The Startup Launch Checklist Nobody Gives You
Every launch checklist I've ever read is the same. "Build an audience." "Create a landing page." "Tell your friends." Thanks, super helpful.
Here's the thing — I've launched four products. Two flopped. One did okay. One did really well. The difference wasn't the product quality. It was the execution of the launch itself. The boring, tactical stuff that nobody writes about because it's not sexy enough for a Twitter thread.
So here's my actual checklist. Not the inspirational version. The version with specific days, specific times, and specific "don't do this, idiot" warnings based on things I actually screwed up.
Two Weeks Before Launch
Lock your positioning. Write your one-liner and test it on 5 people who aren't your friends or family. If any of them say "so what does it actually do?" after reading it, rewrite it. You need this nailed before everything else because it goes everywhere — directories, social posts, emails, your homepage.
Prepare your assets. You need: a logo in PNG and SVG (both square and horizontal), 3-5 screenshots of your actual product (not mockups), an OG image (1200x630), and a short description (under 160 chars) plus a long description (2-3 paragraphs). Make these once, save them in a folder, reuse everywhere. I keep a Google Doc called "Launch Kit" with everything copy-pasteable. Saves hours during submission week.
Set up analytics properly. Not just "install Google Analytics." Set up UTM parameters for each directory you'll submit to. Create a simple spreadsheet: directory name, submission date, UTM link, status. When traffic starts coming in, you'll actually know what's working. I didn't do this for my first launch and spent weeks guessing which directories sent our 400 signups. Stupid.
Line up your ProductHunt launch. If you're doing PH (and you probably should, even though I think it's overrated for long-term traffic), you need a hunter. Find someone with 1,000+ followers on PH who's active. DM them. Most hunters are happy to help if your product is decent. Start this two weeks out because people are slow to respond.
Write your Hacker News post. Yes, write it now. A good "Show HN" post is a story, not an announcement. "Show HN: I built X because Y was driving me crazy" works. "Show HN: X — the platform for Y" doesn't. Write it, edit it, let it sit for a few days, then edit again.
Pre-write your Reddit posts. Identify 2-3 subreddits where your target users hang out. Write a genuine post for each one. Not "hey check out my startup" — that'll get you banned. Write something valuable that naturally mentions your product. A tutorial, a case study, a comparison. r/SaaS, r/startups, r/Entrepreneur, r/indiehackers are the obvious ones but niche subreddits convert better.
One Week Before Launch
Submit to quick-approval directories. Start with the ones that approve fast: AlternativeTo, SaaSHub, SideProjectors, Microlaunch. These take 5-15 minutes each and most go live within 48 hours. You want these live before your big launch day so you already have some presence when people Google you.
Email your waitlist. If you have one. If you don't, skip this and stop feeling bad about it. Not every launch needs a waitlist. But if you have even 50 people who signed up, email them now with a "launching next week, here's what to expect" message. Give them a specific date. Ask them to save the date for ProductHunt if you're doing that.
Schedule your social posts. Write them all now. Draft 5-7 tweets/posts covering: announcement, problem you solve, demo/screenshot, customer quote (if you have one), a personal story about building it. Schedule them across launch week. Don't post them all on day one — spread the content across Monday through Friday.
Test your signup flow one more time. I know, you think it works. Test it anyway. Use a new email. Go through every step. Check that confirmation emails send. Check that onboarding works. I once launched with a broken Stripe webhook. First 20 customers couldn't upgrade. I wanted to die. Test your damn signup flow.
Brief your support system. If you have a co-founder, VA, or anyone helping — tell them exactly what's happening and when. "Tuesday at 8am ET we're going live on ProductHunt. I need you monitoring Twitter for mentions and responding to HN comments." Be specific.
Launch Day
ProductHunt timing: launch at 12:01 AM PT. Products are ranked by upvotes within a 24-hour window that resets at midnight Pacific. Launching at 12:01 gives you the full 24 hours. Some people debate this — "launch when your audience is awake" — but the math is simple. More hours = more potential upvotes. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are the best days. Avoid Monday (people are catching up) and Friday (people checked out). Never launch on weekends unless you want to compete with, like, three other products and get a badge that means nothing because nobody was watching.
