We took over tech Twitter for a day. Here’s how it happened.

Imagine you get a message from Runway. Out of nowhere. It only says you’re invited to be part of something big and exciting. You don't know what’s coming next.

A few days later, a package arrives at your door. It has your name on it.

Inside, there’s a sleek, black duffel bag. But you can’t open it yet. The bag is locked, with a timer that’s ticking down. Until this timer hits zero, whatever’s inside remains completely out of reach.

That’s how we kicked off Runway’s official launch. We wanted to create an experience people would remember, and we had an idea that we thought could work—a mix of surprise, anticipation, and a sense of exclusivity. It was our first GA launch, so we didn’t really know what to expect. We just hoped things would go well.

What happened next exceeded all our expectations. This is the story of what we did, and how it got everyone talking.

The invitation

We started by identifying a select group of people—investors, founders, and customers—who had been in our corner from the start. We thought it’d be a great idea to ask for their addresses, and send them appreciation gifts.

Instead of sending out a mass email, we reached out individually—via emails and DMs—hinting that something exciting was coming. Our goal was to build hype one conversation at a time.

The gift

We knew the gift had to be more than just branded swag. It had to be something people would actually want to own, something that carried a story with it.

After weeks and weeks of brainstorming, we landed on bomber jackets from Alpha Industries because of their superior quality. But just sending cool jackets wouldn’t have been enough; we had to find a way to make them unique.

So we added custom embroidered patches with a limited edition number (#/200), hand-sewn onto the sleeves. Each jacket was a collectible.

A personal touch

Each jacket came with a hand-written note.

And these weren’t generic thank-you notes. Each message was personal, heartfelt, and tied to the specific relationship we’d built with that individual. We also included a link to our launch page on each note, so people could keep a track of the big reveal online.

How?

The countdown

This is where things got really interesting. We didn't want the experience to end with the arrival of the gift package.

To keep the experience going, we added a timer. Each package came with a time-locked duffel bag, and the jacket and the hand-written note were locked inside. The only way to unlock them was to wait for the timer to hit zero.

Meanwhile, each duffel bag also had a QR code that took you to our launch page. The countdown on the launch page was synced with the timer on the bag. This tiny detail created a shared experience that got everyone talking—people across different locations were watching the same clock, and waiting for the same reveal.

The logistics

Pulling this off wasn’t easy, but we had a great partner to take care of the logistics for us.

We had to coordinate with multiple vendors for the jackets, patches, and cards. Instead of managing all the shipping ourselves, we had everything sent to our logistics partner, Brilliant (also a Runway customer). They handled everything—from kitting to fulfillment—ensuring every package was put together perfectly and shipped out on time.

The results

It turned out to be way better than we ever imagined.

There were hundreds of social media posts of people showing off their jackets. We got over a million impressions across X and LinkedIn within the first 24 hours. And, on a single day, we saw a 10x increase in signups compared to our weekly average. We did not see that coming.

What started as a way to build excitement turned into more attention than we thought we could get. But more than that, we connected with our community and made them feel like a part of our launch.

The lesson

Looking back, this launch taught us that there’s no playbook for this kind of thing. You have to take risks. And, in doing so, sometimes you stumble onto something that works really, really well. The key is to experiment, be creative, trust each other, and have fun.

Which we did. None of this would’ve been possible without our incredible launch crew. Huge shoutout to the folks who pulled this off: Nabeel Shahid, Richard Klein, Amy Devereux, Israel Ramirez, Wells Riley, Siqi Chen, Annie Wu, and Vasudha Pande.