Launch pressure test

No matter how much you prepare and try to avoid it, shit happens. Here's how I'd deal with the scenario you proposed.

What's happened...

1. The video CTA isn't landing.
2. The product page draft, due to the client today, doesn't explain the product in a way I'd approve.
3. The social lead wants to change the rollout that was signed off at freeze.
4. The KOL drafts read salesy.

What I'm working from

• We've got 4 days until launch so the social posts don't need to go live yet. There's runway here, so it's not a top priority. But needs to be assessed to understand what the friction point is.
• Sky is expecting the product page today, and if this pages features potentially incorrect or legally risky language it needs to be seen to immediately. Also, worth checking that the details haven't been used elsewhere as it could have a wide knock-on effect.
• I start by diagnosing and working out how severe these issues are, no delay stated to Sky at the point if we can triage and get working on it asap, deadlines can still remain.

How I read it

First things, if the product page draft has only just landed, I'll assume this was its due date. I need to check if these are 4 isolated problems or if they stem from the same issue. If the page is describing the product differently or incorrectly stems from the same sources everyone else built off. If so, these could have knock-on effects for the other issues. There's a chance the social lead is probably pushing back because they've clocked the mismatch themselves.

If this is the case, then we've got a very clear route to fixing the social aspects, fix that and the others should fall back in line. If these are all unique and don't have any commonality, then they get handled separately. Regardless, we're not going to be handing over a LP that I wouldn't approve for the sake of deadlines. So if we can fix that first, and keep expectations in line we're good.

I've outlined below a little run through of how I approach these situations, obviously its based on the sparse information I have, so if you feel you'd like to explore a more specific direction, just let me know, I'm happy to jump on a call and discuss.

The calls

What I prioritise.
I try to diagnose first, what is mission critical, what is an stress-free fix, and what requires a longer lead time. Firstly, I'd assess where we went wrong with the product page, because it's likely the copy source here may have informed other aspects of the launch. Then I'd look at the video edit brief, I'm sure the team are skilled, but it will still most likely carry the longest turnaround and will need to get started asap. Then I'd need to check what the friction points are for the social strategy, is this based on requirement, or feeling. If its the later, park it for now. As for the KOL drafts if they sound salesy, we need to guide the KOLs in their terminology without sounding like we're intruding on their ToV. The KOL posts if just text, aren't due to go live yet, same for the socials, so they can sit lower in the priority list without holding anything up (only caveat is if the KOL scripts are for video).

What I escalate.
Almost nothing, yet. This is manageable, the landing page is something we can sit on a call and assess and fix, we're still within deadline, so this doesn't need to be a panic moment. The goal is to get it to a place I feel comfortable with and lands as expected with Sky without any issue. Internally, I'd handle the video edit, the social pushback and the KOL edits post-landing page. I'd look to notify Raul of these, but just with a heads-up, and a brief note on actions, and then a wrap up once done.

What I push back on.
The social lead changing a signed-off rollout at the last minute, but its worth investigating before writing it off, I'd image they probably wouldn't be raising this on a whim or for nothing... So the question is why?. If it's down to just preference, we can assess, but not changes are guaranteed on signed off work. If its urgent, then we triage and fix. But I wouldn't shy away from pushing back here, it's not about simply saying no, it's ensuring the launch runs on time, and doesn't have cascading issues.

How I communicate.
Switch from email to slack, get the conversations going to assess everything. For social is about understanding the reasoning, for video we need to understand how long an edit will take, and what their preferred method of feedback is (timestamped doc vs live runthrough), following that I would supply a structural note with the edits. KOL-wise its going to be diagnostic, how can we sway them away from the shill tone of voice, whilst not making them sound like an ad read. Ask for the product page, all comms there are on rectifying it, jumping on a call to go over it and lock in those changes. As far as Sky is concerned, they received the page on its due date.

24hr Plan

I've mapped this against who, what, when (in a roundabout way).

I've made some pretty wide assumptions throughout, but happy to discuss any other scenarios or if this is a real problem that happened, help you understand my rationale.

Worth also mentioning that throughout my workstreams/tasks, you'll notice that there are clear sign-offs and gates to try and mitigate things like this happening, with clear breathing space pre-launch to ensure no last-minute panic. Obviously, it's impossible to plan for last-minute changes from clients but you factor in enough time for them not to be as worrying.

Start here

This is the starting point for the Sky.money × Pendle launch. My goal is to keep everything the team needs living within one to two clicks from this page.

Product one-liner

Fix your rate to maturity: hold to the end and the rate you started with is the rate you finish with. Pendle runs the machinery, Sky.money keeps it one click. We sell certainty, not rate.

