Product Launch Strategy Playbook: 30/60/90-Day ARISE GTM Framework

For B2B SaaS & Agentic AI Startups

Launching a new B2B SaaS or agentic AI product is both exhilarating and daunting. You have a great product, VC backing, and a small but mighty team, and now you need a go-to-market plan that delivers results fast.

This playbook provides a clear, step-by-step product launch strategy grounded in the ARISE GTM methodology and Paul Sullivan’s Go-To-Market Uncovered principles. It’s designed for immediate implementation (copy and paste it into Notion or export as a PDF) and optimised for product launch GTM success.

We’ll cover a detailed 30/60/90 day launch plan, founder-led sales tips, product marketing strategy, website/SEO tactics (for both traditional and AI-driven search), customer research loops, and real-world case studies. Let’s ARISE and conquer your market!

ARISE GTM Framework Overview (Assess, Research, Ideate, Strategise, Execute)

First, a quick primer on ARISE. ARISE is an acronym for Assess, Research, Ideate, Strategise, Execute – the five steps of a fast and comprehensive go-to-market (GTM) methodology. It’s built to rapidly turn your GTM into a revenue engine by focusing on the right things at the right time. In essence, ARISE guides you to:

• Assess where you stand (honestly evaluate your product, team, and market situation).

• Research your customers, competitors, and options (ground your plan in data and insights).

• Ideate and refine your positioning, messaging, and tactics (creative strategy design).

• Strategise a focused plan with goals, timelines, and resources (the GTM action plan).

• Execute the plan with tight feedback loops and adjustments (launch, learn, iterate).

Paul Sullivan’s Go-To-Market Uncovered framework emphasises that a successful GTM rests on answering three fundamental questions for your business:

• (1) How will we convey our product’s value to customers?
• (2) How will we enable customers to buy?
• (3) How will we onboard, retain, and expand those customers?

These map neatly to the ARISE stages and ensure you cover the eight key pillars of GTM strategy.  From initial discovery and segmentation to marketing tactics, sales enablement, and customer success. Keep these questions and pillars in mind as a compass throughout the 90-day launch journey.

How to use this playbook: We’ve structured the next sections as a 90-day launch timeline divided into three phases (30/60/90 days), aligned with ARISE. Each phase outlines goals and tasks across product marketing, sales, website/SEO, and customer feedback. You’ll also find pro-tips, founder lessons, and case study examples to illustrate how real startups pulled off their launches. Let’s dive in!

Phase 1: Days 1–30 – Assess & Research (Laying the Foundation)

Goal: In the first 30 days, get your house in order. This is the pre-launch phase where you assess your current state and conduct deep customer and market research. Think of it as prepping the battlefield before charging in. Skipping this work is like skipping leg day, tempting, but ultimately a bad idea for long-term strength.

Assess Your Starting Point (Business & Product Audit)

Begin with a brutally honest assessment of where your product and business stand today. Take a 360° snapshot of your internal and external landscape. Key tasks in this stage:

• Audit your product readiness and value: What pain point does your product truly solve, and how do you know? List your product’s core features and the unique value proposition as you currently understand it. Identify any gaps in must-have features for launch (if you’re missing something critical that surfaced in beta tests, plan a fix now).

• Review existing content and channels: Evaluate your website, pitch decks, demo scripts, one-pagers, social media presence, and any assets you have. Are they conveying a clear message? Check performance analytics if available (e.g. website traffic, conversion rates). This content audit helps spot what needs updating or creating.

• Assess team skills and tools: For a small founding team, people wear many hats. Identify your team’s strengths and weaknesses in GTM execution. Do you have someone who can handle digital marketing? Who will own sales outreach (likely you, the founder)? Also audit your tech stack: CRM, analytics, email automation, customer support tools, etc. Ensure you have at least a basic CRM in place (even a free HubSpot or Airtable) to track leads and customer interactions from day 1.

• Set initial KPIs and goals: Before the full plan is set, define what short-term success looks like. For example, by day 90, you might aim for X customer sign-ups or pilot contracts, Y website visitors, Z product activations, or a specific ARR booked. Make these rough goals so you can measure progress once you start executing. (We’ll refine metrics during Strategise, but start thinking now.)

This Assess step is essentially your GTM discovery phase (pillar 1 of the eight GTM pillars). It forces you to confront any elephants in the room (e.g. a missing feature, or no defined target customer) before you’re in front of customers. Document your findings, you’re creating a baseline to measure against once you launch.

As Paul Sullivan advises, “review your situation thoroughly and understand the factors currently impeding your success”. It may not be the sexiest part of a product launch strategy, but it’s absolutely critical.

Cheeky tip: Treat this like a pre-flight checklist. You’re the pilot of this launch, better to discover a loose bolt on the ground than when you’re airborne. Be honest, be thorough, and fix what you can now.

Get to Know Your Customer (Market & User Research)

With a clear picture of your internal state, shift focus outward. The remainder of Days 1–30 should be spent in Research mode, deeply understanding your target customers, market dynamics, and competitors. This research will fuel everything from your messaging to your sales strategy. Key activities include:

• Define your ICP, personas, and segmentation: Who exactly are you building this product for? Get specific. Identify your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), e.g. “VP of Operations at Series A/B fintech companies with 10–50 employees, who need to automate customer onboarding with AI.”

  Within that, define key buyer personas (e.g. economic buyer vs. technical user) and segment the market if needed (by industry, company size, etc.). Use the Jobs-to-Be-Done framework to articulate what job each persona hires your product for (pillar 2 of GTM: Personas, Segmentation, JTBD). This will sharpen your marketing and sales focus.

• Customer discovery interviews: If you haven’t already, talk to real potential customers,  and listen more than you talk. Aim for at least 7–10 interviews with people in your target market (mix of friendly contacts and cold outreach). These are not sales calls (yet); they are “expert interviews” to learn pains, workflows, priorities, and how your solution might fit.

