Which launch day is a coin toss against the rival, and which is worse?
Three phases left and a rival expected on day 60. The sheet says we launch on day 49, eleven days ahead. Across 20,000 futures the current plan is first in 85 in 100 runs, and the even-odds launch day is day 62.
Marketing Starter Monte Carlo Pro engine
After you install, this is the model to open.
What launch date has even odds of beating the competitor?
- In your spreadsheet, click the Sortia icon in the strip of icons down the right-hand edge. No strip? Click the arrow at the bottom-right to open it. You can also use Extensions, then Sortia, then Open Sortia.
- Click Start from a template and put that name in the search box.
- Pick the card with that name and click Load this template. It arrives on a new tab with real numbers already in it.
This one runs on a Pro engine, and every free install includes five full-quality runs on your own numbers, shared across all five Pro engines rather than five for each. After that, Pro is $199/year.
What it does
Three phases left before launch, each a three-point estimate in days, and a rival expected to launch on day 60 with a range of 45 to 95. As typed we launch on day 49 and beat them by 11 days, which looks like a comfortable lead. Click Run with the three phases and the rival's date as three-point estimates. The seed is set to 7 and the trials to 20,000 so your first run reproduces these figures exactly.
Days ahead of the rival come back with a mean of 11.1 and a median of 10.6, and the current plan launches first in 85 in 100 runs. Beating them by ten days or more, the lead the sheet shows, happens in 53 in 100, and being five or more days behind happens in 6 in 100. Then the question in the title. The sheet also holds a launch day we could promise instead, set to day 62: promising day 62 beats the rival in 52 in 100 runs, and the margin on that promise has a median of 0.5 days.
Day 62 is the even-odds launch, and every later day is worse than a coin toss, because the promised day beats the rival only when the rival is later than it and the rival's median is a little past 62. The tornado on the current plan puts the rival's date first at 0.85, carrying 75% of the spread, and Finish the build second at -0.41, so the odds on the plan are mostly about someone else's calendar.
Second run: cut Finish the build in the Risk Analysis panel to 20, 24 and 32 days and rerun. The odds on the current plan rise, and day 62 does not move, because the even-odds day depends only on the rival. What the model cannot tell you: the rival's date is a guess about a company that is not telling you, and the whole answer inherits that guess; the phases run one after another with nothing in parallel; a promised day is treated as kept, when a promise made from a plan with a range slips like the plan does; and it puts no value on being first, so it cannot say whether being first by a day is worth a rushed build.
To make it yours, put in your own remaining phases and the range you would defend for the rival, set the same draws in the Risk Analysis panel, and move the promised day until its odds read even.
The model
It arrives on a tab called Template: Launch With Even Odds, carrying these columns:
- Low (days)
- Likely (days)
- High (days)
- Duration drawn (days)
with the model computed beside the data:
| Our launch (days from today) | 49 |
| Days we launch ahead of the rival (days, negative = they are first) | 11 |
| Days the promised day beats the rival by (days, negative = they are first) | -2 |
Once it is in your sheet
- The model arrives with real numbers in it and runs as it stands, so you can press the button first and understand it second.
- Change the numbers to yours. The sheet marks which cells are inputs and which hold formulas, and most labels carry a note explaining the row.
- Press the run button at the bottom of the panel. It is labeled for the tool you are in, and the result lands on its own tab, with a written reading of it beside the figures.
Never used Google Sheets? Start here goes the whole way, in seven steps, and assumes nothing.
Next question
- Which budget hits the lead target eight months in ten, and what do the extra points cost?What spend gives 80% odds of hitting the lead target?
- How many tickets does the event need before break-even is more than a coin toss?How many tickets to sell for 90% odds of breaking even?
- Which part of the conference actually decides the date?Conference Plan: What Sets the Date?
- Which event risks are worth paying to prevent?Event Risk Register
- Where should the next ad dollar go?Split the Ad Budget for Maximum Orders
- Who should get the loan offer?Who Should the Campaign Target?
Every model like this one, and the method behind them: Monte Carlo simulation.