Pass the Launch Gate Checklist

Outcome: Confirm inventory, pricing, offer quality, content, PPC budget, customer support, and review-safe workflows before sending traffic.

What to do in this lesson

Watch: start with the lesson video.
Learn: use the summary and key points to capture the operating principle.
Do: complete the action steps against one real product, SKU, campaign, supplier, or workflow.
Submit: write one action card with owner, evidence, next step, risk, status, and review date.

Watch

Hosted on Google Drive.

Lesson summary

This lesson teaches the importance of product development and planning for consistent product launches. It provides a detailed example of how to calendar and manage the product development process to launch 12 products in a year, taking into account lead times, Chinese New Year, and scaling the business over time.

Key points

Plan for 12-15 products in development to ensure you can launch 12 products in a year
Stagger product development so you are constantly ordering and launching new products
Prepare for Chinese New Year by ordering products in advance to avoid delays
As you scale, increase the number of products you have in development and order at a time
Get products ‘order ready’ so you can quickly place orders when needed

Action checklist

Create a calendar to plan your product development and launch schedule for the year
Identify the number of products you want to launch and the lead time required
Ensure you have products in development and ‘order ready’ at all times
Adjust your ordering and launch plan to account for Chinese New Year

Full transcript

Open transcript

Hello Titans, this is Justin Dyson and I just wanted to do a quick recap and also for those of you seeing this for the first time, I wanted to discuss like the importance of product development and actually putting that on the calendar and why that’s so important. So in this example, we’re going to make a few assumptions. First and foremost, we’re going to assume that we want to launch 12 products in the next 12 months and that our lead time is 90 days. This is super important. If you know the number of products that you want to come out with and you know your lead time, you can actually calendar how long it’s going to take you to develop stuff, how long it’s going to take you to Amazon and you can plan for this, right? Most of the time, we don’t plan for this and instead of launching one product a month or two, a quarter, whatever it may be, we’re like, our crap, not going to launch five at one time just to play catch up, right? That’s what I did. It’s miserable. Don’t do that. We started calendaring our basically our product development cycle and making sure that we’re constantly developing products so that we could always be launching, which is something we obviously teach in Scaler-OS. So if we assume 12 products in the next 12 months, lead time of 90 days, that means you’re launching roughly two products per month because, no, that doesn’t make sense, right? 12 products in 12 months should be one product a month. Well, that’s not true because we have this thing called lead time and then we also have to develop the product. So this means it’s going to take roughly five to six months just to develop and order and get your products to Amazon. So really, if you haven’t started anything and you don’t have anything in development, if you want 12 products this year, the first six months are just developing production and shipping the product. So this is super important and we’re going to see how this plays out. And then also too, the one thing people always seem to forget about, which doesn’t make sense because it comes every year, don’t feel bad, I forgot about it for about three years in a row. But basically, Chinese New Year is a huge factor. If you’re sourcing from China, this is a huge, huge factor and you should plant around this. Your entire order strategy, not just for new products, but also your existing products when you order those, it should revolve around the biggest hurdle you face if you source in China, which is Chinese New Year. So this is a template and there’s also an example and I want to run through the example because this is what I do in my business. It obviously wasn’t tight and branded, but it was very similar. I didn’t actually put this on a real calendar. I made something similar to this. That was actually detailed, that was skews, but I want to illustrate the point and I want you to understand how this works and why you have to be on the ball here. So again, 12 products this year, that’s our goal, our lead time is 90 days. So let’s say it’s 60 days for production, then 30 days to ship by sea, so 90 days, right? So let’s say it is January 1st. Let’s say that’s today, right? January 1st, we need to have 15 products in development if we want to come out with 12 this year. Why 15? Well, we all know that things kind of fall through realistically. If you want to come out with 12, I would do probably 15 to 20 in this slot here. We’d want about 15 to 20 products in development, meaning you’re validating the numbers, you’re getting samples, you’re making sure that these are the products you want to move forward with and they are the products you want to move forward with, right? That’s what it means at this point in product development. So we have 15 and products older ready is zero. I’ll talk about what