Why Startups Should Launch Quietly

Save the big announcements for big deals

If you want to give your new business a decent shot at success, you need to build traction — clear, measurable evidence that people are interested in what your company is offering. And that won’t happen on Day One.

So why do startups make big, splashy announcements the day they launch? Because that’s the way it’s been done for ages. But that strategy can actually do more harm than good.

When no one knows who you are or what you do, you need to buck conventional wisdom and launch quietly, without fanfare. It took me almost 20 years and a dozen startups to figure out that my launch problem wasn’t that I was doing publicity wrong; my launch problem was I shouldn’t have been doing publicity at all. Not yet anyway.

Now that I see all the issues that come with a big, splashy Day One Launch — whether it’s a new company, a new product, a new project, or a new feature — I can’t unsee them.

Here’s what those issues are and how to avoid them.

The misguided notion of pre-release publicity

Here’s the truth about how pre-release publicity works:

• Startup writes a press release announcing their formation or product launch and…