| name | Launch Plan Sequencer |
| description | Use when planning a product launch end-to-end and you need the full dated timeline. Triggers on "plan my launch", "launch plan", "how do I sequence a launch", "pre-launch checklist", "what happens before launch day", "launch timeline", "GTM launch plan", "coordinate a launch across channels", "who owns what for launch". Builds the pre-launch → launch-day → post-launch arc with a channel & asset checklist, owners, and dates. Do NOT use when you need the minute-by-minute run-of-show for the day itself — use launch-day-runbook instead. Do NOT use to write the core message — use positioning-statement and messaging-hierarchy. Do NOT use to design the self-serve adoption motion — use plg-motion-designer. Do NOT use to build the sales deck, battlecard, or demo script — use sales-enablement-kit. |
Launch Plan Sequencer
A launch is not a day; it is an arc. The teams that botch launches treat "launch"
as a single deadline, pile every task onto it, and discover on the morning of that
the demo video is unrendered, sales has never seen the pitch, and nobody owns the
Hacker News thread. Your job is the opposite: stretch the launch into three phases
— pre-launch, launch day, post-launch — and assign every asset and
channel an owner and a date before the clock starts.
This skill owns the sequence and the schedule. It does not own the strategy
(what to launch, to whom, why now — that is a precondition the team brings in),
it does not own the message itself (that is [[positioning-statement]] and
[[messaging-hierarchy]]), and it does not own the minute-by-minute choreography
of the day itself (that is [[launch-day-runbook]]). You produce the map; those
skills fill in the territory.
When to use this skill
Reach for it the moment someone says "we're launching" and there is no dated plan.
Run it once the strategy is settled and the message spine exists
([[positioning-statement]], [[messaging-hierarchy]]), and before
[[launch-day-runbook]] sequences the day. Re-run it whenever the launch date
moves — a slipped date silently invalidates every dependency behind it.
The launch arc
Work backward from the launch date (call it L). Everything is relative to L.
Phase 1 — Pre-launch (L−21d → L−1d): build the ammunition
Nothing ships on launch day that was not finished days before. Pre-launch is where
assets get made, owners get assigned, and the channels get armed.
- Lock the launch thesis. One sentence: who it's for, what changes for them,
why now. If you cannot write it, you are not ready to launch — settle the
strategy first. Everything downstream inherits this sentence.
- Build the message spine. The positioning statement and the laddered
messaging that every asset reuses come from [[positioning-statement]] and
[[messaging-hierarchy]]. Do this first so the landing page, emails, and sales
deck all say the same thing in the same words.
- Commission the assets (each with an owner and a due date — see the
checklist below): landing page copy ([[landing-page-copy]]), competitive
framing, pricing/packaging, the demo. Set every asset due at L−3d, not
L−0 — you need a buffer day for the thing that breaks.
- Arm the channels. For each channel you'll use (see the channel matrix),
name the owner, draft the post/email, and schedule it. Self-serve / product-led
distribution mechanics are [[plg-motion-designer]]; the sales team's deck,
battlecard, and demo script are [[sales-enablement-kit]].
- Warm the list. Tease to your existing audience (email, in-app, social) so
launch day has an audience, not an empty room. A launch nobody is waiting for
is a press release into the void.
- Dry-run at L−2d. Click every link, send every email to yourself, load the
landing page on mobile, confirm the demo renders. The dry run is where you find
the broken thing while you still have a day to fix it.
Phase 2 — Launch day (L): execute, don't create
Launch day is pure execution of pre-built ammunition. If you are writing copy on
launch day, you have already failed. The hour-by-hour orchestration — publish
order, who hits which channel when, the war-room, the incident path — is owned by
[[launch-day-runbook]]. Your job here is only to confirm the day has: a single
owner (the "launch captain"), a go/no-go check at L−30min, and the assets staged
and scheduled. Then hand off to [[launch-day-runbook]].
Phase 3 — Post-launch (L+1d → L+30d): convert the spike into a flywheel
The launch spike decays in days. Post-launch turns attention into pipeline and
learnings.
- Follow-up sequence (L+1d → L+7d): thank-you / nurture emails to everyone
who engaged, a "in case you missed it" resend, and a sales follow-up on every
warm lead. Cadence and copy reuse [[messaging-hierarchy]].
- Amplify the proof (L+2d → L+14d): customer reactions, press pickups, usage
milestones — reshare the social proof the launch generated.
- Retro (by L+7d): what worked, what slipped, what each channel actually
drove. Record the numbers honestly; this is the input to your next launch
plan.
