SaaS Launch Week Checklist for Solo Founders

Launch week is when the things you skipped catch up with you. A password reset email that goes to spam. A Stripe webhook that only worked in test mode. A pricing page that says one thing while checkout says another.

None of these are hard to fix. They are just easy to miss when you are excited and tired. This is the checklist I use, laid out by day. Adjust the days to fit your schedule, but keep the order.

Before launch week: decide what "launch" means

Write down in one sentence what you want from this launch. Some honest examples:

• Get the first ten paying customers.
• Get fifty people to sign up and use the core feature once.
• Get feedback from twenty people in my target audience.

This tells you what to measure and keeps you from judging the launch by vanity numbers.

Day 1: Test every path a new user takes

Use a fresh browser profile or a private window, and a new email address you have never used with the app.

1. Land on the homepage from a search result or a shared link, not from your bookmark.
2. Sign up. Confirm the welcome or verification email arrives and is not in spam.
3. Log out and log back in.
4. Reset your password from the login screen.
5. Complete the core action your product exists for.
6. Do the same on your phone.

Write down every moment you were confused, even small ones. Fix the ones that stop people. Note the rest for later.

Check your security basics

• Every Supabase table has row level security enabled with policies that match who should see what.
• Two different test accounts cannot see each other's data.
• No secret keys are in your front-end code.
• Admin pages are actually protected, not just hidden from the menu.

Day 2: Test payments in live mode

Test mode is not enough. Live mode has different keys, a different webhook endpoint and different settings.

1. Confirm your app is using live Stripe keys in production.
2. Confirm the live webhook endpoint exists and points to the right URL.
3. Buy your own cheapest plan with a real card.
4. Confirm the app updates the user's plan after payment.
5. Confirm the receipt email arrives.
6. Cancel the subscription and confirm the app reflects it.
7. Refund yourself from the Stripe dashboard.

Also check that the prices on your pricing page match the prices in Stripe exactly, including currency and billing period.

Day 3: Tracking, legal and support

Tracking

You want to know where people came from and where they dropped off. At minimum:

• Analytics is installed and firing on the marketing site and the app.
• You track signup completed, core action completed and purchase completed as events.
• Links you share in launch posts use UTM parameters so you can tell channels apart.
• Your own visits are filtered out, or you know how to exclude them.

Test each event yourself and confirm it shows up in real-time reports.

Legal pages

• Privacy policy and terms of service are published and linked in the footer.
• If you use cookies for tracking, your consent setup matches the regions you sell to.
• Your refund and cancellation policy is written down somewhere customers can find it.

I am not a lawyer, and these pages should fit your actual product. Do not copy another company's terms word for word.

Support

• A support email address that you actually check.
• A short FAQ answering the questions you expect most.
• A saved reply for the three most likely questions.
• A way for users to report a bug from inside the app, even if it is just a link to email.

Day 4: Prepare the announcement

Write your launch posts ahead of time so launch day is for responding, not writing.

• A short version (two or three sentences) for social posts.
• A longer version for an email to your list, a community post or a blog post. Explain who it is for, what problem it solves, why you built it and what you want people to do.
• A personal message for people you know who fit the audience. Personal notes usually get far more response than broadcast posts.
• Screenshots or a short screen recording showing the product doing its main job.

Make a list of where you will post. Pick places where your target users already spend time. Read each community's rules about self-promotion first. Some require you to participate before you post, and some ban it completely.

Day 5: Launch

1. Do one last test signup and purchase in the morning.
2. Post in your planned places, spaced out so you can respond to each one.
3. Send your personal messages.
4. Reply to every comment and question, quickly and like a person.
5. Keep your error logs and Supabase logs open. Watch for failed signups or payments.
6. Keep a running document of every piece of feedback and every bug.

Do not ship big changes on launch day. Fix real breakage only. Everything else goes on the list.

Day 6: Follow up

• Email everyone who signed up and ask one question: what almost stopped you, or what were you hoping it would do?
• Reach out personally to anyone who signed up but did not complete the core action.
• Thank people who shared or gave feedback.
• Fix the top bugs from launch day.

Day 7: Review

Go back to the one sentence goal you wrote. Then look at:

• Visitors by channel.
• Signup rate from each channel.
• How many signups completed the core action.
• How many paid.
• The most common questions and complaints.

The channel with the best signup and activation, not the most traffic, is where to spend next week. The biggest drop-off in your funnel is what to fix next.

One more thing

A launch is one week. Most products grow from steady work after it: talking to users, fixing friction and showing up in the same places over and over. Do not let a quiet launch convince you the product failed. Let it tell you what to improve.

Our weekend build weeks end with a launch review like this one, done together with the group.