that means in a second, products older, zero, product ship, zero, and we can obviously not launch anything because it’s all still in development. So this is important because if you have nothing in development, how could you possibly do the rest of these, right? So moving on into February. Now this is where like you have to freaking get moving, right? If you have 15 products in development, but that means they’re not quite there, you haven’t quite confirmed the samples. You’re not really sure if they’re perfect yet or they’re not ready to order, meaning you have things you need to resolve whether that’s the packaging, negotiating the price or whatever. But when we move into February, that number of products in development goes to 13. The number of products that become older ready should now be two. Now older ready means that you have done all of the planning, all the negotiation you’ve confirmed the samples, you know exactly what you’re getting from the supplier and the supplier also knows exactly what they’re doing for you. So if we’re going to launch 12 products in a year and we know I can’t even launch these first two products until June because it takes that long to produce it, get it made, and also develop that product, then we need to order or get close to ordering products in February. So between January and February and say it’s about 30 days, you need to go from 15 products in development to 13 and two of those need to be older ready, meaning you have everything ready to go. All you need to do is submit the PO and pay the deposit if you pay deposits. And again, products ordered zero, product ship zero, start launching zero. And then march rules around. And again, we’re not just sitting on our thumbs here instead of 13 products in development. We now have six. We’ve done about half of these products at this point or a little more than half of this point. Products that are older ready is seven. Now just because, and this is the key thing you have to understand, just because it’s older ready, doesn’t mean you have to order it right now. That’s actually the point. We want to get everything to order ready because when we do get ready to actually place the order, we don’t have to go and be like, oh, damn, did I make sure that I did this or are we clear on the price or whatever? No, everything’s older ready. You can burn the samples. You and the supplier both know exactly what it is that you want from that product. And then finally, march is here. We’ve had two months to develop, confirm and actually place the order for products number one and number two. And again, like I said earlier, we’re trying to launch 12 products this year because we waited until January 1st to actually start. We have to launch two products a month. So we’re always going to be ordering two products at a time until later, which I’ll get into in a bit. So six products in development, seven of those are order ready and then two are being ordered. We do the math here, six plus seven is 13 plus these two is 15. So we have started with 15. We still are tracking 15 at this point. And that’s going to be the case as we move forward. So moving on into April, and I’ve highlighted some cells here and I’ll go over that in a second. So products in development is zero. You’re done. You’ve had three months to develop products. You know the products you want. You don’t need any more time here. They should all be order ready. The remaining products should be order ready. And like I said, this means everything is ready to go. It does not mean you have to order it right now. And this is the cool part. When you’re talking to your suppliers and developing these products and they’re like, why the hell do you want so many products for me, especially if you’re working with the same supplier for all of these, which you can do in some cases. This is a great time to negotiate. This is a great time to get discounts for your products because you are literally telling your supplier of your plan, hey, I’m coming out with 12 products this year. I need your support to do this. I’m going to place all these orders from your factory. Can you help me out? All right. So it is a great negotiating point. So that being said, it’s April. What are we doing, right? So no products in development, 11 or order ready. We just ordered products three and four. So we ordered products one and two in March and April were ordering products three and four, even though we haven’t even received products one and two. Remember, this is a year-long plan. This isn’t just off the cuff reactions. We are actually planning to launch products in quick succession, in this case, to every single month. So if we’re going to do that, we have to order products every single month. And that’s what we’re doing here. Moving on into May, same thing, guys. Nine products are order ready. We’ve just ordered products five and six. We just shipped products one and two and then products three and four still in development, right? We still can’t launch anything now because it’s not the products we wanted to aren’t even here, even though we ordered them back in March. So finally, the rubber meets the road, okay? It’s June. We started product development January 1st. And in June, we can finally start launching products one and two, all right? This is why you cannot wait around until you decide, hey, I should probably launch in products. If this