How to plan a product launch that ships on time
A launch plan for the product, not the ad budget
Most launch checklists online are really marketing plans. They assume the product is done and focus on press, ads and social posts. This template starts earlier, when you still have a hypothesis and a handful of people to interview.
Out of ten tasks, seven are about the product itself: customer research, MVP scope definition, prototype and validation, MVP development, integrations and payments, QA and beta testing, and positioning and pricing. Only the website and the launch campaign are classic marketing work. If your product already exists and you need to promote it, the marketing campaign template is a better fit.
The default plan runs 41 business days across 3 phases (Discovery, Build and Go-to-market), roughly two months for a small team. Treat it as a reference for a lean web MVP, not a promise.
Who uses this launch timeline
Four situations where the template fits with little change:
- A two-founder SaaS team aiming for a Product Hunt launch. Discovery is 10 to 15 calls booked from the waitlist, and the launch campaign is the Product Hunt listing, a launch email and posts in a couple of communities.
- A mobile team shipping to the App Store and Google Play. QA and beta covers TestFlight builds and a Google Play closed test, which new personal developer accounts currently have to run with at least 12 testers for 14 days before production.
- A product manager at a scale-up launching a paid add-on. Research uses existing customers, the beta is a feature flag for a few accounts, and pricing means a new tier on the pricing page.
- An agency building an MVP for a client who already has a demo day or investor meeting on the calendar.
Reading the critical path
The launch date is driven by one chain: customer research (5 days), MVP scope definition (3), prototype and validation (5), MVP development (20) and QA and beta testing (7). A slip in any of those moves launch day one for one.
Integrations and payments (8 days) runs alongside development with about two weeks of float. The go-to-market track starts as soon as scope is set: positioning and pricing (4), website and assets (6), launch campaign (8). It finishes with close to three weeks to spare, which you can spend growing the waitlist or recruiting beta testers.
Great Gantt highlights the critical tasks and recalculates dates in business days. Push development back a week and the new launch date shows up right away, along with how much float the marketing work has left.
Launch week checklist
The last few days are where small things get forgotten. A typical list for a SaaS or app launch:
- Switch Stripe or your payment processor from test mode to live and run a real $1 charge
- Publish the pricing page with plan limits, the annual discount and a short FAQ
- Email the waitlist in batches so onboarding and support are not flooded
- Submit the app for review several days before launch, not the night before
- Schedule the Product Hunt listing for 12:01 a.m. Pacific and draft the maker comment
- Track sign-up, activation and first payment as analytics events
- Prepare a changelog post, a status page and a small help center
- Put someone on call for bugs and support for the first 72 hours
Where launch timelines usually slip
Scope creep during development is the classic one. A feature promised to one beta user sneaks in and the four-week build turns into six. Keep the written “not in v1” list from the scope task and point to it.
Payments come second. Merchant account approval, sales tax or VAT settings and receipts take longer than the integration code. Start the paperwork during discovery.
The third is a beta that is too short or too friendly. Seven days catches blockers only if testers actually use the product. Recruit from the waitlist rather than friends, agree on a bug report format up front, and avoid launching on a Friday or in the middle of the December holidays, when nobody is around to fix things.