Today, instead of teaching you about this, I want to tell you about a recent update to my main program, Build in Public Mastery:
I was letting people "enroll anytime" (evergreen) for 6 months, and I have closed the door and moved back to doing "launch windows" (launches). You only see a waitlist opt-in form that says we will open again in July 2024.
Why? Let's dive in.
Evergreen vs launches dilemma
If I ask 100 people which one they'd prefer, I'm confident 98 of them would say evergreen.
Who wants the stress from doing launches, right?
There are gurus who advocate evergreen, but I think it is because it is so much easier to sell the evergreen dream vs the launch dream. Let's try it. Which one do you prefer?
- I can teach you a way to set up an evergreen funnel so that you can take your hands off and sales will roll in automatically every day.
- I can teach you a way to launch your products so that you can build a buzz and hit record sales.
Evergreen sounds so peaceful and launches sound hectic. People want evergreen.
But when I look around, I wonder why so many people still do launches. I don't mean the manipulative marketer type. I follow some admirable digital entrepreneurs and they also do 2-4 launch windows a year for their products.
Why?
To me, the short answer is — it is actually easier to get results from launches.
I also want to give you the long answer though.
We all need a nudge
I spend a good amount of time thinking about learning. I think it is a weird thing.
There are people who love to learn. If they stop learning new things, they don't get satisfaction. They read book after book. They take course after course. The thing is, instead of taking action after the learning, they just learn some more.
Then on the other side, there is a bunch of people who are too busy to learn. They know they want to learn but the urgency hasn't reached climax yet.
I was in a public speaking course. It is something I want to level up on but I'd never dedicate time for it. And I am doing it now because I got invited. Something pushed me to get it done.
For Build in Public Mastery, the main takeaway is a powerful, new way to talk about your work. You're always learning. You're always working on things. The easiest way to create content and get people to pay attention to you is to share stories of what you're doing.
How urgent is this?
So my big lesson here is that most learning can wait. It doesn't mean people don't need it. It just means they need a tiny nudge to move it up their list of priorities.
Evergreen doesn't give you that nudge, but launches do.
When you can't get it anytime you want because it is going away soon, you are motivated to sort out your priorities and make a decision.
That's powerful.
If you want to go far, go together
For a big part of my career, I was running a kid's coding school next to the founder. I started as an employee and 3 years later, she asked "Kevon, do you want to be my co-founder? If we go together, we can go a lot further."
This line has been stuck in my head ever since.
When Build in Public Mastery was available for enrollment anytime, I kind of just left it. I didn't do anything about it. I had a starter guide as the lead magnet. I had some emails setup. That was it.
Looking back, it felt like I was going alone. I was doing everything myself.
Doing launches is different. Yes, there is a list of things you have to do, but you can also get support from your audience, community, and friends to support you. People are so willing to help if you ask. Then you can build up the momentum to create a buzz that reaches even more people.
Build in Public Mastery is an educational program, so the best advocates are always the students. When I did launches in the past, I always got the most recent students to share their testimonials or even give shoutouts. These things helped tremendously!
Well, I have done so many launches and I can confirm that it feels like running a marathon — it is hard. It requires a lot of you. After passing the finish line, you swear you won't do it again. However, 2 days later, you always start looking up another marathon to run. Because you have that "it is all worth it" feeling.
So launches let you go together and go far.
But even so, I've learned that you don't necessarily need to do a noisy launch each time. You can just keep a waitlist for a product and email to let people know when you'll open the door again. That works too.
I'm inclined to do buzzing launches for my main program and quiet launches for my other products. That sounds like a good balance.
You don't have to choose one
I'm someone who has moved from launches to evergreen to launches to evergreen to launches to evergreen ... you get it. I shifted around a lot hoping to find one strategy that can work well for me.
I realized it doesn't work like that. I don't have to choose one.
For some products (mainly lead magnets and low-ticket offers), I can do evergreen to let people get a taste of my work.
And for my signature programs, not just Build in Public Mastery, but also other key programs like Momentum Marketing Mastery, I can do launches.
When people are busy debating which one is better, the answer is almost always they are all good. It depends.
Truth be told, launches can feel intimidating if you don't exactly know what you need to do and how to connect the dots to optimize creating the buzz, but it is something that you can learn and build confidence doing it.