Day-to-day

Jump to

Campaign brief

WAGMI

The product, in one sentence

Objective

$100M TVL within 60 days of launch, weighted toward durable deposits.

Milestones: $30M by day 14 (ecosystem), $60M by day 35, $100M by day 60.

Conversion paths

Positioning: Certainty over APY

We never anchor creative on an APY number. The rate is market-set and will move, this means a campaign built on a number breaks when the number changes. The number lives in the product UI, next to its maturity date. We use copy to convey the product e.g. "know your rate, know your date."

The message heirachy:
1 Certainty (rates move constantly, yours doesn't have to)
2 Simplicity (one click, ease of use) 
3 Credibility (Sky Savings Rate, Pendle, first S&P-rated protocol in DeFi)
4 Honesty (fixed if held to maturity, must be at forefront).

Things we won't do

• Paid acquisition (at launch): Compliance exposure on yield advertising (MiCA/GENIUS)
• Airdrops: Not a great retention lever, TVL will exit rapidly at maturity, defeats retention.
• No tier-1 mainstream press push. The FT doesn't care yet. They will at $100M, so that's when we go.
• APY-led creative: Rate is set on entry, and subject to change.

Risks & mitigation

Linked pages

Product 101

Outline of what is being marketed, and a simple quiz at the bottom just to ensure we're on the same page.

What it is

A fixed-rate version of Sky's savings yield. You deposit USDS/sUSDS on sky.money, choose fixed yield, and your rate is set at entry for a defined term. Hold to the maturity date and you receive exactly that rate. Powered by Pendle's Principal Token machinery and then Sky.money abstracts the mechanics into a one click action.

• The rate is market-set. It comes from Pendle's market, not from Sky. It will differ from the variable SSR, both above/below.
• Fixed means fixed-if-held. The rate is only certain if you hold to maturity.
• Early exit is a sale. Leaving before maturity means selling your position at the prevailing market price, which can be above or below entry. This should be transparent throughout, should never be a "gotcha" moment.
• At maturity the position resolves and the user can either roll into a new term, move to variable, or withdraw. Ultimately for TVL KPIs, we want them to roll into a new term.

What it isn't

• Not a savings account: We never say "interest". Regulatory friction WILL come with that.
• Not guaranteed: Sky.money does not set, control or guarantee the rate. The word is banned everywhere, should be especially careful with KOL messaging.
• Not for people who need liquidity before maturity: We say this out loud. It filters out the user who becomes next month's angry thread.

What we can and can't say

The full table with reasoning lives in 🛡️ Compliance & claims. Simple rule of thumb, think "access" and "fix to maturity". Never "lock", "guarantee", "earn-X%", "interest", or worst of all... "risk-free".

Remember: sUSDS accesses the Sky Savings Rate, and USDS itself never "pays yield".

The 60-second quiz (everyone passes this before writing)

Audiences & ICPs

Four profiles, ranked by relevance to the $100M goal. ToV, channels, KOL mapping, the message, etc. The two campaign tracks resolve to these people.

ICP overview

1. The Sky native

2. The rate optimiser (Pendle native)

3. The cautious allocator

4. The treasury

Client file

Process, contacts - all agreed on ahead of time.

What we've agreed (the SLAs)

What the client can expect from us

• No surprises, they hear about problems from us, before they'd notice, with the fix and a committed time attached.
• Scannable reporting and forwardable without editing. What worked, what didn't, next steps.
• Accountability, across the board.

What we expect from the client

• SLAs honoured (but realistically, as close to as possible)
• If the product framing moves, we hear it from them as soon as possible.
• Direct asks to individual team members get redirected to the AD. Not being territorial, just being practical. We need accountability, and the whole picture.

Success

$100M is the target and retention is the proof.

More importantly, proof of trust - a clean operation throughout, means less hand holding on future projects.

Gates & go/no-go

A gate is an official sign-off. Gates dictate moving to the next phases, however information is likely to change down the line, these protect initial stages.

Go/no-go criteria

• Product page approved, live-ready, passing the terminology audit
• Rate and maturity display QA passed in all landing pages, holds parity with UI
• All KOL sign-offs in: videos and scripts 
• Holding lines approved for potential failures
• No open legal flags 

Decision log

The boring spreadsheet that makes "but it was signed off" answerable. Every approval, every exception, every call that matters. Mirrored to #sky-fy-approvals.

Timeline (Gantt)

I've mapped out the deliverables from start to finish here, for visual ease. 

Dependencies read left to right through the milestones/gates. Nothing user-facing is written before M1, production doesn't start before M2 approves its briefs, nothing changes after "freeze" except through change control, and nothing ships on launch day that wasn't green at M5.