  Ask open-ended questions: “How do you currently [solve problem]?”, “What’s your biggest headache with that process?”, “How do you decide on new solutions?” etc. The goal is to validate assumptions and gather voice-of-customer insights.

  Bonus: these conversations warm up relationships with early prospects (some will become your first users). As one founder notes, people love to share their expertise – use that as an entry point.

• Competitive analysis and market research: Identify your key competitors or alternative solutions that your target customers use. Do a SWOT analysis and map out how you differentiate. Investigate competitor pricing, messaging, and go-to-market approach. Also, research industry trends, market size, and any regulatory or tech trends (for agentic AI, for instance, note the rapid advancements in AI agent capabilities and growing enterprise interest in AI automation).

  By the end of this, you should understand where you fit in the landscape and what your strategic angle is. In Paul Sullivan’s words, “understanding how you fit into today’s market will significantly affect your pivot with a new GTM”.

• Continuous discovery mindset: Founder-led research shouldn’t stop after 10 interviews. Set up ongoing channels for customer feedback even in this early phase. For example, start a waitlist signup with a short survey (“What made you interested in our product?”) or create a community Slack/Discord for early adopters.

  This begins your continuous feedback loop before the product is even widely available. As we’ll see later, customer feedback will be the epicentre of your launch approach (just ask Slack’s founder).

By Day 30, you should have a validated picture of your target customer and their pain points, plus intel on how to position against competitors. You’ve essentially completed the Research step of ARISE and probably generated a few new product or marketing ideas in the process. (Great! Jot those down for the Ideate phase.)

Deliverables by Day 30: An internal brief or slide deck capturing your ICP & personas, top 3-5 customer pain points (with quotes from interviews), key market/competitor insights, and a SWOT analysis. This is your GTM foundation. With this in hand, you’re ready to start crafting your attack plan in Phase 2.

Founder pro-tip: In early-stage startups, the founder/CEO should actively lead or at least participate in this research. It’s a goldmine for insight and builds your sales muscle in a low-stakes way. In fact, embracing this outreach now will make actual selling easier later.

As First Round Capital’s Meka Asonye notes, technical founders often hide behind the code and delay engaging with prospects. 

Don’t fall into that trap.

Early customer conversations before the product is fully ready can feel uncomfortable, but they give you unfiltered feedback (“your baby is ugly” moments included) that will sharpen your approach.

Better to hear it early than after you’ve blown through your marketing budget.

Phase 2: Days 31–60 – Ideate & Strategise (GTM Strategy and Plan)

Goal: In the 31–60 day window, synthesise everything learned in Phase 1 to create a rock-solid go-to-market strategy and launch plan. This is where you turn insights into action: nail down your messaging, get your product marketing assets ready, craft your sales approach, and plan your launch campaigns.

By the end of Phase 2, you should have a clear 90-day GTM roadmap (covering what will happen in Phase 3) and be fully “locked and loaded” to execute.

Think of Phase 2 as drawing up the blueprints (strategy) before you start hammering nails (execution). The ARISE steps here are Ideate (brainstorm and iterate on your positioning/tactics) and Strategise (formally mapping out the plan). Let’s break it down:

Refine Positioning, Messaging, and Pricing (Product Marketing Strategy)

Your product marketing strategy is the heart of your launch plan – it dictates how you will convey the value of your product to the market. Now that you have fresh research, it’s time to craft a compelling story and offer. Key tasks:

• Clarify your value proposition and positioning: Using the insights from customer research, articulate the core value prop of your product in one or two sentences.

  What urgent problem do you solve, and what benefit (outcome) will the customer get? Make it specific and outcome-oriented (e.g. “Reduce IT support tickets by 40% through an AI agent that resolves routine requests autonomously”). Ensure this resonates with the pains/gains you heard in interviews.

  Then position your product in the landscape. What category are you in (or creating), and how are you different from the status quo or competitors? Your positioning should highlight your unique strengths, whether it’s a technology advantage, a niche focus, a superior user experience, or a pricing disruptor.

  This is the Ideate work Sullivan refers to: “checking your positioning, value proposition, storytelling, messaging and rebuilding it all together”. Don’t be afraid to iterate on a few versions and run them by friendly customers or advisors for feedback.

• Develop key messaging and storyline: Expand your positioning into a simple messaging framework. This typically includes: headline/message (the one-liner value prop), supporting points (the 2-3 big benefits or use cases), and proof points (e.g. beta results or industry stats backing your claims).

  Also, craft a short narrative arc: what’s the “story” of why this product matters? (For example, “In an era of AI-driven automation, Ops teams are drowning in manual tasks. Our agentic AI platform is the trusty sidekick that automates those tasks, so teams can focus on strategic work.”)

  Keep the tone and wording aligned with your brand, for ARISE, that means strategic yet human. A slightly cheeky tone can make your messaging more memorable, but make sure it remains credible.

• Set your pricing and packaging: Pricing is often part of product marketing. Decide on your launch pricing model, free trial or freemium vs. paid only, subscription tiers, usage-based, etc. For B2B SaaS, a common approach is tiered pricing (e.g. Basic/Pro/Enterprise) or a pilot pricing for early customers.

  Use your research:

  • what pricing did competitors have?

  • What budget did prospects mention or imply?

  Price to sell and learn, not to maximise revenue out of the gate. You can even offer beta pricing or discounts for first customers as an incentive. Just be transparent that pricing may evolve as you learn. Nail down how you’ll handle quotes, billing, and any contract terms now, so it’s not a scramble when a customer says “yes”. (Pillar 4 of GTM is Pricing Strategy, give it proper attention during planning.)

