Chris Shipley at the SVPMA meeting at Santa Clara on July 11, 2007

I attended a SVPMA meeting yesterday where Chris Shipley was hosting a panel discussion titled "Ready, Set, Launch: Taking the product to market". She is a great speaker, very witty, insightful and thoughtful. A couple of take aways from the meeting:

- If the product launch is a bright shining event analogous to a comet, never make the mistake of ignoring the tail! Have plans in place to deal with the interest that will ensue, and convert interest into customers.

- Better to overestimate the interest and make plans accordingly, unless hardware is involved and building up inventory is a concern.

- Do not make the mistake of lining up launch with funding. Launch has a causal effect in that a product launch at an event such as DEMO might raise VC interest, but funding and launching are independent events basically.