The two weeks before
- Pick the date and tell one person. They become the one who asks how it went.
- Join the places you plan to post, a week early. Product Hunt only lets you submit after a week in the community, and most forums read a brand new account as an advert.
- Watch one person who has never seen it use it, start to finish, and say nothing while they do. Where they stall is your first fix.
- Test the checkout without paying yourself. Gumroad says charging your own card for your own product looks like money laundering to its security systems and can get your account suspended, so use its test purchase (help page read 21 September 2026). Check the file arrives, that your refund line is on the page, and that a buyer can reach you.
- Write the one line, under 60 characters. Product Hunt caps a tagline there, and a line that short is one a friend can repeat.
- Paste your link into a chat with yourself. If it shows a bare address with no title or image, fix that before anyone shares it. The preview comes from three lines in your page's settings, usually labelled social or share title, description and image, and a marketplace fills them in for you.
- Turn on a visitor count. A marketplace page counts views for you. On your own site, switch on the analytics your host includes, which on Vercel sits under the Analytics tab. Without a count you cannot tell a quiet launch from a broken checkout.
- Write down twenty names. People you know, whose reply you could predict. Twelve real names beat twenty padded ones.
Where to post
Pick one public place plus your twenty people. Each place has its own rules, checked on 20 September 2026.
- Product Hunt: good for something people click and use. Ask for feedback and comments, because asking for upvotes is against its policy. Submit the plain address, since shortened and tracked links are not accepted.
- Show HN on Hacker News: only for something people can try. Its rules name blog posts, sign-up pages, newsletters and lists as off topic, so skip it for a template or a guide. It also says not to ask friends to upvote or comment, so ask your twenty for feedback on the thing itself.
- Wherever the people it is for already gather: a subreddit, a Slack or a Discord you are already part of, following that group's own promotion rules. It is the most interested traffic you will get.
The first twenty people
Send twenty separate messages, each naming why you thought of that person. One message to a group reads as an advert, and everybody waits for somebody else to answer.
Weak: "Hey, launched my thing today, would love your support."
Strong: "You said in March that you lose a whole Sunday writing client posts. I made the template I wanted for that. Is it obvious in the first ten seconds what it does?"
Ask whether it is obvious what the thing does. That question gets an honest answer, where "would you buy this" mostly gets politeness.
Launch day
- Put it live at the start of your day, so you are awake for the hours after it goes up. Product Hunt's day runs on Pacific time, and it suggests 12:01am Pacific to get the full 24 hours. Work out what that is where you live, and pick a later slot if it lands in your night.
- If the place you post has comments, write the first one yourself. Say what it is, who it is for, and what you want to know.
- Send the twenty messages one at a time. This is the part that works, and the part that is easiest to skip.
- Block two half-hours for replying. A fast answer to a question is the easiest sale you will make that day.
- Write down the first thing three people got stuck on. That is next week's fix.
- Stop at a time you set in advance, because refreshing the numbers at midnight changes nothing.
The seven days after
- Thank everyone who turned up, by name. They are your first twenty next time.
- Ask the first users one question. "What nearly made you close the tab" gets a real answer. "Any feedback" gets a thumbs up.
- Fix the one thing most of them got stuck on, while they still remember caring.
- Message the people who did not reply. Most of them never saw it.
- Give the launch a page on your own site. A page outlives a post, and an AI answer engine can find and cite it later.
- Write up what happened, with the real numbers. It is the one launch post people read.
- Decide the next date, while this one is fresh.
If the launch is quiet
Check your visitor count first.
- Nobody saw it. The count is tiny. The fix is more places and more people, never more polish.
- They saw it and left fast. The first line of the page is failing to say who this is for.
- They stayed and did not buy. Talk to three of them about what they expected to pay.
The honest bit
- Launch sites are quiet for most makers. Smol Launch, a weekly launch site for indie makers, publishes its own numbers: across 2,290 launches, the median launch holds one vote, and that count includes the maker's own automatic vote. Read on 22 September 2026, figures as of 20 September.
- The money moves slower than the launch. On Gumroad, a sale sits for at least seven days before it can be paid out, payouts start at a balance of 100 US dollars, and a new account waits for its review first (its payouts page, read 22 September 2026). Other marketplaces differ, so read yours.
- Tax is yours to check. What you owe depends on where you live, so check what your own country requires before trusting an answer from a chatbot.
The prompt: plan my launch
Paste this into Claude or ChatGPT and fill in the set-up. It asks you questions first, then writes your own version of the lists above. If the thing is not built yet, start with making a digital product with AI.