• Create essential marketing assets: With messaging set, ensure you have the collateral to communicate it. By day 60, you’ll want: an updated website (more on that soon), a pitch deck or sales demo deck, a one-page product overview PDF, and maybe a short explainer video or demo recording.

  Additionally, prepare content for launch announcements (press release draft, Product Hunt listing if relevant, blog post, social media posts). If resources are tight, prioritise assets that help you personally sell (deck, one-pager) and that make your website convert well (clear landing page, maybe a demo video embed or FAQ).

Outcome of this sub-phase: A clear value prop and messaging that will be used consistently across the website, sales, and marketing materials. In other words, you’ve defined how to convey the value of your product to your end user or buyer, which answers Question One of the GTM fundamentals. Your product launch strategy now has a sharp story that will cut through the noise.

Expert tip: At this point, it’s wise to run your messaging past a few target customers (or friendly contacts in the industry) to check its sanity. A quick coffee chat or email asking, “Does this value proposition make sense to you? Would this get you excited?” can validate whether you’re on the right track. It’s much better to find out now if your pitch doesn’t land than to launch with messaging that confuses people.

Map Out Your Sales Strategy: Founder-Led & Ready to Hustle

For early-stage B2B startups, founder-led sales is usually the name of the game. As the founder, you are likely the best salesperson for now. You have the passion, the product knowledge, and the ability to iterate quickly on the pitch. Phase 2 is the time to design your approach to selling and plan how you’ll execute it once you launch (and yes, it should start on Day 61, if not earlier!). Here’s how to prep:

• Identify your target accounts or early adopters: Based on your ICP, build a list of initial targets. These could be specific companies or customers who showed interest during research. Aim for a manageable list, for example, your “Dream 20” prospects those who perfectly fit your ideal profile and would make great flagship customers. Also include any low-hanging fruit leads (inbound requests, personal network connections who expressed interest). This list is your starting pipeline for founder-led outreach.

• Plan your outreach and sales process: Decide how you will approach these early prospects. Common tactics in a founder-led sales playbook:

  • Warm intros where possible: Leverage your investors, advisors, and friends to introduce you to decision-makers at target accounts. As one founder noted, 95% of their early calls came via warm intros. Draft a short blurb others can forward on your behalf to make it easy.

  • “Problem discovery” meetings: Your first meeting with big fish prospects can be framed not as a sales demo, but as an exploration of their needs (similar to your expert interviews. This takes pressure off and often yields candid insight. You’re still selling, but subtly, by deeply understanding the prospect and then mapping your solution to their problems.

  • Quick demos or pilots: Be ready to give a live demo or set up a trial quickly for interested leads. Founders excel at impromptu demos because you know the product inside out. Don’t worry if it’s not perfectly scripted; authenticity and adaptability are your advantage.

  • Follow-up cadence: Plan a simple follow-up schedule for any interested prospects (e.g. send a proposal or custom slide deck within a week, check back in 2 weeks, etc.). Also, plan how you’ll handle objections or requests (like feature X isn’t there yet,  can you promise it on the roadmap?). Early sales are often about selling the vision as much as the current product, but be careful to stay credible and deliver on any promises.

• Prepare sales enablement materials: Even if you, as the founder, are the main “sales rep”, treat yourself like a sales team of one that needs tools. Ensure you have a solid demo environment or trial setup, seed it with realistic data if needed to show value.

  Write a simple sales playbook for yourself and any team members helping. This could be a one-page flow of how an inbound lead is handled vs. an outbound cold email, what to highlight on calls, and common FAQs with answers. 

  As Qwilr’s guide notes, founders often excel at the middle of the sales conversation, the consultative part, so they have what they need to handle the start (initial email) and end (proposal/contract).

  If you plan to offer a free trial, define the trial length and what constitutes a conversion. If it’s a direct sale, outline your pilot terms, e.g. 3-month pilot at $X, then annual contract if successful.

  This might seem like overkill, but having a repeatable mini-process helps you treat every lead consistently and professionally. You’re laying the groundwork for future sales hires.

  As an aside, Paul Sullivan highlights that aligning sales enablement is a key pillar of GTM, so even in founder-led mode, think about what enables buyers to buy smoothly.

• Set sales targets and track them: Establish a simple spreadsheet or use your CRM to track outreach. For example, commit to yourself that in the first 30 days post-launch, you will personally reach out to 50 prospects, book 15 meetings, and aim to close 5 customers. Having targets focuses your efforts. As you progress, note conversion rates and learnings. This is the start of your sales funnel metrics.

By the end of Phase 2, you, as the founder, should feel ready to sell. You know whom you’ll contact on Day 61, what you’ll say, and you have the tools (deck, demo, emails) to do it.

Embrace this role.  Early revenue is the lifeblood of a VC-backed startup, and founder-led sales is critical to reach product-market fit and beyond. In fact, a common rule of thumb is that the founder should personally close the first 10 customers before even considering a full-time sales hire. Those early deals will teach you volumes about how to scale sales later.

Pro-tip: Mix big and small fish. Don’t be afraid to cast for a whale early on. You might be surprised. Some founders hesitate to pitch large customers when the product is new, but one founder’s experience shows the opposite: her first conversation (even pre-seed funding) was with a Chief Medical Officer at a huge company, framed as a learning chat, which later opened doors.

Even if you don’t close the “whale” now, you gain a champion and serious feedback. At the same time, also pursue smaller, more eager customers who can onboard faster. This dual approach ensures you get both quality insights from demanding big players and quick wins from agile, smaller clients.

Prepare Your Website and SEO (Don’t Forget AI-Driven Search)

Your website is your digital storefront and often the first impression for prospects who hear about you. In Phase 2, invest time to ensure your website is polished, on-message, and optimised for search,  both traditional SEO and the emerging world of AI-driven search results. Here’s the web/SEO game plan:

• Messaging-led redesign/update: Update your website copy to reflect the refined messaging from above. The home page should communicate your value prop in the headline and lead with benefits, not just features. Make sure it’s immediately clear who your product is for and what problem it solves.

