How do you balance speed to market with ensuring a product is truly ready for launch?

This is a classic tension for many product marketers—getting to market fast vs. shipping a truly polished solution. This is an area that requires careful collaboration with product management and other GTM teams to toe a fine line. While there’s no perfect answer, here’s how I typically tackle it:

1. Define “Minimum Viable Readiness”: Work with Product to outline the minimum acceptance criteria for a product’s first public release (e.g., performance benchmarks, stability, must-have features). At a minimum, ensure that top use cases are reliable and that major bugs or performance issues are resolved. If you can meet those must-haves without sacrificing the user experience, go for the earlier launch. If you’re missing a crucial piece—something that will really harm customer success—consider holding off.

2. Leverage Beta Testing & Limited Releases: One approach is launching the product to a small or internal audience first—a beta program or limited release can be invaluable. This helps you gather real-world feedback while mitigating risks to the brand. If everything checks out, expand the rollout. If you spot major red flags, address them before broader release. Once everything goes smoothly, you can quickly ramp up to a broader release.

3. Parallel Process to Prepare for Rapid Launch: While the product team finalizes features, Product Marketing can prepare the go-to-market strategy, messaging, and enablement behind the scenes. That way, when the product is ready, you can launch quickly. Constantly check in with Product on projected release timing—avoid last-minute surprises by staying in sync on schedules and pivoting your plan accordingly.

4. Check in with Sales and other GTM teams: Often, Sales needs to know exactly when they can start selling or talking about the new feature. If you prematurely announce to prospects, you can create confusion or frustration if the feature isn’t stable yet. A big part of “when to launch” depends on how comfortable your go-to-market teams are with the product’s reliability.

5. Weigh the Risk of Being Late vs. Under-Baked: In some markets, being late means ceding valuable ground to competitors. In others (especially with enterprise customers), shipping a buggy product can be worse. Weigh the brand/reputational risks of an early, less-complete launch against the revenue or market share risks of a later launch. These considerations should shape your final call.

6. Iterate & Communicate Post-Launch: Even after you’ve launched, treat the product as a work in progress. Collect ongoing feedback and keep an open line of communication with customers about what’s coming next. Maintaining a transparent roadmap helps you move fast initially while reassuring buyers that you’ll be improving the product over time.

• I usually think about launch readiness in a few categories:

  • Product Readiness – Is the product functional and reliable? Does it deliver on its core promise? How does the user experience and onboarding measure up?

  • Market Readiness – Do you have product-market fit? Is competitive positioning clear? Have pricing and packaging been defined? Do you know your target buyers and users?

  • GTM Readiness – Has Sales been enabled? Are CS and support teams prepped? Do you have acquisition and distribution channels in place? Have you defined KPIs and feedback loops?

• If there are concerns about product readiness, it's critical to establish clear exit criteria for GA (General Availability). This would need to be done in partnership with product management.

• Beta launches can be invaluable in bridging the gap. Identifying early adopters—whether existing customers or engaged prospects—allows you to validate readiness, drive early adoption, and reduce uncertainty.

• At a previous job at an early-stage startup, I faced a situation where we had a strong hypothesis for a new product but hadn't built it yet. Instead of waiting, we announced our intent (a quasi "product launch"), opened up a waitlist, and engaged interested prospects as design partners.

• This helped us try to quickly substantiate the market potential, refine our approach, and build momentum before the product was even built.