You are my launch manager for a small side project. I have built something and I keep not shipping it. Turn my situation into a dated plan with one owner and one date on every line, and tell me plainly when something is not ready instead of cheering me on. Work in stages. Read my set-up, ask me the questions that would change the plan, wait for my answers, then write the six lists in order. Do not jump to the lists first. MY SET-UP (I fill this in once) - What the thing is: [one sentence, the way you would say it to a friend, e.g. "a 14-page Notion template that plans a month of client social posts"] - What state it is in: [e.g. "finished and tested by me only", "90 per cent done, the last section is rough", "done, but I have no way to take money yet"] - Who it is for: [the specific person, e.g. "freelance social media managers juggling two to five clients", never "small businesses"] - Price or free: [e.g. "29 dollars one off", "free, I want email addresses", "pay what you want from 5"] - Where it will live: [e.g. "a Gumroad product page", "a page on my own site", "a Notion page with a buy button"] - The date I am launching: [a real date, e.g. "Tuesday 14 October". If I have left this blank, stop and make me pick one before you go any further] - Channels I actually have: [only what is real today, with rough sizes, e.g. "Instagram, 430 followers; a WhatsApp group of 12 ex-colleagues; an email list of 58; no Twitter"] - People I could message one to one: [list them by name, no group chats, first name or initials is fine, plus where I reach them, e.g. "Sam K, WhatsApp; Priya, LinkedIn; Jo from my old team, email"] - What I will not do: [the things you should never suggest, e.g. "no videos of my face, no paid ads, no cold messages to strangers"] - Hours I have between now and the date: [e.g. "about 6, mostly evenings"] - My time zone: [the city you are in, so the launch day timetable is in your hours] - Public places I am thinking of posting: [name them, and only ones I am already a member of. If I have written "not sure", ask me before you write the launch day timetable] - Country I am in: [country, so you can flag where I need to check a local rule instead of guessing one] BEFORE YOU WRITE ANYTHING Ask me up to five questions, and only ones whose answers would change the plan. Good ones: has the payment path ever been tested with a real card, has anyone outside my own head used the thing start to finish, what happens in the five minutes after someone buys, is the date fixed or movable. Then stop and wait. If I answer vaguely, ask once more for the specific version before you carry on. WHAT YOU PRODUCE, IN THIS ORDER 1. WHAT HAS TO BE TRUE BEFORE LAUNCH DAY No more than twelve items, ordered by the day I do them, counting backwards from my date. Every line carries the day, the task, the rough minutes, and me as the owner. Cover at least these: I have been a member of any public place I plan to post in for at least a week; someone other than me has used it start to finish; the buy or download path has been tested the way a stranger would hit it; the page says who it is for in its first line; the link shows a real title, description and image when pasted into a chat; I can see how many people visit; there is an obvious way for someone to tell me it is broken. If my set-up shows something is missing, write that line in capitals as a blocker and put it first. If the list does not fit the hours I said I have, cut lines and tell me which ones you cut and why. 2. THE ONE LINE, AND THE TOP OF THE PAGE Write three versions of the single sentence that says what the thing is and who it is for. Make one of them 60 characters or fewer, because Product Hunt caps a tagline at 60 characters. Then write the first three lines of the page itself: what it is, who it is for, what happens when they click. Use my own words from the set-up, and flag any claim you cannot support from what I told you. 3. THE FIRST TWENTY From the people I listed, build a table of twenty people I message one to one, ordered by who is most likely to reply. Columns: who, where I reach them, why this thing is relevant to them specifically, and the ask. For the first ten the ask is to look and tell me whether it is obvious what the thing does, never to buy. Write every message out in full, in my voice, short enough to send from a phone, and make each one different from the one above it. If I listed fewer than twenty, work with what I gave you and say how many short I am. Where you do not know something about a person, write [NEED X] instead of inventing it, for example [NEED: what Sam does now]. 4. THE LAUNCH DAY RUN SHEET An hour-by-hour list in my time zone, from the moment the thing goes live to the moment I stop for the day. If I am posting anywhere with a daily cycle, such as Product Hunt's day, which runs on Pacific time with 12:01am Pacific as its suggested slot, anchor the run sheet to that slot converted into my time zone and tell me what local time it is. Each row: the time, the action, the place it happens. Write out the exact text of every post and email I send that day, ready to send as it stands, one per channel I actually listed and each written for that channel rather than copied across. Book two half-hour blocks for replying to people, because replying is the job that day. If a place I named has a rule about how I am allowed to ask, name the rule and write the ask so it stays inside it. Where you are not certain of a platform's current rule, say so and tell me to read that platform's own page rather than guessing. 5. THE WEEK AFTER Seven days, one action each, no day blank and no day stuffed. Cover at least: thanking the people who turned up, asking the first users one specific question, fixing whatever most of them got stuck on, putting the launch somewhere it keeps working after the day ends, and a second wave to the people who did not reply the first time. Name the day I will want to skip, and say what skipping it costs me. 6. IF THE LAUNCH IS QUIET Write this before launch day, not after it. Give me three readings of a quiet launch and the test that tells them apart: nobody saw it, people saw it and did not understand it, people understood it and did not want it. For each, the one thing I do the following week and the number that would tell me I had read it right. Finish with how many people have to see the thing before a quiet result means anything at all. RULES YOU FOLLOW THROUGHOUT - Every line has an owner and a date. A line with no date is not on the list. - Never invent a number, a person, a platform rule, a price or a date. Write [NEED X] or "not stated", then ask me. - Where a rule depends on where I live, such as tax, registering a business, or what a seller has to show a buyer, do not tell me the rule. Tell me to check what my own country requires, and put that on the list as a dated task. - If my date is less than seven days away and list 1 still has a blocker in it, say plainly that the date should move, and give me the next sensible date. - Do not pad. A day with one real action has one action. BEFORE YOU HAND IT BACK Check your own work and tell me: which of the six lists you are least sure about and why; every line still missing an owner or a date; every [NEED X] still open, gathered in one place; and the single item that, if I skip it, makes the rest of the plan pointless. Then ask me whether the date still stands.
Put a date in the calendar today
Pick a weekday at least two weeks out and write the name of the thing on it. Then paste the prompt and answer its questions honestly.
A few quick questions
What if the date arrives and it is still not finished?
Put out the part that works and say plainly what is missing. A date you move once, with a reason, is fine. A date you move three times was never a date.
Do I need my own website before I launch?
No, a product page on a marketplace is enough to take money and hand over a file. If you want your own page, you can put a site online free.