  Consider adding a tagline that speaks to your target industry or use case (e.g., “AI-Powered Customer Onboarding for Fintech Teams”, which is niche and clear). Use the language your customers use (words gleaned from interviews).

  If you have a cheeky brand voice, you can inject some personality, just don’t let cleverness muddle the clarity of what you do. Every additional page (Features, Pricing, About, etc.) should be consistent in messaging and drive the visitor toward a call-to-action (CTA), typically to sign up, start a trial, or request a demo.

  Pro tip: Include an FAQ section addressing common questions or objections; this not only helps visitors but can boost SEO for question-based queries.

• Optimise for conversions: Good website design isn’t just about looks, it’s about guiding the user to take action. Follow basic conversion rate optimisation best practices. Clear CTAs (e.g. “Book a Demo” button in the header), easy navigation, responsive design (many will visit on mobile), and fast load times. If your product has a self-serve signup or trial, highlight it prominently (“Get Started for Free”).

  If it’s high-touch sales, then your goal is to get demo requests, ensure your contact forms work, and consider a Calendly link to let interested folks book a call instantly. Also, set up basic analytics (Google Analytics or similar) so you can track site traffic and conversions once you launch campaigns.

• Traditional SEO basics: Identify the keywords your target buyers might search when looking for solutions like yours, for example, “AI operations automation tool” or “product launch strategy for [their need]”.

  Incorporate relevant keywords naturally into your site copy, page titles, and meta descriptions. Create a few foundational content pieces (blog articles or guides) around those terms. For instance, publish a high-quality blog post addressing a problem your audience has,  something like “How to Solve [Pain Point] with AI”, which subtly introduces your solution.

  This content can start ranking in Google over time and also gives you material to share during launch. Submit your site to Google Search Console and ensure you have an XML sitemap so Google indexes your pages. While SEO is a longer-term play, you likely won’t rank overnight, setting it up now pays dividends later. And if you have any existing domain authority,  from a pre-launch landing page or personal blog, leverage that by hosting content there.

• Plan for AI-driven search: SEO isn’t just for the Google of yesterday. Increasingly, people find answers via AI assistants (like asking ChatGPT/Bing or using voice assistants). To optimise for AI-driven search results, focus on structured, authoritative content. Large language models tend to scrape and synthesise information, so ensure your site’s content is factual, clearly written, and even structured in Q&A format for common questions (LLMS love FAQS!). 

• Use semantic HTML (proper headings, lists, schema markup for things like FAQs) so AI can parse your content easily. Do not block AI crawlers on your site. Allow Bing, Google, etc. to access your pages. The goal is that when someone asks an AI, “What’s the best solution for X?”, the AI might “choose” content from your site as part of the answer.

  In 2025, AI search engines often feature summary answers with links, for example, Google’s AI Overviews now appear in 40% of searches. To get in those summaries, your content needs to be high-quality and relevant. Additionally, consider creating thought leadership content (blog posts, whitepapers) that establishes your brand as an authority. AI models are more likely to trust and quote authoritative sources.

  As one SEO expert notes, “In 2025 and beyond, AI agents won’t just passively suggest information, they’ll actively make decisions on behalf of people,” so your content must be recognised and trusted by AI models. In practice, this means writing for user intent and clarity,  which tends to align with what AI looks for, too.

• Technical SEO and schema: Ensure your website is technically sound: secure (HTTPS), mobile-friendly, and without broken links. Implement schema markup for things like Organisation info, Product details, FAQs, etc., to make your site machine-readable. This can increase the chances of appearing in rich results or being readily ingested by AI. It’s a one-time setup during the site build that can help in a big way.

By Day 60, your website should be launch-ready, think of it as your 24/7 salesman that’s always prepared to pitch. It will support your marketing campaigns and be a destination for all the interest you’ll generate in Phase 3.

Quick win: If you had a pre-launch landing page collecting emails, prepare a nice “We’re live!” email to send to that list at launch. That’s low-hanging fruit for initial traction. Even if it’s a small list, those folks showed early interest, turn them into your first users or evangelists.

Plan Your Marketing Campaigns and Launch Sequence

The last part of Phase 2 is to line up all your marketing dominoes so you can knock them down in Phase 3. This includes any launch “event” (if you’re doing one) and ongoing demand gen campaigns. For a startup launch, you might not have a big PR agency or huge budget, but you can still create buzz with smart tactics. Here’s how to approach it:

• Decide on a launch type: Will you do a soft launch (quietly go live, focus on direct sales) or a public launch (press, Product Hunt, social media push, etc.)? For many B2B startups, a tiered launch works well.

  Start with a soft launch to a small group of design partners or beta users (maybe that happened even before Day 0), then a bigger public announcement once you have a couple of happy customers or case studies.

  Given we’re writing a 90-day plan, let’s assume Day 60-65 might be your official public launch announcement. Mark that on the calendar. Around that, orchestrate the pieces:

  • Press release / media outreach: If you have notable funding or a high-profile founder, the tech press might bite. Draft a press release and prepare a media kit (with product screenshots, founder bio, etc.). Reach out to any journalist contacts or use platforms like PR Newswire to distribute on launch day. If news coverage isn’t likely, don’t stress, you can still leverage your own channels.

  • Product Hunt or community launch: If your product is relevant to the Product Hunt crowd (tech and startup enthusiasts), consider a Product Hunt launch. Research how to do it effectively (timing, getting supporters, etc.). Alternatively or additionally, post an introduction on relevant communities (e.g. a subreddit, Hacker News, or niche forums in your industry).

