Is there a perfect way to tier product launches? Nope.

Do some approaches work better than others? Absolutely.

Whether you’re a fan of the classic 2×2 grid, the more complex scoring system introduced by Intercom, or Mark Assini’s value-focused approach, one thing remains true — every company needs a way to tier launches.

A launch tiering framework builds alignment, creates consistency and removes bias. It also just helps to keep PMMs sane (IYKYK).

Every PMM leader I talk to seems to approach this differently than the next. So, I wanted to know: what’s the most common way of tiering launches these days?

For today’s Camper Q&A, I asked the community to share their go-to frameworks. And we got four different — yet similar — answers.

Read on to see how these PMM leaders approach product launch.

Approaches to Launch Tiering

Talya Heller G.

Founder of Down to a T

What I found to make the most sense for me over the years is to look at it from a customer POV, which I find pretty different than the more common 2x2 launch matrix.

• Gamechanger: We're launching something that dramatically changes what folks are doing now. It let’s them do something they may not have imagined even. It means it's also a source of competitive advantage or substantial enough to create a new use case (or target audience) for us.

• New functionality: Completely new functionality; something that was impossible to do with our product before.

• Functionality Improvement: Adds value to current functionality.

• Minor Update: Not a huge deal but still requires customer setup or awareness.

These are not sexy, but when working in the context of a broad platform it made a lot of sense from customer comms perspective. With a large MM-enterprise customer base, we had to be incredibly intentional in launching to existing customers and not just towards the market.

It's not like we didn't care about revenue impact etc., we just didn't use that to categorize our launches. Each launch granted a pricing discussion.

When creating this process, I listed all the possible activities (with cross-functional feedback of course). Then, I mapped them on an always/sometimes/unlikely scale for each of these categories. Full list here for those who are curious.

Each launch (with its checklist) was managed in Trello and this process made it so much more scalable than before. The exact list of activities (even the grouping) can and should change by company, but the gist of it was clear enough that all the teams knew what to expect and what to do. It was a lifesaver as a founding (read: solo) PMM at that company where I landed on this approach and created this process around it.

👋🏻 Say hi to Talya on LinkedIn

Allison Rona

Director of Product Marketing

Love the "gamechanger" tier from Talya’s — I haven't seen that before. And agree that putting the customer in the center is #1, #2, and #3.

My tiering has been pretty similar to the three others Talya mentions:

• Big Splash: A new product/feature that attracts new customers via a significant new capability and is a significant competitive differentiator.

• Medium Splash: A new product/feature that improves existing functionality (mostly valuable to current customers), competitors may already have this, or it blocks prospects from purchase.

• Small Splash: Everything else, i.e., improvements that fill a gap or small updates that don't need additional information.

At the end of the day, the launch tiers are about how much the new product will affect our customers and how much information needs to be delivered — both internally and externally.

👋🏻 Say hi to Allison on LinkedIn

Florian Delval

Director of Technical Product Marketing @ ActionIQ

I’m not too far from what Talya is suggesting, despite using a more traditional 2x2 matrix (see below). I should certainly preface that I’m focused on B2B SaaS for enterprises, and I don’t have PLG motions in place, everything is sales-led.

My axis are:

→ Innovative/Differentiated Product vs Gap Filling or Commoditized Product

→ Customer Retention (CSM teams) vs Customer Acquisition and Customer Growth (Sales teams)

• Tier 1 is focused on new logos (or significant growth) for innovation and differentiated products.

• Tier 2 remains important, but smaller budgets and efforts for not being as innovative, or for focusing on customer retention.

• Tier 3 are smaller features or filling product gaps with elements already existing in our competitor’s product, requiring limited external promotion. Impact may often be at the user level rather than the overall business.

In the world of OpenAI, you can imagine that the release of their model o1 was treated as a Tier 1, the release of their Real-Time API was a Tier 2, and changes made the existing APIs would be Tier 3.

Tiering doesn’t account for leadership timeline, budget availability, current resources, etc. So, for each Tier, I defined a list of activities, which are themselves categorized and prioritized: MVP, High, Medium, Low. 

When time/resources allows, I would try to pick an activity outside our MVP/High list to experiment, and evaluate impact of new activities (it could be a video, online interactive tool, etc).

👋🏻 Say hi to Florian on LinkedIn

Jason Oakley

Founder of Productive PMM & PMM Files

Lately, I've been a big fan of Mark Assini's evolution that looks at two key factors:

📈 BUSINESS VALUE
Does this launch have a direct impact on revenue and profit? Will it help you acquire customers, increase revenue, or reduce operating costs?

📈 CUSTOMER VALUE
Does this launch have a direct impact on the value customers get from your product? Will it increase their ability to drive a desired outcome?

However, those two factors only determine your launch tier in an ideal situation, where you have the required amount of:

⏳ Time
💰 Budget
👥 People

Unfortunately, you don’t always have those things. If not, you either need to adjust internal expectations (change your launch tier) or negotiate additional time and resources.

👋🏻 Check out Jason’s LinkedIn post which goes even deeper into this topic.

CAMPER ESSENTIALS

🎧 Playlist: If you like product launches, you’ll love the podcast I host with Andy and Jason. It’s called Ready for Launch, and each episode we break down three product launches, explain why they work, and share how to apply to your own work.

Until next week,