- Sustain (L+7d → L+30d): fold the new message into the always-on motion —
ongoing content, paid, lifecycle. Hand the durable distribution back to
[[plg-motion-designer]] and the ongoing sales motion to
[[sales-enablement-kit]].
The channel & asset matrix
Every launch plan must answer, for each row: owner, due date, status. Cut rows
that don't fit the audience — a developer tool does not need a TikTok — but never
leave a row ownerless.
| Asset / channel | Phase | Owner | Due | Source skill |
|---|
| Launch thesis (1 sentence) | Pre | PMM | L−21d | strategy (precondition) |
| Positioning statement | Pre | PMM | L−18d | [[positioning-statement]] |
| Messaging hierarchy | Pre | PMM | L−16d | [[messaging-hierarchy]] |
| Landing / launch page | Pre | Web | L−3d | [[landing-page-copy]] |
| Pricing & packaging | Pre | PMM | L−10d | pricing & packaging |
| Competitive battlecard | Pre | PMM | L−5d | competitive framing |
| Demo / product video | Pre | Product | L−3d | (asset) |
| Sales deck + script | Pre | Sales | L−5d | [[sales-enablement-kit]] |
| In-product launch surface | Pre | Eng | L−1d | [[plg-motion-designer]] |
| Email — warm-up tease | Pre | Lifecycle | L−7d | [[messaging-hierarchy]] |
| Email — launch announce | Day | Lifecycle | L | [[messaging-hierarchy]] |
| Social posts (X/LinkedIn) | Day | Social | L | [[messaging-hierarchy]] |
| Community / forum post | Day | Community | L | — |
| Press / outreach | Day | PMM | L | — |
| Hour-by-hour run-of-show | Day | Launch captain | L | [[launch-day-runbook]] |
| Follow-up nurture sequence | Post | Lifecycle | L+1d | [[messaging-hierarchy]] |
| Launch retro | Post | PMM | L+7d | (this skill) |
Quality bar
A launch plan is done when:
- Every row has an owner and a date. No "TBD", no "the team". One name per
row, accountable.
- Nothing is due on L. Every asset lands at L−3d or earlier; launch day only
executes. The one exception is the live posts/emails that are scheduled but
fire on the day.
- Dependencies point the right way. The message spine
([[positioning-statement]], [[messaging-hierarchy]]) is due before any asset
that reuses it. If the landing page is due before the messaging, the plan is
wrong.
- There is a buffer day between "assets done" (L−3d) and launch (L), and a
dry-run at L−2d.
- Post-launch is planned, not improvised. The follow-up sequence and retro
have dates before launch day, or they will never happen.
- The day itself is handed off to [[launch-day-runbook]], not improvised here.
Do NOT
- Do NOT pile tasks onto launch day. If the plan has assets "due" on L, it is
a deadline, not a sequence. Pull them back to L−3d.
- Do NOT write the minute-by-minute day-of schedule here. That is
[[launch-day-runbook]]'s job; duplicating it splits the source of truth and the
two will drift.
- Do NOT re-derive the message or the strategy. The one-line claim is
[[positioning-statement]] and the laddered copy is [[messaging-hierarchy]];
strategy and pricing are settled upstream. Cross-link; do not rewrite.
- Do NOT launch to an empty room. No warm-up = no audience. The tease in
pre-launch is not optional.
- Do NOT skip the dry run. The cost of finding a broken link at L−2d is a
five-minute fix; finding it at L is a public failure.
- Do NOT forget post-launch. The spike decays in days. A plan that ends at L
leaves most of the value on the table.
Runnable artifact — the sequencer
Give the script your launch date and it prints the dated, phased plan with owners.
Drop it in launch_sequencer.py and run python launch_sequencer.py 2026-09-15.
It resolves every L−offset to a real calendar date so the plan is a schedule, not
a wish list.
"""Launch Plan Sequencer — turn a launch date into a dated, owned, phased plan.