isn’t constantly working in the background, then you are going to constantly be behind your business that’s going to constantly not be growing the way that it should be. All right? So it’s June. We have no products in development. We have seven products order ready. We’ve just ordered products number seven and number eight. We’ve just shipped products three and four. And we are now launching products one and two, right? We obviously have training on how to launch products. And you’ve had six months or five full months, if you will, to figure out how to launch products. For those of you that are brand new, the 12 products is pretty unrealistic, but for those of you that have been selling for a year, two years, three years plus, you should absolutely have no issue getting to a point where if you place this order on March and it’s a 90 day lead time by the time it gets here, you know exactly what you’re doing for launch. You’ve had three months, okay? That is a must, right? So if you guys recall my previous training on product development as the first corpillar, you should understand that this sets the pace for growth in your business. And this is why if you’re ordering these products, you damn well better know how to launch these products when they get here or you’re in big trouble, right? So that is that is something I just want to make sure is set and understood. So congratulations, it took six months, but we are now launching our first two products that we started developing back in January. Now July, this is where things you have to really start thinking ahead. And this is where, you know, for those of you that are scaling, which this is primarily who this, this we call this presentations for, it’s those of you really trying to scale, you’ll notice in July, we freaking started over, there’s 30 products now in development. Why? Well, we just realized that if we started developing in January, we wouldn’t get anything launching until June. Well, if we wait till the next January, we’re running into the same problem. We have to start thinking ahead, that is not okay. So in July, we have 30 more products in development. Okay, now you could keep the same 15 number that you did here, right? If you just wanted to be like, okay, I’m going to be a little bit more conservative because it’s my first time through. Fine, make this 15, but in this example, this is, wasn’t my first time around. So I’m like, I know that by the time this full calendar year gets finished, I’m going to be launching three and four products a month, not two. So that being said, we’re going to make that assumption and we have 30 products now in development. We have five products left that are already, right? So we had seven here. Now we have five, we’ve just ordered products number nine and ten, products five and six have shipped. And we’re now launching products three and four. So we are freaking on the horse, we are running, right? We started launching products one and two in June, we’re launching products three and four in July. We’re obviously having to move very quickly and that’s what we want. So August, you know, it’s, I’ve still got 30 products in development here. We’re going to assume, again, you’ve gotten really good at this. You’re working with the same couple of suppliers or same supplier in my case. And these products are still in development, you can give it a month or two, right? It’s going to take some time. But same thing, everything else is still moving, even though you’ve started product development all over again. So now we’re down to three. We’ve just ordered products 11, 12, products seven, eight of shipped, products five and six have now started to launch. At this point, what you should start seeing. So if June is here and we launch products one and two, that’s one month, two months. We’re going into the third month. We should be about finished with this product launch, if not already, right? I typically plan for one to three month product launch, depending on the product, depending on the competitiveness of it. If you have products that are much more competitive, then sure, that’s going to take longer. And likewise, if you have lower competition products, then it could take, you know, just one to two months to launch product, which is typically where I sat. So that being said, I am now profiting on these products by the time August rolls around. I launched it here. I’m finishing up the launch here, maybe into August, but I should start profiting on these products here. So cash flow becomes less of an issue, all right? So that being said, things are still moving across and we’re launching products number five and six. Now September, notice we got a big jump here. We go from 30 products and development to none. Well, there’s a couple of reasons why. First of all, we only have three left that were order ready. And if this ever goes to zero, we are in trouble. So I’ve gotten good at this. My product development now goes from 30. I got everything ready to go. I’ve got a team maybe at this point. I’ve got staff dedicated to this or VA’s or whatever. Nothing in development. Now, 31 products are order ready. For those of you that have products with variations, this is actually incredibly easy to do. You know, if you’re selling things in patterns or colors, then you could literally just come up with 10 ideas, have it all developed and literally the same