    The key is to go where your target users hang out. For an AI developer tool, that might be dev forums or LinkedIn groups; for a fintech B2B product, maybe a well-placed LinkedIn post with the right hashtags and tagging some influencers. Plan these posts ahead of time, including any visuals or videos.

  • Email marketing: Use that pre-launch list as mentioned. Also, prepare a launch announcement email to any general newsletter list you have. If you don’t have one, consider that every person you met or spoke with in Phase 1 could get a friendly personal email at launch: “Hey, you gave us feedback early on, just wanted to let you know we’re live now! Thanks for your support.” That personal touch can turn early well-wishers into customers.

  • Paid marketing (if budget allows): As a VC-backed startup, you might allocate some budget to kickstart traction. Phase 2 is the time to decide if you will run ads (Google Ads, LinkedIn ads, etc.) and get those set up. For instance, you might run a small LinkedIn campaign targeting your ICP with a launch offer or run Google search ads on key keywords. Keep budgets tight until you validate what works, maybe a few thousand dollars tops in the first month, just to gather data.  

    Remember Jasper’s example.  They weren’t afraid to spend on Facebook ads early to dominate their category, but they also had validated the demand first. If you have strong conviction and data, strategic ad spend can accelerate your lead generation.

  • Influencer or partner outreach: Identify any industry influencers or potential channel partners and plan to inform them at launch. This might mean giving some friendly experts early access in exchange for a testimonial or quote,  or arranging a webinar with a partner organisation as part of your launch month. These relationships often take time, so start conversations in Phase 2.

    Even a single tweet or LinkedIn share from a respected voice in your space on launch day can provide a nice bump. Jasper’s early strategy involved an affiliate community of influencers to amplify reach, which helped prospects trust the new tech.

  • Events or webinars: In the first week of launch, consider hosting a launch webinar or demo day for interested sign-ups. Live interaction can convert those sitting on the fence. If an in-person event makes sense (or you’re at a conference around launch time), take advantage by announcing there or holding a meetup.

• Set marketing KPIs: Just as you set sales targets, define what success looks like in marketing terms for the launch period. For instance, X website visits in the first month, Y sign-ups or demo requests, Z conversions from Product Hunt, etc. Also, set up the means to measure these, consider UTM codes on links, or monitoring tools.

By the end of Phase 2, you should have a detailed launch calendar for days 61–90, covering each channel and tactic: e.g. Day 61 press release + emails out, Day 62 Product Hunt, Week 2 webinar, ongoing weekly content marketing, etc.

You also have your sales pipeline ready to work. This strategic planning ensures that when Day 61 hits, you’re not wondering “hmm, what should we do now?”, you’ll be executing a well-thought-out plan.

Cheeky analogy: Think of Phase 2 like assembling a rocket and plotting the trajectory. Your research from Phase 1 is the fuel, and now you’ve built the rocket (strategy, assets, site, plan). All systems are go. In Phase 3, it’s countdown and liftoff.

Phase 3: Days 61–90, Execute, Launch, and Iterate (Ready for Liftoff)

Goal: It’s showtime! Phase 3 is all about execution.  Launching the product to the world, actively selling to customers, and kicking off marketing campaigns. But equally important, it’s about listening and iterating in real-time.

No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy, as they say, so expect to learn and adjust quickly based on feedback. By Day 90, you want not just a launched product, but a repeatable GTM motion taking shape (and hopefully a few wins on the board!).

We’ll split Phase 3 into two intertwined parts: the Launch & early customer acquisition activities, and the continuous feedback loop & iteration that should run in parallel. (In reality, you’ll be doing both from Day 61 onward.)

Launch Day and Early Customer Acquisition

Day 61 (or your chosen launch day) is LAUNCH DAY. Execute the launch announcements and marketing push as planned. This might mean sending the press release, making your Product Hunt post live, blasting social media, and fielding incoming inquiries, all in one day. It will be hectic, but exciting. A few tips for the launch and the ensuing weeks:

• Coordinate your launch communications: Make sure all your outbound messages are consistent and on-message. Double-check that your website is live and all links in your press release or posts work (few things are worse than people clicking on your site and it’s down or shows Lorem Ipsum!).

  If you have multiple team members, assign roles,  e.g., one monitors social media responses, another is ready to handle any site issues, the founder might be giving interviews or hopping on a live Product Hunt discussion.

  It’s a bit of a “war room” scenario. Celebrate the moment, but keep focused on responsiveness. Promptly reply to comments, thank people for sharing, and encourage interested users to take the next step (sign up or schedule a demo).

• Engage the influx of leads/users: With the marketing engines firing, you should start seeing traffic, sign-ups, inquiries, or demo requests. Jump on them! For a SaaS product with a self-serve trial, monitor new sign-ups and personally reach out to welcome them (yes, as the founder, it’s those personal touches that can turn a curious signup into an active user). If you see important sign-ups (like someone from a target account), consider shooting them a personal note.

  For demo requests, try to respond the same day to schedule a call, show that white-glove service out of the gate. Essentially, treat every early lead like gold. The advantage of being small is that you can give high attention to each prospect.

  This “high-touch” approach doesn’t scale forever, but in the first 30-60 days post-launch, it can significantly boost your conversion rates and leave a great impression.

• Founder-led sales in action: Now it’s time to execute that founder-led sales plan you crafted. Dedicate a significant portion of your day to outbound outreach and sales calls. Yes, amidst the launch hullabaloo, you still need to proactively chase customers,  don’t just rely on inbound.

  Stick to the target account list and start sending those emails and LinkedIn messages, referencing your brand new launch (“As of today we’re live to the public, and I’d love to personally show you how [Product] can help [solve X].”). Use snippets from any early success (e.g. “in beta, we helped [Client] achieve Y”).

