Why a checklist at all
A launch is a short window of attention. For most indie products it lasts a day or two, and then the traffic falls back to near zero. You cannot make that window much longer, but you can make sure nothing breaks while it is open.
Most launch-day regrets are boring. The signup form did not send the confirmation email. The pricing page said one thing and checkout charged another. Analytics was not installed, so nobody knows where the few paying users came from. None of these are hard to fix. They are just easy to forget when you have been heads-down building for months.
This checklist is split into three parts: before, during and after. Use it as a list to tick off, not as a plan to follow blindly. Skip what does not apply to your product.
Before launch
The landing page
Your landing page has one job: help the right visitor understand, in a few seconds, what the product does and whether it is for them.
- A plain headline. Say what it does, not how it feels. "Turn meeting recordings into action items" beats "Work smarter, together."
- One screenshot or short clip of the real product. Not an illustration. People want to see the thing.
- Who it is for. Name the audience. "For freelance designers who invoice monthly" filters out people who would churn anyway.
- A single primary action. Sign up, start a trial, or join a waitlist. Pick one and make it obvious.
- Basic trust signals. Your name, a way to contact you, a privacy policy and terms. A solo maker with a real name is more trustworthy than a faceless company.
Pricing
Decide your pricing before launch, even if you plan to change it. A product with "pricing coming soon" invites people to bookmark it and forget.
- Publish the price. Hidden pricing makes sense for enterprise sales, not for a $9/month tool.
- Keep it to two or three options. One free or trial path and one or two paid plans is plenty.
- Decide what happens when a trial ends. Does the account lock, downgrade or keep working? Write it down.
How to Price Your SaaS goes deeper on picking the numbers.
Payments
Test the full payment path end to end with a real card in live mode, then refund yourself. Test mode catches most problems but not all of them, such as tax settings, currency display and receipt emails.
- Checkout works on mobile. A surprising share of launch traffic is on phones.
- Receipts and invoices send. Business customers often need an invoice with a company name and tax ID field.
- Cancellation is easy. A self-serve cancel button costs you a few customers and saves you from angry emails and chargebacks.
Analytics
Install analytics before you post anything. You get one shot at seeing where launch traffic comes from.
- Page views and referrers, so you know which post or community sent people.
- A signup event and an activation event. Activation is the first moment a user gets real value, such as creating their first project. More on that in the glossary.
- UTM tags on the links you share, so each channel shows up separately.
A privacy-friendly, lightweight tool is fine. You do not need a full product analytics suite on day one.
Onboarding email
Set up at least one automated email that sends right after signup. It should come from a real person's name, say what to do first, and invite a reply. Replies to that email are some of the best feedback you will ever get.
A simple sequence:
- Immediately: welcome, one next step, a reply-to address that reaches you.
- Day two: a short tip for getting value faster, only if they have not activated yet.
- Before the trial ends: a heads-up with what happens next.
A last sanity pass
- Sign up with a fresh email address and go through the whole flow as a new user.
- Check the site on a slow connection and a small screen.
- Make sure error pages do not expose stack traces.
- Confirm you get notified when something breaks, even if that is just an email from your host.
During launch
Where to post
Pick two or three places where your specific audience already spends time, rather than spraying links everywhere. Common options:
- Launch platforms such as Product Hunt, for general tech-curious audiences.
- Show HN, if your product is technical or has an interesting build story.
- Niche communities such as subreddits, forums or Discord servers where your users gather, following each community's self-promotion rules.
- Your own audience: newsletter subscribers, followers, the waitlist you built.
Launching on Product Hunt and Show HN covers those two in detail.
How to behave
- Be present. Answer every comment and question on the day. Short, specific, honest replies.
- Do not argue with critics. Thank them, fix what is fair, and move on.
- Do not ask for upvotes. Most platforms penalize it, and it reads badly even when it does not get caught.
- Keep a notes file open. Log every feature request, confusion and bug report as it comes in. You will forget otherwise.
After launch
What to measure in the first week
Launch-day traffic is a spike, not a baseline. The useful numbers are the ones that tell you what happens next.
| Metric | Question it answers |
|---|---|
| Visitors by source | Which channels are worth repeating? |
| Signup rate | Does the landing page make the offer clear? |
| Activation rate | Do new users reach the first moment of value? |
| Paid conversions | Is anyone willing to pay yet? |
| Day-7 return | Did anyone come back without a reminder? |
Say 1,200 people visit, 90 sign up, 30 activate and 3 pay. The interesting number is not the 3 paying users. It is the drop from 90 to 30. Two thirds of the people who cared enough to sign up never got to the good part, and that is usually the first thing to fix.
Follow up
- Email everyone who signed up but did not activate. Ask one question: what stopped you?
- Thank the people who paid, personally. Ask what almost made them not buy.
- Write a short public recap with what worked and what did not. It is useful for others and it gives you a second, smaller wave of attention.
Then get back to building, guided by what you learned. For where to find users after launch day, continue to Finding Your First 100 Users.
FAQ
Should I launch before the product is finished?
Yes, as long as the core flow works reliably. A product is never finished, and early users will tell you what matters more accurately than your own roadmap will.
Can I launch more than once?
Yes. Many makers launch a first version, then relaunch after a significant update. Check each platform's rules on relaunches first.
What if nobody shows up?
That is the most common outcome, and it is information, not failure. Look at whether people saw the post at all, then whether the ones who did clicked through. It usually points to either the channel or the pitch.