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The launch video, shipped by the date

A launch video makes one claim — this exists now, and here is what it does — and proves it by showing the real product running once, end to end. The two problems every launch video has: getting that altitude right, and getting done by a date that won't move.

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The launch-week decision tool

Pick how far out your date is; get the cut order that fits.

Comfortable — run the full pipeline and budget the revision half.

  1. Write the one claim and test it: falsifiable, every scene serves it, never framed by count.
  2. Lock the scene list on paper — structure failures are free to fix here.
  3. Start wide: several complete candidate directions judged together beats one draft polished for a week.
  4. Review still frames before any motion (the ~5% gate).
  5. Reserve half the calendar for post-review work — that's what the records say it takes.

Workable — the cheap gates matter more now, not less.

  1. You can't afford one full-render-reject loop; the still gate is mandatory.
  2. Use a house voiceover — custom recorded VO adds a booking dependency you don't control.
  3. One set piece, two edits: launch cut (payoff first) and explainer cut (full chain, ships week two).
  4. Review the scene list the day it's written; every day of approval latency is a production day lost.

Cut in this order — cheapest sacrifice first.

  1. Cut scenes, never verbs: delete whole ideas; compressed fragment-speech reads exactly as rushed as it was.
  2. Cut the custom voice (house VO is a solved line item).
  3. Cut the sound design — silence beats bad sound; music bed plus narration is a complete launch soundtrack.
  4. Cut the second video and say so: the mechanism deep-dive ships after launch, on purpose.

Re-sequence what exists; build nothing new.

  1. Take your best existing cut and move the payoff to the front — the launch edit is a re-sequence, not a production.
  2. One run, end to end, real surfaces only. If a feature isn't real yet, it isn't in the video.
  3. Pass the mute test and the first-ten-seconds test; skip everything else.
  4. Ship, then schedule the real explainer for week two.

Launch video vs explainer: the altitude

The explainer teaches how the machine works; the launch video establishes that the machine exists and is worth a look. Concept explainers are calm and diagrammatic — they enrich the viewer's causal model. Launch videos excite — the machine runs end to end, framed as a real outcome, for people deciding whether to care.

The practical rule: an altitude ceiling. Show what the product does and when you'd reach for it; the moment the script starts explaining internals, you're writing the explainer that comes after the launch. Save it — you'll want it in week two.

The one-claim discipline

A viewer keeps exactly one sentence, and launch day is the one moment you get to choose it. Three tests: is it falsifiable (“our platform is powerful” fails; something a video can show and a viewer can check passes) · does every scene serve it (the claim is your permission to leave nine features out) · never frame by count (“the five things our new version does” has no strongest moment).

And calibrate: if you can't support “10x faster,” the line becomes “faster” — or the video just shows the timing and says nothing. Launch claims get verified by your most skeptical users within the hour.

Deadline production, in the numbers

The deadline pressures you to skip review, and skipping review is the expensive move. From production records: about half of all work is post-review response; flagship videos took three staged versions each; and the still-frame gate catches most fatal errors at ~5% of the cost — the batch that skipped it shipped nine rejects of ten, the next batch passed five of five.

One more lever: volume plus selection beats polishing. A parallel batch of complete candidates, judged together, converges faster than one direction iterated for a week — picking is faster than fixing.

What never gets cut

At any deadline: real product surfaces (every rejected take in a four-topic comparison had invented its surfaces; every accepted take used real ones), the still review (five minutes looking at two frames is not where the schedule gets saved), and the hook plus the mute test — the first ten seconds and sound-off legibility are the only part of the video everyone watches.

Questions

How long should a launch video be?

60–90 seconds. A launch claim is by definition a single concept, and produced single-concept videos measure 54–124 seconds. Past two minutes you're carrying an explainer's payload — split it and ship the explainer after launch.

How far ahead should production start?

Three weeks is comfortable, two is workable with disciplined gates, and inside one week you should be cutting scope by the list above, in order. The first pass is about half the total work.

What if the product isn't finished by the video's due date?

Show only what's true. A launch video is a set of claims your earliest adopters verify immediately; if a feature isn't real yet, it isn't in the video.

Skip the brief. Judge the work.

Paste your product's link at 20cuts.com and get 20 short videos of it by tomorrow, free. Pick the one that lands; pay a fixed price only to finish it.

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Want the long-form version? Read the full guide: how to make a launch video on 20cuts.com.