  Remember the tactics: leverage warm intros first, but also do some pure cold outreach to get raw feedback. Keep your emails short and tailored. The founder's title itself often piques curiosity. Many decision-makers will take a meeting with a startup founder even if they’d ignore a sales rep.

  Use that to your advantage while you can. Aim to pack your calendar with prospect demos in these early weeks. It’s exhausting, but every conversation is learning (and potentially revenue).

• Marketing follow-through: After the “launch day” spike, continue with planned marketing activities. For instance, publish that thought leadership blog post in Week 2, host your webinar in Week 3, roll out the paid ads after the organic buzz subsides, etc. Keep the drumbeat going.

  Often, there’s an initial surge of attention,  then things dip, and that’s normal. The key is to capture and capitalise on the surge, then settle into a steady rhythm of outreach and content. 

  Make sure to track which channels are bringing in traffic or leads (e.g. did that community post drive signups? Are your Google ads yielding clicks?). Adjust allocations accordingly, e.g. if Product Hunt gave you 100 signups, maybe invest more in engaging that community further; if LinkedIn ads are costly with no signups, pause them and try a different approach. Agility is your friend.  You’re basically running growth experiments in real-time.

• Onboard and delight early customers: For those first few customers or users who convert, roll out the red carpet. If it’s a free trial user, reach out mid-trial to offer help or a one-on-one walkthrough. If it’s a paying customer, ensure their onboarding is smooth, help them configure the product, offer team training, and respond quickly to any issues.

  Early in Phase 3, you might not have a dedicated customer success person, so again,  it’s on you or a team member to provide that support. This is crucial because a happy early customer will become a case study or reference for you (which you really want by Day 90 or shortly after).

  In Sullivan’s GTM framework, this corresponds to executing your plan for onboarding and customer success (remember question three about retaining and expanding buyers).

  Even if formal customer success processes are not built yet, do it manually, check in frequently and ensure value is being delivered. The insight you get here will inform how you formalise customer success later.

The first 30 days of execution (Days 61-90) will be an intense mix of marketing pushes, sales hustling, and customer onboarding. You’ll likely be juggling a lot, one hour you’re fixing a typo on the website, the next you’re pitching to a Fortune 500 prospect, the next you’re answering support tickets from a new user.

Stay focused on the goals and time-manage ruthlessly. If possible, divide and conquer as a team (e.g. one founder handles most sales calls while another handles product support). Keep a daily stand-up to quickly sync on who needs help where.

Real-world inspiration: Jasper AI’s launch demonstrates the power of aggressive execution. Jasper entered a crowded AI market but narrowed its focus to a couple of key use cases, then blitzed the market with outreach and advertising.

The result?

They became the clear category leader in just 3 months by being everywhere their target customers looked. They spent boldly on Facebook ads and built an affiliate influencer program, recognising that in an undifferentiated market, grabbing mindshare fast was the winning move.

Now, not every startup has the budget Jasper had, but the principle stands: in launch execution, speed and presence matter. If you validated your product and messaging in earlier phases, don’t be timid in Phase 3, make sure your target market repeatedly encounters your name and value prop.

Jasper’s team knew that being the first name in the customer’s mind would de-risk the purchase for buyers (nobody gets fired for choosing the market leader).

For your startup, think about how you can create that sense that you are the one to watch in your niche, whether through content dominance, clever PR, or sheer personal outreach volume.

Listen, Learn, and Iterate (Continuous Feedback Loops)

A successful product launch isn’t a one-and-done event – it’s the beginning of an ongoing cycle of feedback and improvement. As you execute in Phase 3, make sure you’re capturing learnings and ready to iterate on all fronts: product, marketing, sales tactics, you name it. Here’s how to build continuous feedback loops into your launch:

• Collect customer feedback obsessively: Every interaction with a prospect or customer is an opportunity to learn. Have a system (even if it’s a shared Google Doc or Slack channel) to record feedback and questions. For example, note the questions prospects ask on sales calls. Are there patterns? (Maybe your messaging isn’t answering something they care about, and you can address that in your FAQ or pitch moving forward.)

  For new users, send a quick survey after onboarding or first use: “How was your experience? What confused you? What do you wish the product did?” If usage data is available (for a SaaS app, for instance), monitor it:

  • Which features are they using?

  • Where do they drop off? 

  For more qualitative feedback, hop on calls: invite a new customer to a 30-minute “feedback session” after 2 weeks. People appreciate that you value their input, and you might uncover a glaring UX issue or a brilliant idea for a new feature.

  Slack’s example is illuminating here, Stewart Butterfield credits much of Slack’s epic launch success to making customer feedback the centre of their efforts. They engaged intensely with users and continuously refined the product and experience, which in turn made customers love the product and rave about it.

  Emulate that: show customers you’re listening, and actually act on what you hear.

• Iterate on your product quickly: One advantage of being in the launch window is that expectations are a bit lower, and customers know the product is new and evolving. Use this time to push out quick improvements or fixes.

  If multiple customers complain about a particular workflow in the app, see if you can deploy a fix or tweak within days or weeks. That responsiveness will impress them and improve your product for all subsequent users. If a feature you didn’t have keeps coming up as a deal-breaker, evaluate if you can fast-track a basic version of it.

  Essentially, maintain a tight build-measure-learn loop with weekly (or even daily) deployments if your development team can handle it. This is the product side of the feedback loop that goes hand-in-hand with GTM. In the ARISE framework, you anticipate experiments and are ready to retaliate against underperformance. Now you’re doing exactly that by adjusting course swiftly.

• Refine messaging and tactics: Feedback isn’t just for product, it’s for your marketing and sales approach too. Pay attention to what parts of your message resonate and which fall flat. Maybe you find that one particular benefit is making eyes light up in every sales meeting,  double down on that in your ads and homepage.