week, right? Just confirm the sample and you’re good to go. So this is not, don’t freak out on this. You know, if you’re completely developing a product from scratch, then yes, this is going to be much more difficult, all the more reason to plan this out, all right? But anyways, moving on, now we have 31 products that are order ready. Question number 13 and 14 have shipped. Now this is interesting because it’s August and we’ve just ordered the 12th product of our 12 products this year objective. But like I told you guys, just because you ordered the 12th one in August, it won’t even be here or start launching until three months later, because of your lead time. So that being said, are we just done? No, we always want to be launching. That is the primary point here, ABL, ABL, ABL, that’s what Andrew Erickson always says. So what we’re going to be doing, so we’re always launching. So now we’re ordering products number 13 and 14. Remember, we started product development again in July. We should be able to order that first wave here in September. And things are going to start to get real weird here in a second. So keep up with me here, right? So product shipped number nine and 10, we started launching products seven and eight. Again, we should be starting to profit on definitely the first two products and getting close to the end of our launch for these products number three and four, again, depending on your types of products that you come out with. Now, it’s October, keeping with the same cycle, nothing crazy happens here. Everything is still done with development. It’s order ready. We’ve just ordered 15 and 16. We’ve already shipped 11 and 12. And we’ve started launching products number nine and 10. And November’s where things get a little funny. So like I said, you have to start planning around this thing called Chinese New Year. And if we know that’s coming up every single year, roughly in February, January, February, there’s the weird overlap between when factories actually leave and when Chinese New Year actually is. But in this particular case, I’m preparing for Chinese New Year in November, okay? I have to. If I don’t, I will go multiple months without launching anything, which is a huge problem for me. To me, I consider that a liability because I know the biggest lever in my business is launching products. So what you’re going to see is, well, no, I don’t have anything in development. I still have 25 products that are order ready. I’m ordering four products this time. And it’s like, well, how am I going to do that? Where’s the, I don’t have the money for that. You’ve been launching products since June. It’s now in November. You should definitely have the money to start upping the ante at this point. Unless your launches are failing. If that’s the case, then you have a bigger problem in your business. However, if launches are successful, let’s play the 80, 20 rule. It’s at 80% of these are successful. You’re now casual positive on products. One, two, three, four, five and six at this point. Let’s just assume, you know, you’re getting 60K a month in revenue. Let’s say, I don’t know, 15 to 20 that is a take home profit after everything. That is money that you can start putting towards these other products. Hopefully you’re making more than 10K a month, but that’s just easy math. So again, super important. We have to prepare for Chinese New Year. We’re doubling up in November and December and you’re going to see why. So in November, we’re ordering 17, 18, 19, and 20. We’ve just shipped 13 and 14 and we just started launching 11 and 12. Now this completes our year of coming out and launching 12 products in, you know, 2021. These are obviously going to continue launching into December and that’s why we come out with them in November. It’s also, you know, before, you know, Christmas and all that stuff. Now I’m of the mind. I don’t really care when you launch products. I’ve launched products literally right around Black Friday, seven Monday. I’ve also launched them, you know, the week before Christmas. I didn’t seem to have an issue regardless. Not every category works that way. But again, be smart around this. If you know you shouldn’t launch products in November or Q4 in general for your niche, then don’t plan around that. Okay. So that being said, we’re moving on into December and it looks very similar to November. We’re ordering three additional products at this point. Now four, we’re ordering three additional products, 15 and 16 of shipped. We just started launching 15 and 14. Now this is why we do this in November and December because January comes around. Now before I move on to that bit, at this point in January, it’s been another five to six months, you would consider developing more products at this point, depending on, you know, how ahead of schedule or behind schedule you are with these. Okay. January or realistically in December, I’m planning the next year and I should know how many I want to come out with. So if you decided you want to come out with 50 products in 2022, you would, you know, add those to your list here. You obviously already have 22 in the works. You only need like another 30, right? So keep that in mind. All right. Moving on. So the reason we’re doing this here and doing this here is because it’s January, I should not order anything because if I do in my production time is 60 days, it’s going to get stuck