Three Launches That Failed, and What They Taught Me About Getting It Right
After 25 years leading healthcare launches, I’ve learned more from the ones that struggled than from the ones that worked.
Failure #1: The Perfect Product, Unready Market
I led commercialization for a product that went beyond bleeding edge. We were building for where we knew the market would go — and, honestly, where we thought it should go — and we sold precisely zero units in the first six months.
What was the product? A mobile healthcare shopping experience. In 2010.
We knew the future of consumerization in healthcare was mobile. We had the data and the internal smarts to prove it. We built a phenomenal product based on research and what we thought the market wanted.
My favorite piece of customer feedback after launch — still my favorite, fifteen years later — was:
“People will never shop for things on their cell phones.”
Hilarious now, painful then. At the time, we couldn’t understand how we saw the future so clearly and our market-leading customers didn’t.
What we missed was market development. We should have spent the time while the product was being built educating customers and identifying early adopters.
That’s why market development is now a core part of the work I do now. We help teams shape the story, build credibility, and bring the market along at the same pace they build the product.
Failure #2: The Noisy Launch, No Signal
This one was loud. We had more than a hundred media clips — not just wire pickups, but real interviews with senior leaders. There was a lot of internal hype, and the launch was called one of the most successful in the business’ history.
The problem was that as soon as we looked for momentum beyond the vanity metrics, we couldn’t find it. Once the noise faded, adoption wasn’t keeping up.
All that external activity gave us confidence, but it also hid what was really happening. Instead of stepping back to ask hard questions and really listen to the market, we told ourselves that a trained sales team could overcome almost anything.
Now, I pay close attention to what happens after the attention fades. The measure of a launch isn’t how big it sounds at the start, it’s whether traction builds once the spotlight moves on.
Failure #3: The Fragmented Team
Product had a roadmap. Sales was selling roadmaps written on napkins. Marketing was told to create the launch campaign content.
Everyone was smart and doing their best for the customer, but everyone was solving a different problem, and even had different definitions of customer.
Sales was selling to the customers they knew and needed to keep happy. Product was building for the user. Marketing was trying to widen the universe to include people who hadn’t talked to us yet.
We didn’t really see it until it was too late. About a year after launch, selling the upgrade was a slog. The messaging was all over the place, and customer segmentation had been set up as individualized plans for a total addressable market of more than 400 customers.
We didn’t trust each other and didn’t have confidence in one another’s ability to deliver. That happened because we stopped sharing the same definition of market problems and success metrics.
At Boldly Launch, we start with market understanding because I learned the hard way that making sure everyone knows who the product serves, what problem it solves, and what proof is necessary matters most.
We work to avoid the embarrassment of “your business units are showing” externally. The best launches erase internal divisions. Everyone owns adoption.
What I’ve Done With My Hard-Earned Learning
Boldly Launch exists because these lessons shouldn’t have to be learned the hard way. The work we do helps teams see the signals sooner, align faster, and build launches that keep working long after day one.