  Or perhaps an industry you thought would love you is shrugging, while a different sector is unexpectedly keen, pivot your focus if needed (startup history is full of successful pivots discovered during GTM, so stay open-minded).

  Also, keep an eye on your funnel metrics.  If lots of people visit the site but few sign up, your landing page might need tweaking (or your offer needs to be clearer).

  If many sign up but don’t convert to paid, maybe the onboarding needs improvement, or the value realisation isn’t fast enough. Hold a quick internal retrospective at Day 75 or so: what’s working, what isn’t, and adjust your Phase 3 plan for the remaining weeks accordingly.

• Maintain team agility and communication: During these intense launch weeks, hold short daily or every-other-day team check-ins specifically about GTM progress. Share the latest wins (new customer!, great quote from a user) and losses (lead X went dark, or user Y churned after one week).

  Use these to collaboratively problem-solve. Maybe a team member who isn’t customer-facing has a great idea for an experiment to try. Keep the whole team in the loop on traction, it’s motivating and ensures everyone understands real customer needs. A culture of rapid learning and iteration will serve you well beyond the launch.

• Plan post-90-day next steps: As you approach Day 90, you’ll likely have a clearer sense of your true product-market fit status and what channels are promising. Use this to chart the course for the next quarter. Perhaps you’ll decide to raise a new round based on early traction, or hire that first sales rep because founder-led sales is working and you need more hands, or invest more in content marketing because SEO is picking up.

  The end of this 90-day launch playbook is really the start of your longer-term growth strategy. By now, you should have the foundations to scale:

  • an initial customer base,

  • a repeatable sales pitch,

  • some marketing channels that show ROI, and

  • a product that’s improving via feedback.

To wrap up Phase 3: executing a launch is a whirlwind, but the ability to adapt on the fly is what separates successful launches from duds. Keep your eyes and ears open, stay close to your customers, and treat every misstep as a lesson to make your strategy stronger. As ARISE methodology preaches, you should have already considered how to respond to various outcomes, and now you’re simply following through on that proactive mindset.

Final anecdote: In the early days of Salesforce, founder Marc Benioff was notorious for his bold (and cheeky) GTM stunts, but he also exemplified listening to the market. He staged fake protests at a competitor’s event, proclaiming “The end of software!” to position Salesforce (a cloud CRM) against traditional software.

That guerrilla marketing got attention, but Salesforce’s sustained success came from relentless execution and iteration on their product-market strategy (not to mention basically inventing SaaS as a business model).

The lesson for you isn’t to hire fake protesters (fun as that sounds), it’s to be creative and unafraid in GTM, and back it up with a product and team that quickly adapts to what the market signals.

Real-World Examples and Case Studies

Let’s anchor this playbook with a few real-world case studies of product launches (SaaS and AI) to illustrate the principles in action:

• Slack – Customer Feedback Fuels Product-Market Fit: Slack’s launch story is legendary. Without heavy marketing spend or a big sales team, Slack grew to 30,000+ teams using the product in just two years. How? The team made user feedback the centre of their launch strategy, iterating the product rapidly to fit customer needs. They started with a small group of beta users (even “begging” friends at other companies to try it) and used their input to refine Slack into an indispensable tool.

  By the time Slack publicly launched, users loved the product, evidenced by the famous “Twitter Wall of Love” full of raving tweets. Slack focused on product-led growth: ensuring those who tried it experienced “aha moments” quickly, and word-of-mouth did the rest.

  The takeaway: even if you don’t have a huge budget, obsessing over customer experience and feedback can create launch momentum that money can’t buy.

• Jasper. Blitzscaling an AI SaaS to Category Leadership: Jasper (an AI copywriting tool) entered a nascent but crowded market of GPT-3 powered apps. Jasper’s founders executed a textbook fast GTM: they identified a narrow entry point (targeting marketing copy for ads and landing pages) to get early adoption.

  They then aggressively spent on distribution, pouring money into Facebook ads and building an affiliate/influencer program, to become the name in AI marketing as quickly as possible. This rapid landgrab strategy worked: within 3 months of launch, Jasper had eclipsed competitors and reached ~$40M ARR in 9 months.

  The product itself was not vastly different from others (all were using similar AI models), but Jasper’s go-to-market execution set them apart. Key learnings:

  • (a) a focused use case makes marketing simpler and more resonant

  • (b) if you validate strong demand, don’t hesitate to invest in scaling up your reach, being first in the customer’s mind confers a huge advantage.

  Underlying Jasper’s blitz was a founder-market fit: the team leveraged their marketing background and YC network to get early access and growth know-how. In short, they played to their strengths and played to win.

• Salesforce. Bold Tactics and Founder-Led Selling: While from an earlier era, Salesforce’s launch (circa 1999-2000) offers timeless GTM lessons. Marc Benioff personally led sales, tirelessly pitching the revolutionary idea of “no software.” In the early days, Benioff would do anything to get attention for his fledgling SaaS, including hiring actors to protest outside the conference of rival Siebel Systems with signs saying “Software is Obsolete!”.

  This cheeky stunt generated press buzz and introduced Salesforce to many potential customers. More conventionally, Benioff and team also executed a travelling roadshow (the “City Tour”) to demo Salesforce directly to small business audiences, collecting leads city by city.

  They meticulously mapped the entire customer journey from brand awareness to sales to retention (as Benioff later detailed in his book Behind the Cloud). Salesforce’s launch underscores the power of creative marketing and relentless founder-led sales execution. It wasn’t just the stunts; it was the follow-through, delivering a great product and nurturing customers,  that created a $200+ billion company.

  So, don’t be afraid to be bold and a bit different in your launch marketing (especially if it can get you disproportionate attention), but always couple it with substance and excellent execution down the line.

