This Startup Banned Video From Its Launch Events. That Rule Helped It Build Something Hype Can’t Buy

A product should live up to the excitement you build around it.

EXPERT OPINION BY VICTORIA WATTERS, MEDIA ENTREPRENEUR

In AI hardware, the most spectacular product demos of the past two years belong to failed launches.

Humane raised $230 million, rode a viral launch to global attention, and then essentially sold for parts after bricking the devices it shipped. Rabbit moved roughly 100,000 units on pure CES excitement before a wave of negative reviews.

The products couldn’t carry the weight of marketing’s promises.

Brooke Travis, vice president of marketing and communications at Sandbar, a New York interface company shipping its next batch of Stream rings this fall, recently identified this pattern in a post on X: “Every fast decision quietly borrows against something.”

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You’re buying attention on credit when you amplify

You’re buying attention on credit when you amplify a product beyond what it has earned. It’s the marketing equivalent of engineers shipping shortcuts as technical debt. And for the last two years, the AI hardware category has been paying down that debt in public.

Attention must be earned

Travis is quick to reject the idea that Sandbar’s approach is intentionally slow. When the Wall Street Journalinvited the company to Tech Live the same week it announced the product, the team overhauled its planned schedule and just went. It conceptualized and shipped a feature announcement in a week. By Travis’ account, the business grew by more than 100 percent in a month.

You must have earned the attention you’re about to amplify. In a digital ecosystem where views, likes, and reach are basically commodities you can buy, someone seeing you is entirely different from someone believing you. It’s a trap to apply extreme velocity before you understand that distinction.

Source: www.inc.com