Usage: python launch_sequencer.py YYYY-MM-DD
"""
import sys
from datetime import date, timedelta
PLAN = [
("Launch thesis (1 sentence)", "pre", "PMM", -21, "strategy (precondition)"),
("Positioning statement", "pre", "PMM", -18, "positioning-statement"),
("Messaging hierarchy", "pre", "PMM", -16, "messaging-hierarchy"),
("Pricing & packaging", "pre", "PMM", -10, "—"),
("Warm-up tease email", "pre", "Lifecycle", -7, "messaging-hierarchy"),
("Sales deck + script", "pre", "Sales", -5, "sales-enablement-kit"),
("Competitive battlecard", "pre", "PMM", -5, "—"),
("Landing / launch page", "pre", "Web", -3, "landing-page-copy"),
("Demo / product video", "pre", "Product", -3, "—"),
("Dry run (click every link)", "pre", "Launch captain", -2, "—"),
("In-product launch surface", "pre", "Eng", -1, "plg-motion-designer"),
("Go / no-go check", "day", "Launch captain", 0, "launch-day-runbook"),
("Run-of-show (hour by hour)", "day", "Launch captain", 0, "launch-day-runbook"),
("Launch announce email", "day", "Lifecycle", 0, "messaging-hierarchy"),
("Social + community + press", "day", "Social/PMM", 0, "—"),
("Follow-up nurture sequence", "post", "Lifecycle", 1, "messaging-hierarchy"),
("Amplify social proof", "post", "Social", 2, "—"),
("Launch retro", "post", "PMM", 7, "this skill"),
("Fold into always-on motion", "post", "Growth", 14, "plg-motion-designer"),
]
PHASE_LABEL = {"pre": "PRE-LAUNCH", "day": "LAUNCH DAY", "post": "POST-LAUNCH"}
def main() -> None:
if len(sys.argv) != 2:
sys.exit("usage: python launch_sequencer.py YYYY-MM-DD")
L = date.fromisoformat(sys.argv[1])
print(f"Launch date L = {L:%a %Y-%m-%d}\n")
current = None
for label, phase, owner, off, src in PLAN:
if phase != current:
current = phase
print(f"== {PHASE_LABEL[phase]} ==")
when = L + timedelta(days=off)
rel = "L" if off == 0 else (f"L{off}" if off < 0 else f"L+{off}")
src = "" if src == "—" else f" <- {src}"
print(f" {when:%a %Y-%m-%d} [{rel:>4}] {owner:<14} {label}{src}")
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
Worked example — python launch_sequencer.py 2026-09-15:
Launch date L = Tue 2026-09-15
== PRE-LAUNCH ==
Tue 2026-08-25 [ L-21] PMM Launch thesis (1 sentence) <- strategy (precondition)
Fri 2026-08-28 [ L-18] PMM Positioning statement <- positioning-statement
Sun 2026-08-30 [ L-16] PMM Messaging hierarchy <- messaging-hierarchy
Sat 2026-09-05 [ L-10] PMM Pricing & packaging
Tue 2026-09-08 [ L-7] Lifecycle Warm-up tease email <- messaging-hierarchy
Thu 2026-09-10 [ L-5] Sales Sales deck + script <- sales-enablement-kit
Thu 2026-09-10 [ L-5] PMM Competitive battlecard
Sat 2026-09-12 [ L-3] Web Landing / launch page <- landing-page-copy
Sat 2026-09-12 [ L-3] Product Demo / product video
Sun 2026-09-13 [ L-2] Launch captain Dry run (click every link)
Mon 2026-09-14 [ L-1] Eng In-product launch surface <- plg-motion-designer
== LAUNCH DAY ==
Tue 2026-09-15 [ L] Launch captain Go / no-go check <- launch-day-runbook
Tue 2026-09-15 [ L] Launch captain Run-of-show (hour by hour) <- launch-day-runbook
Tue 2026-09-15 [ L] Lifecycle Launch announce email <- messaging-hierarchy
Tue 2026-09-15 [ L] Social/PMM Social + community + press
== POST-LAUNCH ==
Wed 2026-09-16 [ L+1] Lifecycle Follow-up nurture sequence <- messaging-hierarchy
Thu 2026-09-17 [ L+2] Social Amplify social proof
Tue 2026-09-22 [ L+7] PMM Launch retro <- this skill
Tue 2026-09-29 [ L+14] Growth Fold into always-on motion <- plg-motion-designer
Notice what the schedule enforces: the message spine lands first, every asset is
done by L−3d, there is a dry run at L−2d, launch day only executes, and post-launch
is already on the calendar. Edit the PLAN list to add or cut rows for your
audience — the dates and phases recompute themselves.
Deliverable
A dated, phased launch plan: the pre-launch → launch-day → post-launch arc with
every channel and asset assigned an owner and a due date relative to L, the
message spine sequenced before its dependents, a dry-run and buffer day before
launch, and a post-launch follow-up + retro already scheduled. Hand the day-of
run-of-show to [[launch-day-runbook]] and the durable distribution to
[[plg-motion-designer]] and [[sales-enablement-kit]].