in China in the middle of production. That is not something I really want to happen. I do not want my product sitting in China for an entire month unattended in a warehouse that has no AC, no heat. I don’t want that. And I know my, my warehouses that way yours may not be, but mine in particular is literally just an open warehouse with windows. All right. So I do not want my product sitting there. I’m not ordering in January. This is why I’m doubling up in November, December. Same thing in February. I’m not ordering then either, right? My product is still shipped and I can still launch, but I’m not going to order anything. As a result, this is going to cause a delay in product launching at some point. But again, we ordered up or we doubled up here. And there’s ways to negotiate with your suppliers to store things until let’s say January. Maybe you did want to store something that you ordered extra in November. You want to store that. You ordered extra stuff here. And then you shipped it out in January and didn’t pay for it till January, even though you ordered it, and you ordered it back in November, December, if that’s fine. Or if you want to ship it out right before Chinese New Year, again, you’re kind of gambling. But you can do that as well. So Chinese New Year, you’re not even talking to your suppliers at this point. You couldn’t develop anything if you wanted to. Products order ready are still 22 because we didn’t order anything last month. We didn’t order anything during Chinese New Year either. And products that have shipped, hopefully right before Chinese New Year is products number in 2020, we started launching products 17 and 18. Now March, this is where we kick things up, right? So if we’ve just gone an entire realistically six to nine months, like, you know, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine months of consistent launching. And we’ve got a good system in place. We got a team in place to do that. We’re not pulling our hair out. Let’s start launching more products at a time, which means we can start ordering more products at one time. So you’ll see here, now instead of ordering two products, we’re ordering three, we’re shipping three. Again, we have three to ship because we were doubling up at this point. So we can start launching products on our 19 and 20. And this continues, right? There’s nothing else to really note for the rest of the time here. But you have to be able to see and you have to be able to predict, okay, if I start development in January, I can’t launch anything till June. And I have to start preparing for the following year in July, okay? Then assuming you have 90 daily times, and it’s going to take you about two months to develop a product, right? You can’t afford to wait until January every single year, or you’re only trying to launch products in Q3 and Q4. That’s what I did for about two or three years, and it made things so much harder. And instead of launching two products a month, we’d have to launch like 10, right? At one point, we launched 17 products all at the same time. It wasn’t really on purpose. It’s just kind of how it worked out. We did that two years in a row because we didn’t launch anything during this time because I forgot Chinese New Year comes every year. Don’t do that, right? There’s so important that you understand the reason why you should calendar and figure out when to order, how many to order, or how many products to order, and when that should be expected. Now, this is obviously a very clean example. The chances of you getting every single product in the same length of time and production taking the same amount of time for every product is obviously not going to always be true. So these things will change, the dates will change. But as best as you can, you need to figure out exactly when you should order. When is it going to arrive? And most importantly, get everything order ready. If you can get everything to order ready, then you can always be able to order things now or wait, right? It doesn’t hurt you at all if you wait, right? But if you find out that you know you launched these products one and two, maybe they show up in May, right? You have stuff that’s already already great, order more, right? But if you don’t, now you’re behind, right? And we don’t ever want to be behind, we want to always be launching products. So that’s it for this example. I just want to really highlight the need and the reason for constantly coming out when new products and how to calendar those. Again, make this work for you. If you don’t want to launch a monthly and you want to do it quarterly, fine, plan for that. Note when you need to actually order based on your lead times, based on your shipping times and how everything else works. Right? And there is a template. So this was just an example, obviously, but there’s a template here that you can use. It’s blank. It covers 2021 and also 2022. Hopefully, you guys have already started in 2021. I mean, it’s March right now. So hopefully you already have things that are either in development or order ready or ordered. Right? Hopefully you already in full swing. But if not, get going. So that’s it for now, guys. Hope you enjoyed this and get to putting these things on your calendar.

Resources

Source lesson: Pre Requisites for Launch
Resources: none attached yet.

Track: 03 — Listing, Launch & Review Engine
Module: Launch Readiness