Costs
Part of How to plan a launch around attention that will not restock
Launch planning guide: six documents, written in a fixed order
Launch planning guide organized around the six short documents a launch actually needs, who reads each one, and the order in which they get written.
A launch does not need a plan. It needs six documents, none of them long, each written for a different reader, and written in an order that stops the later ones from being fiction.
Most launch failures trace back to one of them missing. The prediction was never written, so the result cannot be wrong. The refusal script was never written, so the first hard question was answered by improvisation. This guide is those six documents and the order.
What to take away
- Write them in order. Each one is only answerable once the one before it exists.
- Every document names a reader. A document with no reader is a document nobody will check against reality.
- The whole set fits on six pages. Length here is a symptom, not a virtue.
Document 1: the purpose note
One paragraph, for you, answering what this launch is for. Revenue now, a reading on demand, a reason to talk to people who would not otherwise take the call, or a deadline that forces the work to end.
Four launch purposes
Revenue launch
- What it spends
- Goodwill, once
- Audience
- Everyone who knows you
- Instrumentation
- Secondary
- Broad push
- The plan
Reading launch
- What it spends
- Nothing but reach
- Audience
- Narrow and clean
- Instrumentation
- The whole point
- Broad push
- Ruins it
Those four want different launches. A revenue launch spends the goodwill of everyone who knows you, and spends it once. A reading launch wants a narrow audience and clean instrumentation, and a broad push ruins it. Writing the purpose down is what stops the plan drifting into the launch you have seen other people do.
If the honest answer is that the launch exists because a date was announced, write that. It is a real reason and it changes what you should optimize.
Document 2: the offer sheet
Offer sheet contents
- What they get
- What it costs
- When it arrives
- What happens if they want out
People skip this document because they think they already know it. Write it anyway: putting the delivery date beside the refund terms is where the vagueness surfaces.
If you take money before the thing exists, the shipping window on this page becomes a commitment. the federal order rule sets out what you owe the buyer if you miss it: notice, consent, or a prompt refund.
Anything on this page that you would not say to someone's face at the price you are charging is a problem with the offer, not with the page. Where the offer is deliberately small, the minimum viable version still has to keep the promise at full size; only the delivery gets cut.
Document 3: the claim list
Every factual claim your launch materials make, one per line, with the evidence beside it.
Claim list rules
- One claim per line
- Evidence beside each claim
- Support before it runs
- Strike claims you cannot source
- Write qualifiers into the claim
"Saves you a day a week." "Used by twelve firms." "Cheaper than doing it in house." Each is a claim. Each needs support before it runs, not after someone asks.
The FTC holds small business advertisers to that order. You need a reasonable basis for a claim before the ad runs, not a defense assembled afterward.
Two habits make this document short. Strike any claim you cannot source in one line. And write the qualifier into the claim rather than into a footnote, because the footnote will not survive the first rewrite of the page.
Document 4: the prediction
Half a page, for you, written before anything ships, and dated.
Prediction in counts
- Reachpeople you expect to reach
- Startpeople who start the purchase path
- Finishpeople who complete the purchase
- Floornumber below which it is a negative result
Write what you expect to happen in the first week in counts rather than percentages: how many people you expect to reach, how many to start the purchase path, how many to finish. Then write the number below which you will call the launch a negative result, and what you will do in that case.
The value is not the accuracy. It is that a written prediction cannot be revised after the fact, so the result becomes readable. Without it, every outcome gets narrated as encouraging, and the reasoning that keeps an early reading honest is the same reasoning laid out in market validation.
Document 5: the ask register
A table, for whoever is doing outreach, with one row per person you will ask for something.
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|
Ask register columns
- Persona named individual
- Askone specific thing
- Lead timehow long they need
- Sentthe date you asked
- Answeryes, no, outstanding
The last two columns are the ones that matter. An ask that has not been answered is not part of the plan, and a register makes that visible in a way a task list does not. Ordering by lead time, longest first, usually moves the launch date on its own.
Document 6: the refusal script
One page, for whoever will be talking to people, listing the four or five hardest questions and the honest answer to each.
Hardest questions to script
- Too expensive compared with what
- Why should we trust you
- What if it does not work
- Who else uses it
- What happens when you go away
Too expensive compared with what. Why should we trust you. What if it does not work. Who else uses it. What happens when you go away. Each of those has an honest answer, and the answer is much better delivered from a page written calmly a week earlier than invented in the moment.
Where the honest answer is unflattering, write the unflattering version. "We have three customers and you would be the fourth" is a fine sentence, and the alternative is a claim that belongs on document three and cannot be supported. The questions worth asking about price are the mirror image of this document, aimed at them rather than at you.
The order, and why
Purpose fixes what the launch is for. The offer sheet cannot be written until the purpose is fixed, because a reading launch and a revenue launch price differently. The claim list is extracted from the offer sheet.
The prediction depends on the claims, since it is a bet on how they land. The ask register depends on the prediction, because who you ask follows from how many people you need. The refusal script comes last, once you know what you are actually saying.
Written in any other order, the earlier documents get retrofitted to the later ones, which is how a plan ends up describing what already happened. The pillar on launch planning covers the sequencing of the launch itself; these six are what exists on paper before that sequence starts.
Common questions
Is six documents too much for a small launch?
The set scales down, not away. For a one-person launch to a list of forty, each document is a few lines, and the prediction still has to be written before the send.
Who signs off on the claim list?
Somebody other than the person who wrote the marketing. A second reader catches the claim that felt like a description to the writer and reads as a promise to a buyer.
What if the prediction is embarrassing to write?
That is the strongest argument for writing it. A number you are reluctant to commit to on paper is one you do not actually believe, and the launch plan is currently resting on it.
Should the refusal script be shared with the whole team?
Yes, and it should be the same script. Two people giving different honest answers to the same objection is worse than either answer alone.
Do these replace the launch checklist?
No. A checklist tracks whether things are done. These six say what the launch is, what it claims, and what would count as it having failed, and no checklist answers that.
