Concept
The launch
The launch is opening as an event rather than leaving a door quietly ajar: a date, a limited first batch and a reason to act now, sent to the people you have already talked to. It ends with the first paying customer, which is when an idea becomes a business.
A business that opens quietly and waits is asking every customer to be the first, and almost nobody wants to be. Guillebeau treats a launch as an event, announced in advance and opened on a set date. It does not need an audience; it needs the people you have already talked to about the problem and a message that says this is real, this is the price, this is when. The limit is not a trick: a first batch of five documents or twelve loaves is genuinely all a new business can deliver well, and saying so gives the customer permission to act. The milestone is a payment, not an agreement; until money has moved it is a plan.
A real-life example
A yoga teacher in Bodrum messages the thirty people who came to her free beach sessions in the summer: a six-week evening course starting on the first Monday of October, ten places, a fixed price, booking open until Friday. Seven book in two days. The first payment arrives on the Wednesday, and the course is a business.
How to use it
- 1Set a date and a limit for the first batch that you can genuinely deliver well.
- 2Send the launch message to the people you have already talked to, not to strangers.
- 3Deliver, then ask for the referral in the same week.