Most launch checklists fail because they treat a launch like an airline pre-flight: 80 items, half of which are obvious, none of which are weighted. The PMM ticks the easy ones, runs out of time on the hard ones, and ships anyway. Then sales asks what the differentiator is on the demo call and nobody has the same answer.
The version below is short on purpose. Six items. Each one is a thing that breaks on launch day if you skip it, drawn from launch retros at Series B–C SaaS companies in 2025.
The six items that actually matter
We had a 47-item checklist. Hit 44 of them. The three we missed were the only three that mattered. The list didn't tell us which were which.
If you finish this list and feel underwhelmed, that's the right reaction. A launch isn't won by the volume of things you check off — it's won by whether sales can repeat the pitch, the pricing page tells the same story, and you know what your competitors will counter with by Friday.
The longer Launch Runbook covers the rest: the 30-day pre-launch sequence, the customer-proof gathering checklist, and the post-launch retro template. Download it above.
Keep reading
Feature Launch vs. Narrative Launch: Why Most Fail
A feature launch announces shipped code. A narrative launch advances a point of view. Why the latter is memorable, sellable, and defensible — and the test for which one you're running.
Launch Announcement Template That Doesn't Suck
A fillable announcement template that forces you to name the buyer, the before-state, and the proof — before you write a single adjective
Launch Playbook for Internal Tools (Products Your Own Team Uses)
How to launch a product internally — the playbook for tools your own team uses, where the buyer is your colleague and the budget is goodwill
Launch Playbook
Ship launches that land a point of view — not just a feature list.
Launch Playbook drafts your announcement copy, FAQ, and battle-card patch from your Strategic Context the moment you're ready to ship. Evidence-based, grounded in your positioning, built to be sent — not just presented.
- ✓Drafts announcement, FAQ, and battle-card patch
- ✓Grounded in your positioning, not a generic template
- ✓Ready to ship in the time it takes to brief an agency