There are caveats here, these are all "perfect world" scenarios... which rarely happen, so depending on internal process and individual capacity/other work, this would be most likely be a little different.

Risk and next step per stream

Calendar

This is a running view of all stand-ups, reviews and continues post-launch for monitoring, triage and reporting.

Account Director 

My deliverables

Strategy Lead

Alejandro, the man, the myth, the legend.

Deliverables

How we split it

Should be kept clean and collaborative. They own the what and the why, the strategy gets written by them initially with me as a sounding board throughout. I own the how and the when, turning the strategy into deliverables, the operating model, the compliance aspects and (eventually) the client relationship, and getting everything shipped.

From speaking w/ Alejandro, I sense he's solid when it comes to strategic thinking, I'd be looking to help shape direction together. Once that's confirmed, it's his, and I should be confident backing it.

Head of Copy

Super important, as social, Paid/KOLs, Video/Design will all look to copy as a source of truth

Deliverables (mapped Gantt)

Head of Social

The tease, the launch-week rhythm, the community-facing voice.

Deliverables (mapped to the Gantt)

Video & Design

I've combined these two, as they're both visual assets for ease. If the two work pretty separately in practice, I'd just adjust this.

Deliverables (mapped to the Gantt)

Paid Media/KOLs

I've combined these two again, they could work very separate tracks, but for ease and campaign alignment I've lumped them. I'll assume that there's a list of KOLs we've worked with in the past, or potentially a trusted 3p agency we've worked with. As for paid, I opted out for this campaigns initial launch, with the ability to activate post-launch based on results.

Deliverables (mapped on Gantt)

Head of PR

Assuming organic/paid/earned PR here. With embargoed briefings for crypto trades, and a hold on mainstream/institutional-adjacent until the $100M milestone.

Deliverables (mapped to the Gantt)

Compliance

I've done A LOT of legal/compliance work, so I'm a bit of a stickler for this. I know how easy it is for people to make assumption based on vocabulary, that's why this is locked in ASAP. Doesn't mean it can't change, or be improved upon, but a baseline is hyper important. If Sky require legal sign-off (I suspect they will), then these should be checked by their teams, and given the green light.

I've also made the assumption Sky has either internal legal, or 3p legal council who are accessible. Should this not be the case, I presume Sky would have pre-approved messaging and blurbs to supply.

The table

The big 3

• Rule 1: Every rate mention carries the maturity condition in the same sentence or the same visual frame. 
• Rule 2: Sky provides access, but never promise outcomes. Think back to words like "access", "fix" (plus others). Don't use words like "lock", "guarantee", "earn".
• Rule 3: The scope is any user-facing surface. This spans I3's copy, but also Sky's.

Safety first

We audit at every gate/milestone, when we do a full runthrough we'll go through every asset, click every LP link. By final launch-morning audit we should be 100% confident that we're compliant across the board. Post-PR embargo, we should be checking all published articles and ensuring they don't contradict the brief we sent the, anywhere outlets mess up here, we contact them for an amendment, and hold off RT/Sharing those.

KOL Lists

For the sake of example, I've just listed the archetypes to target and which ICP they map to.

Basic archetypes

Pre-vetting (expected of KOL lead)

• The scroll: Audit and vet who they're pushing, what they're talking about, what they comment on
• Out: Over 60% sponsored content
• Out: Anyone shilling rugs or with a heavy shitcoin narrative in the last 12 months
• Engagement quality always comes before follower count (within reason). If it feels botty, it probably is.

The guidelines document (issued with every brief)

Analytics & Reporting

Daily through launch week, weekly after. The client should finish every report knowing what worked, what didn't, and what we're doing next, in under three minutes.

The weekly template (one page, always)

What success looks like, post-launch

• $30M, majority from Track 1.
• $60M, Track 2 contribution growing.
• $100M. Milestone
• Retention bonus: Watch for 60%+ rolls or stays. The maturity re-engagement comms were built to highlight this.

Analytics

Not sure if there are any specific teams for this, if not becomes a joint effort pulling from individual team members actions. I also don't know what tooling you use internally, for onchain, social listening/reporting etc, so I just kept it agnostic.

Deliverables (mapped to the Gantt)

Retro & post-mortem

Always a good idea to take a look back and see what worked and what didn't. Helps smooth out future campaigns/projects.

Format (60 minutes)

• The numbers (10 min): launch week vs plan
• What worked (15 min): What we kept doing, and why
• What didn't (20 min): Specifically process failures, not individual people failures. 
• Going forward (15 min): Use the findings as either guiding process change or highlight what we should do more of.