Post your HN "Show HN" between 8-10 AM ET. This is when HN traffic peaks. Your post has about 30-60 minutes to gain traction before it drops off the new page. If it gets 5+ upvotes in the first 30 minutes, you've got a shot at the front page. Have a few friends ready to upvote (not from the same IP, HN's spam detection is solid). Don't ask people to comment unless they'll leave genuine comments — HN users can smell astroturfing from a mile away.
Hit Reddit between 9-11 AM ET. Same logic as HN — peak US browsing hours. Post your pre-written content. Do NOT cross-post the same thing to multiple subreddits at the same time. Space them out by 2-3 hours. Reddit flags simultaneous cross-posts as spam.
Respond to every comment everywhere. This is the most important thing you'll do on launch day. Every HN comment, every PH comment, every Reddit reply. Be genuine, be helpful, don't be defensive. Someone says your product sucks? Ask what they'd improve. This is free user research from people engaged enough to write words about your thing.
Send the waitlist email. "We're live! Here's the link. We're on ProductHunt if you want to support us." Short, direct. Include a clear CTA.
Post on Twitter/X. Your announcement tweet, then space out 2-3 more tweets throughout the day. Share milestones in real-time: "Holy shit, 100 upvotes on PH" or "just hit 50 signups." People love following a launch in real-time. It feels alive.
The Rest of Launch Week
Days 2-3: Submit to remaining directories. Now hit the medium-effort directories. Product directories, niche directories for your category, SaaS review sites. This is the grind phase. Put on a podcast, open BlastDir, and work through the list. Aim for 10-15 submissions per day.
Day 3: Write your launch retrospective. While everything is fresh, write a post about your launch. Real numbers. "We got X signups from PH, Y from HN, Z from directories." Post this on Indie Hackers. These posts always do well because founders are hungry for real data. And it's another piece of content linking back to your product.
Days 4-5: Follow up on pending submissions. Some directories take a few days. Check which ones haven't published yet. A polite follow-up email works: "Hey, submitted [product] a few days ago, just checking if you need anything else from us." Don't be pushy.
End of week: Analyze what worked. Look at your analytics. Which directories sent traffic? Which social posts got engagement? What was your total signup count and where did they come from? Write this down. You'll need it for your next launch (and if you share it publicly, it's great content).
Post-Launch (Weeks 2-4)
Week 2: Chase the long tail. Submit to the remaining directories on your list. These are the smaller, niche ones that won't send a flood of traffic but contribute to your backlink profile and drip referral traffic for months.
Week 2: Get reviews. Reach out to your first users and ask for reviews on G2, Capterra, or Product Hunt. A direct, personal email works best: "Hey [name], you signed up during our launch — if you've had a chance to try [product], would you mind leaving a quick review on [platform]? It'd mean a lot to us." Most people won't. Some will. Every review counts early on.
Week 3: Pitch newsletters. Find 10-15 newsletters in your niche and pitch them. Not a press release — a personal note. "Hey, we just launched [product], thought it might be relevant for your readers because [specific reason]." TLDR, Ben's Bites (for AI), Indie Hackers newsletter, console.dev (for dev tools). Most won't respond. That's fine. One feature in a good newsletter can drive hundreds of signups.
Week 4: Retrospective and iteration. By now you have real data. What's your CAC from each channel? What's converting? Double down on what works, cut what doesn't. Your launch isn't a one-day event — it's a month-long campaign.
The Stuff Nobody Mentions
Your launch will feel anticlimactic. I need you to hear this. You'll spend weeks preparing, launch day will be exciting for about 4 hours, and then traffic will taper off and you'll feel like it was a failure. It wasn't. The real results compound over weeks and months as directory listings get indexed, backlinks build authority, and people discover you through search.
Day-one metrics lie. I've seen products spike to 2,000 visits on launch day and then die. I've seen products get 200 visits on launch day and grow to 10,000/month over six months because their directory listings kept bringing in steady organic traffic. Don't judge your launch by day one.
You can launch more than once. Got a major feature update? Launch again on PH. New version? New Show HN post. Pivoted your positioning? Re-submit to directories with the new description. The idea that you get one shot is a myth that benefits nobody.
The best marketing you can do post-launch is make the product better. Directories get you discovered. The product gets you retained. If your churn is high, no amount of directory submissions will save you. Fix the product first, then market it.
Go launch your thing. And if you want to skip the research phase of figuring out which directories to submit to, BlastDir has you covered.