How to Launch a Startup: The Complete Launch Checklist

A launch is the moment a new audience sees your product for the first time. Done well, it brings early users, honest feedback and momentum. Done badly, it brings a short spike of visitors who leave and never come back.

The difference is almost always preparation. This checklist covers what to get right before, during and after you launch, whether it is your first product or your fifth.

Before you launch: the product

• One clear job. Can a stranger understand what your product does in five seconds? Write it as one sentence and put it at the top of your site.
• A working first experience. Sign up as a new user on a fresh browser and on your phone. Fix every moment where you hesitate or get stuck.
• Fast pages. Slow sites lose people before they read your headline. Compress images and test on a mobile connection.
• A way to reach you. Visible contact options and a quick reply to every question on launch day.

Before you launch: your launch page

Whichever platform you launch on, the same ingredients decide whether people click:

• Name and tagline. The tagline says what the product does, for whom, in under 60 characters. "Invoices that chase themselves" beats "The future of finance".
• A logo that reads at small sizes. It will mostly be seen as a small square in a list.
• Screenshots that show the product doing its job. Show the result, not the settings page. Three to five images is plenty.
• A short description. What problem it solves, who it is for, what makes it different, and what it costs.
• A personal note. One paragraph on why you built it. People support founders, not features.

On Cometday you paste your link and the details are filled in for you; you check them and send it in for a quick review.

Before you launch: the audience

• Make a list of people to tell. Users, friends, former colleagues, communities you are part of. Write personal messages in advance.
• Prepare short posts for each social network you use, with an image or short video of the product.
• Line up the first comments. Ask a few early users if they would share their honest experience on launch day.

Choosing where to launch

Each platform has its own audience:

• Cometday for new software and AI tools: free, reviewed before it goes live, ranked by upvotes on a daily leaderboard.
• Product Hunt for a large tech audience, often with a lot of competition on popular days.
• Hacker News (Show HN) for technical products and developers who give blunt feedback.
• BetaList for products that are still early and want waitlist sign-ups.
• Niche communities where your exact users already are.

You do not have to pick one. Launching in several places over a few weeks gives you several waves of attention. Our overview of Product Hunt alternatives compares the main platforms.

Launch day

1. Be there all day. Reply to every comment and question quickly and personally. Engagement from the founder is often what makes people try a product.
2. Share it with your list, starting with the people most likely to care. Ask them to try it and leave honest feedback, not just a vote.
3. Post on your channels with a personal angle: why you built it, what you learned.
4. Watch your sign-up flow. Launch day is when bugs show up. Have time blocked to fix things on the spot.
5. Write down every piece of feedback. It is the most valuable thing you get from a launch.

A word on votes: ask people to try your product and share their opinion, not to vote for it blindly. Most platforms, Cometday included, remove votes from rings and throwaway accounts, and a launch built on real interest brings real users.

The week after

• Thank everyone who helped, personally.
• Follow up with every new sign-up. A short, personal email asking what they hoped to do with the product starts a relationship and often gets you a reply.
• Turn the feedback into a short list of fixes and ship the most important ones quickly. Tell the people who asked.
• Put your launch to work: add the launch badge to your site, quote the best comments as testimonials, and mention the launch in your next update.

The month after

A launch is a beginning, not a result. Use the weeks after to:

• Launch on the next platform for a fresh audience.
• Write about what you learned. "What happened when we launched" posts often travel far.
• Look at where your best users came from, and spend more time there.

If you want people to keep finding your product after launch day, a short placement on the homepage, the leaderboard or in your category on Cometday keeps you in front of people who are looking for new software. See Advertise on Cometday.

The checklist, in one place

1. One-sentence description of what the product does.
2. Fresh sign-up tested on desktop and mobile.
3. Tagline under 60 characters, readable logo, 3 to 5 screenshots.
4. Short description and a personal maker note.
5. List of people and communities to tell, with messages written.
6. Launch platforms chosen and spaced over a few weeks.
7. A full day blocked to reply and fix.
8. Follow-up emails to every new user.
9. Badge and testimonials added to your site.
10. Next launch on the calendar.

Ready? Launch your product on Cometday. It is free and takes about two minutes.