Short answer: the best launch videos tell a real story, make people laugh a little, and often feature faces people recognize. Six worth studying: Ramp with Tony Hawk, Cursor, ElevenLabs, Dollar Shave Club, and from our own work, Corti and Stacks.
What the great ones have in common
A great story. A bit of humor, even in a serious category. And recognizable people inside.
None of that is about budget or features. It's about whether people want to watch to the end, and then share it.
Six launch videos worth studying
Ramp x Tony Hawk. Ramp is finance software. Tony Hawk is the most famous skater alive, and he loves ramps. Get it? Their series hides him in witness protection on a Wall Street trading floor as "Tony Stock". Story, humor and a famous face, with the joke built into the company name.
Dollar Shave Club. The classic. The founder walks through a warehouse cracking jokes while explaining the product. If humor matches your brand, this is the best format there is.
Cursor. A great product-led video. Minimal, no voiceover, made for developers who don't trust hype. The product is the story.
ElevenLabs. Known for great branding and great motion, and an example for everyone. In their launch videos, the narration uses their own AI voices, so the voiceover is the demo and the proof at the same time.
Corti. Most of Corti's product is systems you can't see. The video makes it clean and easy to follow, and grounds it in story moments from the hospital.
Stacks. A technical product made clean, smooth and easy for anyone to understand. Stacks premiered it at the Stacks Summit.
Which type fits your launch
Founder-led. For funding rounds and company launches, when the vision is the story. You on camera, motion on top. Needs a shoot.
Product-led motion. For new products and features, when the product is the story. No filming, so it's faster and cheaper.
Story-led. When video is your main channel and you want it to travel. Ramp and Dollar Shave Club live here.
Hard-to-show products. Story moments plus clean motion, to make invisible systems easy to follow. Corti and Stacks.
What makes an example a bad one to copy
- Off brand. It might be great, just not for a company like yours.
- No real story. A string of features with music on top.
- Weak branding. If it doesn't look good, it won't make you look good.
- Low reaction. If even the poster's own connections didn't react or comment, it didn't land.
How to use examples when you brief a studio
Most founders already spend a lot of time in the feed, watching how other founders launch. Almost all of them come to us with reference links.
That's useful. To make it more useful, run each link through the four red flags above first. Then say what you like about each one: the story, the humor, the motion, the tone. "Like this, but for us" is a starting point, not a brief. The right reference matches your brand and your stage.
Got a launch coming? Tell us the date and bring your references.