Holidays, Events and Your Launch Date

You choose a Tuesday, you prepare, you launch, and the response is thin. Later you realise it was a public holiday in the country where most of your audience lives. The product was fine. The date was wrong. A few minutes with a calendar would have shown it.

This article gives you a short method for checking dates against holidays, events and clock changes.

Why the calendar matters

People do not behave the same on every day. On a public holiday they are away from desks, with families or travelling. During a major event, their attention is elsewhere. In the days around a clock change, their routines shift.

Your audience's attention is what you are borrowing for the launch. If you ask for it at a bad moment, you get less of it.

Public holidays

Public holidays vary by country, and sometimes by region within a country. When you choose a date, check the holidays in each market that matters to you.

How to check: use an official government list or a reliable calendar for each country. Do not rely on memory, especially for holidays that move each year.

What to check:

• The day itself.
• The days around it. Many people take a long weekend.
• Regional or religious observances that affect your audience.
• School holidays, which affect parents and teachers.
• The end-of-year period, when many people are away.

What to do:

• If the holiday is in your main market, move the date.
• If it affects a small part of your audience, note it and carry on.
• If the holiday is relevant to your product, such as gifts or travel, consider using it.

Big events

Large events draw attention in two opposite ways.

They can swallow it. A major sports final, an election or a big technology conference occupies the minds of the people you want to reach. If your audience follows the event, you are competing with it.

They can give you a hook. If your product is relevant to an event, launching near it may help, provided you can offer something useful, not merely opportunistic.

Questions to ask:

• Does my audience attend or follow this event?
• Is there a legitimate connection to my product?
• Can I be present, given my own commitments?

Product Hunt's guidance stresses that the best day to launch is when you are ready to execute. If a clash would distract you or your team, that is a reason to move too.

Daylight saving and clock changes

Wikipedia reports that, in the United States, daylight saving time has been observed since 2007 from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November, while European Summer Time has been observed since 1996 from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October. It also says that around a third of the world's countries use daylight saving time, mainly in Europe and North America.

For a founder, the point is that the time gap between two cities is not constant. For a few weeks each spring and autumn, the US and Europe are on different clock arrangements, so a launch time that fell at a sensible hour for one group can shift by an hour for another.

What to do:

• Check whether your launch date falls inside a transition period.
• Confirm conversions for each audience on the exact date, not from a general rule.
• Write times with an offset in ISO 8601 form. Wikipedia describes the standard as an unambiguous way to represent dates and times worldwide.
• Tell helpers the time in their local zone.

Seasonal patterns

Beyond single days, some periods are quieter or busier.

• End-of-year weeks: many businesses slow down. Consumer products may see more attention.
• Summer: holidays reduce attention in some markets.
• Back-to-school and new-year periods: people tend to plan, learn and sign up for things.
• Financial year ends: relevant for products aimed at finance and accounting.
• Industry cycles: retail has its peaks, education has terms, agriculture has seasons.

Think about your own audience's year, not a generic one.

Building a quick check

Before you commit to a date, run through this list.

1. List your main markets, up to three.
2. Check public holidays in each for the date and the days either side.
3. Check school holidays if relevant.
4. Check major events your audience follows.
5. Check clock changes for any region involved.
6. Check your own diary, including travel and family.
7. Check the platform's schedule for crowding.

If no flags appear, you are clear. If one or two appear, weigh them. If several appear, consider another date.

Weighing a clash

Not every clash is fatal. Score each flag by how many of your target audience it affects and how much attention it takes.

• Affects most of your audience and takes a day: serious. Move.
• Affects a minority: note it, mitigate.
• Affects you and your team: often a good reason to move.
• Gives you a hook: consider using it, with care.

Then ask the cost of moving. If moving costs weeks, and the flag is small, you may keep the date. If moving costs days, it is usually worth it.

Communicating changes

If you have already told people a date and then move it, say so clearly and early, with the new date in ISO form and a one-line reason. Do not let people discover it by showing up at the wrong time.

Respect the audience's rest

One more consideration is ethical. Launch communications that land on a day of rest or celebration may feel intrusive. A short, sensible rule is not to send marketing messages on days that matter deeply to your recipients. It costs little and builds goodwill.

Common mistakes

• Assuming your own calendar is everyone's.
• Checking only the day, not the days around it.
• Ignoring clock changes.
• Treating an event as irrelevant without asking whether your audience follows it.
• Moving the date at the last minute without telling people.
• Not recording why you chose the date.

On this site

Our calendar and upcoming pages show scheduled entries in ISO dates with their time zones, which makes it easier to compare against holidays in your markets. The submit page starts an entry. A launch entry is currently $5, and the pricing page lists options for choosing or changing a slot, including skipping the queue at $9. The founders introduce themselves on the about-founders page.

Three examples

A tax-preparation tool for freelancers. The founder notes that her audience has a hard deadline each year and a quiet spell afterwards. She schedules her launch a few weeks before the deadline, when people begin to worry, and avoids the final week, when they are too busy to try anything new. She checks national holidays in her two main countries and finds one on the planned Monday, so she moves to Tuesday.

A board-game companion app. The audience is hobbyists with more time on weekends and evenings. The founder looks at the holiday calendar and sees that a long weekend is coming. He decides to launch on the Friday evening before it, when people have free time and are browsing for things to do. He also notes that clocks in Europe change that same weekend and writes every time in his plan with an explicit offset.

A project tool for agencies. The audience works in offices across Europe and North America. The founder sees that late December is nearly empty of attention, and early January is a planning period. She schedules for the second week of January, avoids the first Monday, which she expects to be full of catching up, and states the time zone in every message.

What to do if a surprise appears

Sometimes the calendar surprises you after you have committed, for example a sudden national day of mourning or a major news event. Use judgement. If something significant is happening that your audience cares about, delay the loud parts of your launch and keep the quiet ones, such as the listing itself, which can go ahead without announcements. Tone matters as much as timing. A cheerful message on a sombre day can do harm that a delay would not.

Keeping an annual view

If you plan to launch more than once, keep a simple annual sheet for your audience: holidays, events, industry deadlines and seasonal peaks, with dates in ISO form. Update it each year and add notes about what you learned. It takes an hour to build and pays back every time you pick a date.

A note on global audiences

If your audience is spread across many countries, no date will suit everyone, and the goal changes from avoiding every clash to avoiding the biggest ones. List your top three markets by expected share of visitors, check them carefully and treat the rest as secondary. Then plan your replies to keep going as the day moves around the world, so that late arrivals in other regions still meet a founder who is present.

The takeaway

Check holidays, events and clock changes in every market you care about before you commit. Write the date and time unambiguously, move when a clash is serious and say so promptly if you must change. A few minutes with a calendar can save a launch.