The 12-Week Token Launch Checklist

This is the sequence we run, compressed. The dates matter less than the ordering: almost every failed launch we have reviewed did the right activities in the wrong order.

How to use this

Read it backwards. Start from the launch date, count back twelve weeks, and mark the phase boundaries in a shared calendar with a named owner for each. The owner matters more than the date: every workstream below fails in the same way, which is that everyone assumed somebody else was doing it.

Then be honest about where you actually are. Most teams that come to us four weeks out believe they are in week four of this plan. They are usually in week eleven, because the positioning was never finished — and no amount of compression downstream recovers that.

Weeks 12–9: positioning

Nothing external happens in this phase, which is why teams skip it and why skipping it is expensive.

• Answer the only question that matters: why should someone not already following you care? One sentence, no jargon, repeatable by a stranger.
• Category analysis — who else claims this space, and what specifically do you do differently. “Faster and cheaper” is not a position.
• Pressure-test the narrative against the obvious objections. If nobody in the room can attack it, you have not tried.
• Decide what you are not. The clearest positions are exclusionary.
• Agree what you can substantiate, and retire every claim you cannot.

Weeks 8–7: assets and evidence

• Messaging hierarchy per audience: developers, users, partners, press.
• Documentation good enough that a reporter can understand the product without you.
• Build the verification package — audits, addresses, methodology for any number you intend to publish.
• Media map built from recent bylines, not bought.
• Identify and prepare spokespeople. Frequently the best one is not the chief executive.

Weeks 6–5: relationships

• Begin background briefings with mapped reporters. No news yet — this is context, and it is why they will open your email in three weeks.
• Creator vetting and shortlisting. Screen on engagement quality and audience overlap, not follower count.
• Partner and ecosystem coordination: who announces what, in which order, and who has approval over whose wording.
• Community programme design. Decide what participation actually means beyond a member count.

Weeks 4–3: commitments

• Creator contracts signed, including mandatory disclosure terms.
• Exclusive offered, if you are running one — to exactly one outlet.
• Embargo offered and accepted, with an exact time and time zone.
• Spokesperson drills, including hostile questions.
• Contingency plan: what you say if the launch is delayed, if something breaks, if a competitor announces first.

Weeks 2–1: staging

• Embargoed materials distributed to accepted reporters with everything included at once.
• Community briefed at whatever level of detail is safe.
• Support and moderation staffed for launch week, not launch day.
• Dry run of the technical launch itself. Every launch we have seen go badly went badly for operational reasons.

Launch week

• Exclusive publishes, embargo lifts at the agreed moment.
• Spokespeople available for the whole day, not in back-to-back meetings.
• Creator activity live with disclosure verified on every placement.
• Someone senior watching for factual errors in coverage, correcting quickly and politely.

Weeks +1 to +4

• Follow-up stories: the technical deep-dive, the customer story, the thing that did not fit the launch narrative.
• Measure against the objective agreed in week twelve — with earned coverage separated from paid distribution.
• Honest post-mortem including what underperformed.

What is deliberately absent

There is no presale phase, no price or valuation messaging, no listing promises, and no artificial-scarcity mechanic. We do not run those, and a launch plan built on them is a different document written by someone else.

When the date slips

It usually does. Build the plan so that dependencies are explicit — creator contracts and embargo agreements are the two things a slip damages most, and both are recoverable if you tell people early. What is not recoverable is a reporter who cleared space for an announcement that did not arrive and heard about it from someone else.

We run this sequence as our token launch service. The most common thing we are asked to fix is a launch four weeks out with no positioning, and the honest answer is usually to move the date.