Both are closely related, but not the same thing.
🔘 A Release = pushing code to production. This can be as small as a big fix to as big as a new game-changing product.
🚀 A Launch = a go-to-market event that brings value to your customers and your business.
If you have an agile development process, there could be releases happening every week. Some are big news, but most are not.
Which is totally fine.
The word “launch” should be associated with something meaningful that brings notable value to your customers and your business.
After all, if you treated every release like a launch, you would:
😵💫 Create too much noise → you would drown out the important stuff. Customers wouldn't be able to keep up. You'd see diminishing returns.
😓 Burn out → your go-to-market teams would just be running from one launch to the next. Sales would be changing their pitch every week. Marketing would only focus on launch campaigns.
That’s why a launch tiering system is important. It gives you a framework for prioritizing your releases and determining what level of go-to-market effort is required.
And remember — just because you release something today that goes undetected, doesn’t mean it can’t be launched later on. You can bundle multiple small, released features into a larger launch around a specific theme.
Take Canva Magic Studio for example. I noticed new AI-powered features in their platform weeks before they launched “Magic Studio” where all of these small enhancements became part of a much bigger launch and story.
Or Capsule, a video editing tool that bundled multiple AI-based audio features into one launch focused on how their platform uses AI to improve your audio.
This has been something common in larger organizations for a while, but I think even startups can move more towards this approach. It doesn't mean you need to slow down shipping new product. It's just a more strategic approach to how you bring them to market.
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