "launch" would be incremental. It wasn't going to be all-or-nothing like I had originally thought. For our first launch, we'll release to 10 customers. That's it. No plan to launch beyond that (just yet).

Once that definition was set, it enabled us to actually plan for this launch way better and enabled clearer communication. Now when we talk about a launch, we know exactly what that means and makes our meetings much more productive as we remain on the same page.

For every subsequent launch that we have, for Arcade and elsewhere, I'll be sure that we define launch and get on the same page.

It's one of those things that nobody tells you to do when you're building cool things with other people. It's something we had to realize, learn, and fix. But since you're reading this you don't have to worry, I gotchu. Define "launch".