A full brand launch runs about seven months. Months one and two are research and supplier selection, three and four are production and creative, five is listing and pre launch preparation, six is launch and traffic, and seven is the scale, fix, or kill decision taken on real numbers.
The short version
- Seven months is the honest timeline. Anything much shorter is skipping a step you will pay for later.
- Each month has an exit condition. Move on when it is met, not when the calendar says so.
- Creative and production run in parallel. Waiting for stock before starting photography adds a month for no reason.
- Month seven is a decision, not a celebration. Scale, fix, or kill, on rating, returns, conversion, and acquisition cost.
- Write the kill criteria in month one. Deciding them while you are losing money is the one time you cannot.
The seven months, and what done looks like
Month one: research and market sizing. Twenty candidates in, four out. Category revenue and depth measured, growth direction established, return rate understood, rating gap identified from competitor negative reviews, patent and gating room confirmed. Done means you can state why the three rejected finalists were rejected.
Month two: suppliers and unit economics. Three quotes on the same written specification, samples in your hands, tooling costs named separately, and the full cost stack written out including referral fee, fulfillment, storage, returns, promotions, and an advertising allowance. Done means the product still earns after every one of those lines. This is also the month to file the trademark, because registry access takes time you will not have later.
Month three: order placed, creative started. Deposit paid, inspection terms agreed, production scheduled. In the same month, brief the photography and the packaging. Done means production is running and the creative brief exists, written against the specific complaint your product answers.
Month four: production, creative build, keyword work. Photography, lifestyle imagery, A plus content, and video produced while goods are being made. Keyword research finished and the listing drafted around the phrases you intend to own. Done means the listing could go live the day stock arrives.
Month five: freight, listing, and pre launch. Inspection before the balance is paid, shipment booked, listing uploaded, backend terms complete, pricing set with the reason recorded. Compliant review foundation work begins. Done means inventory is in transit and the page is finished rather than half built.
Month six: launch and traffic. Stock live, narrow exact keyword campaigns first, then a second and third traffic source added within a fortnight. Watch the conversion rate daily and the rating trend weekly. Done means you have a readable conversion rate and a real cost per acquired customer, not an average across a chaotic first week.
Month seven: scale, fix, or kill. The decision month, taken against criteria you wrote in month one.
| Month | Cash out | The gate that lets you proceed |
|---|---|---|
| One | Time and tools | Four candidates survive the screen |
| Two | Samples and trademark | Unit economics work with advertising included |
| Three | Deposit on production | Specification agreed and creative briefed |
| Four | Creative production | Listing ready before stock lands |
| Five | Balance and freight | Inspection passed, listing complete |
| Six | Advertising budget | Conversion rate and acquisition cost readable |
| Seven | Reorder, or nothing | All three signals point the same way |
Month seven: the decision nobody plans for
The criteria are rating trend, return rate, conversion rate, and the trajectory of your acquisition cost, judged over a window you defined in advance. Three outcomes exist. Scale means order properly and widen the traffic. Fix means one specific, nameable problem with a deadline attached. Kill means stop, liquidate, and take the lesson into the next product.
I include kill because of a mistake that cost me real money. Early on I poured budget into a failing product for three months, convinced that the next round of advertising changes would turn it around. It did not. The numbers had been telling me the same thing since week three, and I kept paying to argue with them. Every kill criterion we use now exists because of those three months.
The reason to write the criteria in month one is that month seven is the worst possible time to write them. By then you own the stock, you have told people about the product, and you are the least objective person available. Pre committed criteria are the only defense against your own investment.
Ask anyone who wants to run your launch what would make them tell you to stop. A partner with no kill criteria has only one recommendation available in every situation, which is to spend more.
What most agencies will not tell you
Launch timelines get shortened in sales conversations because a shorter timeline sounds like better service. Compressing seven months into three does not remove the work, it moves it to the wrong side of the purchase order. Research gets thinner, samples get skipped, creative gets rushed, and every one of those compromises surfaces after the money is committed.
The second thing is about the shape of the work. Months one and two are the highest value and lowest visibility part of the entire process. Nothing is live, there is no dashboard, and it looks from the outside like very little is happening. That is exactly when the outcome is being decided, and it is exactly the phase clients are most tempted to hurry.
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We run this sequence for every brand we take on, and the schedule is published at Flapen.
