This post is part of our ReadWriteStart channel, which is dedicated to helping savvy entrepreneurs start and grow new businesses with resources, tips, insight and analysis. The channel is sponsored by TriNet.
Pulling Together a Pre-Launch Checklist for Your Startup
As you prepare to launch your product, there are a number of things you can do in order to make sure things go as smoothly as possible. We've written before about the steps you can take, for example, to make sure that your website is ready even if your startup isn't.
The blog Bootstrapping Independence recently posted a very thorough list of some additional resources and reminders for building a detailed launch plan. The suggestions include a number of other great posts for background reading, including ReadWriteWeb's Marshall Kirkpatrick's post on product launch promotion.
Prepping for the Media
Much of the post focuses on the ways in which you should think about how to best prepare your site and your product for the media. While, sure, you want everything to be ready for the customer, there are things you should have in place to make journalists' work easier in finding information about you, your company, your product. Consider putting together a media kit with logos and screen shots with an FAQ.
The post also recommends segmenting the marketing channels, so that the pitch doesn't just go to startup sites or tech blogs, but to the website the customers are likely to read and places where there is a "unique value proposition." Consider thinking about different target "markets" for the news sites, based on an interest in the topic, the industry, the customer market, the location, and so on. Based on these different market segments, the "pitch" to writers may need to be lightly different.
Other Final Tweaks
Of course, pre-launch checklists aren't just about prepping things for the media.
The post also lists a number of "final tweaks" that the author is working on prior to the upcoming launch of his product, and these are worth noting:
- Install proper SSL certificate
- Run through all user test cases
- Re-check the design in all the major browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, IE6-8, Opera)
- Complete a final security audit
- Send out a survey to the dedicated test users (even if they are only family and friends!) and include a few new users who haven't seen the product yet.
- Install Analytics
- Setup RSS feeds for mentions of my site, or target keywords on blogs, twitter, and other social sites.
Do you have any other tips to help get ready for your launch?
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