Experiment Before You Launch: a Lesson Learned from the Sonos Debacle

By now, Sonos serves as a cautionary tale of what can go wrong when app development teams are pressured to innovate fast. Their recent botched launch—riddled with bugs and missing crucial features—triggered a domino effect of consequences. First, there was customer backlash. Then, an estimated $30 million in recovery costs and an 8% year-over-year decrease in revenue. Now, there’s a change in leadership: long-time CEO Patrick Spence just announced he’ll be stepping down after falling short of stabilizing the situation.

Turning the page on the Sonos fallout won’t be easy. Fear of failure will likely linger. And fear of this magnitude is powerful enough to freeze even the most innovative teams.

Can Sonos get its groove back? Can they make their release processes safer without stifling their ability to innovate quickly and with impact? We think so. The answer for Sonos—and for any modern development team looking to launch impactful software with speed and safety—is effective product experimentation.

Experimentation: it’s not as risky as it sounds

When done right, product experiments can catch bugs before they spiral into bigger issues, limit the blast radius of release problems, and provide real-time feedback so teams can make informed, timely decisions.

A healthy culture of experimentation also gives development teams the psychological safety they need to introduce bold iterations without fearing a Sonos-level catastrophe. When teams feel secure testing new ideas, they unlock the ability to innovate at scale.

To build the right culture, it takes the right tools

Creating an experimentation culture starts with executive buy-in and alignment, underscoring the strategic value of testing and data-driven decision-making. But it’s not just about shifting mindsets; it’s about adopting the right tools. Robust experimentation tools, such as feature flags powered by data, are essential for safe, incremental rollouts and real-time feedback.

Once you have the right tools in place, teams can embrace a mindset of curiosity and learning—where failures become stepping stones to improvement—and feel empowered to innovate boldly without fear of blame.

Make feature flags your backbone

Feature flags give developers real-time control to toggle features on or off, enabling safe, granular rollouts. They’re the backbone of experimentation—supporting A/B testing, rapid adjustments, and instant rollbacks without redeploying code.

When powered by data, feature flags become a game-changer. Teams can measure feature impact on customers and system performance, ensuring every change delivers value.

Change the way you release app updates

Moving toward a culture of experimentation can take an element of adoption. But, it won’t take long before you’ll change the way you develop software. Here’s what a culture of experimentation brings to app development teams:

Iterate fearlessly without slowing down 

Feature flags let developers test directly in live environments with visibility into every incremental change. By identifying what works best through real feedback, teams avoid time wasted on ineffective features—speeding up releases, not slowing them down.

Limit the blast radius with gradual rollouts 

Sonos’ mistake was an all-at-once, “big bang” release. Feature flags enable phased rollouts to smaller user groups, identifying bugs and customer dissatisfaction early thus reducing the risk of widespread failures or public backlash on Reddit.

Rebuild customer trust with data

A culture of experimentation also means that Sonos can listen to its users, collecting feedback throughout the testing phases. Rather than guessing what customers think, Sonos can let customers directly shape their product with every incremental rollout. When something works, they’ll know with data-driven certainty, inspiring product decisions that rebuild customer trust.

It’s time to boldly experiment without risk

The fear of failure continues to hold back software teams. According to a recent survey, 1 and 10 devs know someone who lost their job due to a failed software release. Sonos’ experience is a stark reminder that innovation without safe release strategies can be costly—but it doesn’t have to be this way. Move beyond internal fear of failure. By embracing a culture of experimentation powered by robust feature management tools, teams can innovate boldly, mitigate risks, and deliver customer-centric products with confidence. Instead of building your own tools, invest in a platform that prioritizes security and includes feature-level data to drive smarter decisions. The right platform enables you to iterate fearlessly, launch safely, and rebuild trust—proving that with experimentation, you can take risks without taking risks. If you‘d like to learn more about how Harness Feature Management and Experimentation can help you build a culture of experimentation, get in touch with us.