Board Briefing · Launch & Go-Live Marketing

Nobody launches to an empty garage.

The launch is three moves: preload sellers while the platform hardens (Nov–Dec), open doors January 1 with the entire EEI megaphone at once, then let the flywheel run on owned channels that cost us nearly nothing. Timing follows the Project Plan; every budget line is high-side on purpose, same as the Costs brief.

T−60 · Nov 1 – Dec 31 · Preload

Stock the shelves

Founding Sellers program: gallery owners with used gear on their builds get personal invites — their parts already have an audience
Team Stance street team lists first: 25% off shipping supplies + CJ commissions, already wired
Goal: 500+ live listings, 200 verified sellers before a single buyer walks in
Waitlist teaser page + email warm-up drip across the FI / CO / OT lists
Content bank staged: guides, price-guide data stories, launch video cut

T−0 · January 1 – 31 · Open Doors

Whole megaphone, one morning

Homepage takeovers on Fitment Industries, Custom Offsets & Only Tires — owned, $0 media
Email series to the family lists: “Sell for free. Keep every dollar.”
YouTube + socials: real builds selling real takeoffs — the content IS the product
Founding-seller Boost credits for the first 1,000 listings; deals hub stocked with under-guide badges for buyers
PR + forum/FB-group seeding through Team Stance — enthusiasts telling enthusiasts

T+30 · Feb onward · Flywheel

Let the machine feed itself

My Feed digests + saved-search price-drop emails — retention on autopilot
Guides hub + price-guide pages compound as SEO surface
Double-blind reviews become social proof; monthly “what it sold for” data stories
Affiliates go always-on (below) — paid growth capped at a known bounty, not an auction

500+listings live at open

200verified sellers at open

$75KGMV month 1 · conservative

3%email → first-listing conversion

≤ bountyCAC ceiling — affiliates cap it by design

02 · CJ Affiliates — Already Wired

Both sides of the marketplace pay a bounty.

EEI already runs affiliates on Commission Junction — the Exchange launches as a new program in the existing account. No new vendor, no new contract, and Team Stance already earns through CJ today, so our street team is the founding affiliate cohort on day one. What’s genuinely new for a marketplace: affiliates can get paid for bringing either side of the transaction.

Payout structure · funded from our fee, never from GMV

Action the affiliate drives	Payout	Funded by
New buyer’s first purchase	30% of our final-value fee	Cash-out margin
New seller’s first verified listing	$10 bounty	Launch budget
That seller’s first completed sale	$25 bounty	Launch budget
Founding-affiliate kicker (Jan–Mar)	2× all bounties	Launch budget · capped

Why this math is safe: payouts come out of the 8% cash-out margin and a capped launch pool — an affiliate can never cost more than the revenue their referral created. CAC has a ceiling by construction.

The kit & the plumbing

Who we recruit: parts YouTubers and IG builders, forum moderators, build-thread authors, content sites — plus Team Stance, who skip onboarding entirely because they’re already in the account.

Toolkit: CJ product feed of live listings (deep links to any PDP, category, or a “sell your takeoffs” landing page), Exchange-branded banners, and promo codes that grant Boost credits so creators have something real to hand their audience.

Tracking: CJ click ID rides the deep link; server-side webhooks post two conversion events back to CJ — first purchase and first verified listing — straight off Sharetribe transaction events. One small integration row, same pattern as every webhook on the Architecture brief.

Guardrails: FTC disclosure required, no bidding on EEI brand terms, no condition-claim copy beyond our published grading scale.

03 · Channel Mix & Budget

Owned first, paid last — $95K covers the quarter.

The unfair advantage is that EEI already owns the audience: the family sites, the email lists, the YouTube channel, the gallery, the street team. Paid spend is a sweetener, not the engine — and every line is budgeted high.

Channel	Play	Owner	Q1 budget · high-side
Email (FI / CO / OT lists)	Warm-up drip, launch series, feed digests	Seller Growth hire	$0 media · owned
Site takeovers + gallery rails	Homepage heroes on all family properties, Exchange rails on retail PDPs	FE dev · existing pattern	$0 media · owned
YouTube + social	Launch film, build features, “what it sold for” shorts + boosted posts	EEI content team	$15K boost pool
CJ affiliate bounties	Two-sided payouts + 2× founding kicker (capped pool)	Seller Growth + CJ	$20K
Founding-seller Boost credits	Free promoted-listing credits for the first 1,000 listings	Ops lead	$10K credit value
Paid social	Retargeting family-site visitors with used-parts intent only	EEI marketing	$25K
PR + creator seeding kit	Press kit, embargoed briefings, 20 creator packages	EEI marketing	$8K
Total Q1	+ ~20% contingency already inside each line	—	~$95K high-side