How To Launch Your Venture in a Big Way

Lessons learned from SoJo’s Launch

It has been less than 2 weeks since SoJo was publicly launched. SoJo, short for Social Journal, is an online learning tool that supports young social entrepreneurs in their journeys of taking their ideas into action and building ventures.

SoJo is still very much a work in progress, but with over a year of development behind us, I felt the time was right to move onto the next step: the launch of its public Beta site. It is my hope that you take inspiration from SoJo’s story and our choice to launch SoJo in its half-developed state.

The bigger the launch, the bigger the uptake
Launching a new product is always a huge milestone, and we launched ours in a big way: SoJo strategically partnered and launched in collaboration with the SociaLIGHT Conference. Known as Canada’s ultimate entrepreneurship and leadership event, SociaLIGHT (Leaders Impacting Global Humanity Today) hosted speakers like Richard Branson, Seth Godin and Robin Sharma and attracted 1000 young, bright, and ambitious delegates for a day of inspiration. On the day of our launch, 1000 potential users are aware and have access to our product.

Launches allow you celebrate your accomplishments and hard work
Up until the day before the launch, I had been so immersed building and fine-tuning the actual product that I was only able to see its shortcomings and limitations. The date of our launch was the first time that I was able to take a step back and appreciate the product that our team created for what it was. Flaws and limitations included, we launched an incredible product with great potential. The launch was key to keeping morale high.

Launching early allows you to build trust with your community
We are excited to have our users co-create SoJo with us. We’ve laid the foundation, but this is only the first step of a much larger project. With many feedback mechanisms in place, launching an early version of our product will allow our users to inform us of their likes and dislikes, so we can ultimately build a tool that better meets their needs.

The more you put out in the universe, the more you receive
The week of our launch we received significant press coverage in print and online in one of the largest business publications in Canada. The credibility provided by this press coverage will now place SoJo in a better position to find supporters who can help us realize our vision.

A final note on courage:
A product will never be perfect, nor will it ever be entirely ready either. Having the humility to accept that is one thing; having the courage to step outside of our safe community and expose ourselves to the world is something else entirely.

It is time for young social entrepreneurs to come out of their basements. We need to embrace the risk that comes with sharing our ideas and half-baked products with the world, because it is the only way to bring our ideas to life.

The momentum we received from our launch is overwhelming and will carry us forward as we embark on the daunting task of realizing our vision.

Partnered with SocialEarth, SoJo is pleased to make this tool available for you. The public Beta of this tool is now online at http://theSoJo.net