Each of these cases aligns with ARISE principles:

• Slack
  • Assessed that team communication tools were clunky,
  • Researched how teams collaborated,
  • Ideated a simpler chat product,
  • Strategised a bottom-up adoption model, and
  • Executed by focusing on user happiness.
• Jasper
  • Assessed an emerging demand among marketers,
  • Researched channels to reach them,
  • Ideated a wedge use-case,
  • Strategised to spend big on that niche, and
  • Executed ferociously to capture mindshare.
• Salesforce
  • Assessed that CRM users hated traditional software,
  • Researched how their potential customers would move through the pipeline,
  • Ideated a message (“No software!”) to differentiate,
  • Strategised around events and PR, and
  • Executed with both flair and grind (Benioff closing deals himself).

When launching your own product, draw inspiration from these stories but tailor the tactics to your context. Not every company can or should replicate these exactly, but the underlying themes, customer-centricity (Slack), speed and boldness (Jasper), creative hustle (Salesforce), are universally applicable.

Product Launch Strategy FAQs: The ARISE GTM Edition

1. What is the ARISE GTM methodology, and why use it for product launches?

ARISE stands for Assess, Research, Ideate, Strategise, and Execute. A structured, results-driven methodology specifically designed to streamline the go-to-market strategy for SaaS and AI products. It helps startups quickly validate their market position, craft effective messaging, and accelerate early customer adoption through continuous iteration.

2. How long should our product launch timeline be?

For startups (especially VC-backed SaaS and Agentic AI companies), a focused 90-day timeline works well. Break it down into three clear phases (30/60/90 days) to systematically prepare, launch, and iterate based on real-world feedback.

3. What should founders focus on in the first 30 days of a product launch?

The first 30 days are about Assessing and Researching your product readiness, market fit, competitive landscape, and deeply understanding your target customers through customer discovery interviews. This lays the foundation for positioning and messaging clarity.

4. Why is founder-led sales critical in early-stage product launches?

Founder-led sales allow you to directly understand customer needs, quickly iterate on messaging, and build credibility. Early customers trust founders, and personal involvement can significantly increase initial adoption and provide rapid market feedback.

5. How do we create an effective product marketing strategy before launch?

Clearly articulate your value proposition based on deep customer insights. Focus on concise, outcome-driven messaging, develop essential marketing assets (pitch decks, one-pagers), and ensure your positioning clearly differentiates you from competitors.

6. What are the best practices for optimising a website for product launches?

Ensure your website clearly communicates your core value, is mobile-friendly, fast-loading, conversion-focused, and optimised for both traditional SEO and AI-driven search. Leverage structured data (schema markup), clear navigation, and compelling calls-to-action.

7. How do we optimise our content for AI-driven search engines?

Create authoritative, structured, and clearly written content, ideally in FAQ formats, with precise semantic markup. Prioritise user intent, make your content easily digestible by large language models (LLMS), and consistently provide valuable, actionable insights.

8. How can we quickly gather customer feedback after launch?

Implement rapid feedback loops through post-demo surveys, usage tracking, follow-up interviews, and personal outreach. Regularly review feedback as a team, document learnings, and swiftly iterate your product and marketing strategy based on insights.

9. Should we launch quietly or go big with a public launch?

Consider a tiered launch. Initially, quietly with a small cohort of users or design partners for early feedback, followed by a broader, public launch once you have validated market fit and initial customer success stories.

10. What metrics should we track post-launch?

Key metrics include website traffic, conversion rates, customer acquisition cost (CAC), sales pipeline velocity, product activation rates, and customer retention. Regularly reviewing these helps you quickly adjust your GTM tactics and strategies.

11. Can you share real-world examples of successful SaaS and AI product launches?

Yes! Slack prioritised relentless customer feedback to achieve rapid adoption. Jasper AI executed a focused, high-impact marketing blitz to dominate their category quickly. Salesforce employed bold, creative marketing combined with rigorous founder-led sales execution to redefine CRM and SaaS.

12. How soon after launch should we adjust our GTM strategy based on feedback?

Immediately and continuously. Adopt an agile mindset from Day 1. Set regular (weekly, bi-weekly) retrospectives during the first 90 days, analyse what’s working or not, and iterate quickly. Your initial GTM plan is your starting hypothesis, not a fixed playbook.

Ready to Launch and Learn

A 90-day product launch is a sprint, but if you follow this playbook-style GTM framework, you’ll cover all the bases critical for success. We started by Assessing and Researching to build a data-driven foundation, moved on to Ideating and Strategising a compelling product marketing and sales plan, and then Executed the launch while iterating constantly based on feedback.

This ARISE methodology ensures you answer the fundamental questions of go-to-market and address all key pillars, from messaging and segmentation to sales enablement, SEO, and customer success.

By now, you should have: a clear value proposition, a website that tells your story, a list of target customers, a founder-led sales process in motion, marketing campaigns live, and hopefully a few reference customers or at least promising pilots.

Importantly, you’ve set up feedback loops to keep improving. In essence, you’ve not only launched a new product or service, but you’ve also built the muscle memory of a go-to-market strategy for new products that will serve you as you grow.

Remember, a launch is just Day 1 of the next phase. The coming months will involve scaling what worked and pivoting from what didn’t. Continue the ARISE cycle beyond 90 days, revisit Assess and Research with real market data, iterate on strategy, and execute new tactics. GTM strategy is a living process, not a one-time project.

Feel free to download this playbook or import it into Notion as your personal GTM checklist. Customise the tasks and timeline to your specific situation; every startup’s journey will differ slightly. The key is to keep a balance of strategic thinking and tactical action, and to maintain that direct, human touch with your market (cheeky banter optional, but often appreciated!).

Good luck with your product launch strategy, and welcome to the wild ride of bringing a new product to market. With the right plan and a nimble mindset, you’ll turn your startup’s launch into the first chapter of a much bigger success story. Now, ready… set… LAUNCH!