Article
The case for a slower launch
Why Brisk’s running app spent ten weeks with 2,400 testers before its campaign went out, and what that changed.
Marta Lobo
Process
July 10, 2026
Brisk’s launch was booked for the second week of January, when every running app buys the same ads and every gym runs the same offer. We asked to move it to the end of March, and the room went quiet for a while.
The reason was in Brisk’s own numbers: most runners on their old plans had given up by March. Launching then meant meeting people at the moment they usually quit, with an app built for exactly that moment.
What ten more weeks bought
Between the planned date and the real one, the app went to a closed group of runners, and the campaign waited to see what they did with it.
What changed | January plan | March launch |
|---|---|---|
Testers before launch | None | 2,400 runners |
Missed runs, first week | Not measured | 1.7 per runner |
Film cast | Actors, one shoot | Three testers, five mornings |
Campaign line | Written in week two | Train Sideways |
The second row turned the campaign around. Testers missed runs far more often than anyone had planned for, so the screen where the week rebuilds itself became the centre of everything we made.
A line nobody in the studio wrote
Train Sideways came from a tester’s message to support. She had missed Tuesday and Wednesday, the app moved her long run to Saturday, and she wrote that she was training sideways now.
“We had a line ready in January and it was fine. The one we launched with came from a runner who missed two days and kept going, and none of us could have written it.”
Alex Morgan, Marketing Director at Brisk
The film followed three of those testers before work, in the dark, on the mornings the app had moved their runs to.
How we use the waiting weeks
A slower launch only helps if the extra weeks are spent on purpose. We split them in two.
Weeks one to four: watch
The campaign team read Brisk’s support inbox every Monday and kept a sheet of phrases runners used that we never had. By week four it held 63 of them.
Weeks five to ten: make
Scripts, store screenshots and the onboarding copy were written from that sheet and tested on the same group. The screenshots went through three rounds in Figma before any of them reached the App Store.
What it costs
Brisk paid for ten extra weeks of hosting and support before earning a cent from new users. Their media money went further in March, though, when the same slots cost about 30% less than in January.
Before you pick a date
Not every product can wait. If yours can, answer three questions before the launch date goes in the calendar.
When do your users usually give up?
Who could use it for a month first?
What would the campaign say if a user wrote it?
If the answers move the date, that’s usually good news. When you’re ready, tell us what you’re launching and when you’d like it out.
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