Product Launch Checklist: 25 Steps to a Successful Release

According to Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, 95% of new products fail. In my 13+ years as a Product Manager, I've launched over 50 products and features—from B2B insurance apps to payment terminals to consumer mobile products. Some were wildly successful. Others taught me expensive lessons. The difference between success and failure often came down to preparation, not the product itself.

This article gives you the complete product launch checklist I wish I had when I started. Whether you're releasing a new app, launching a redesign, or shipping a major feature update, these 25 steps will help you avoid the mistakes that sink most launches.

"If you are thinking about a product, you need to be thinking about the marketing side and the go-to-market side. Product management and product marketing should see themselves as partners in how the product as well as the go-to-market gets developed."
— Martina Lauchengco, Partner at Silicon Valley Product Group

Martina's point captures the essence of successful launches: they're not just about shipping code. They're about ensuring your market is ready to receive what you've built. Let's break down exactly how to do that.

What Makes a Product Launch Successful?

Before diving into the checklist, let's be clear about what this guide assumes. A successful launch requires that your product has already been:

• Researched thoroughly (market size, competitive landscape, customer segments)
• Validated with real customer data through interviews, surveys, and behavioral analysis
• Prototyped and user tested with your target audience
• Prioritized according to your product vision and strategic roadmap
• Developed with clear acceptance criteria and quality standards

If you're still figuring out what to build, start with product marketing fundamentals first. For building your complete go-to-market strategy, see our 7-step framework. This checklist focuses on the critical 8 weeks before launch through the first 2 weeks after—the window where preparation determines success.

The structure follows three phases: Pre-Launch (8-4 weeks before), Launch Day Readiness, and Post-Launch (first 2 weeks). Each phase builds on the previous one, creating a comprehensive system for reliable launches.

Pre-Launch Phase (8-4 Weeks Before)

The preparation phase is where most launches are won or lost. During my time at SumUp launching payment terminals and apps across European markets, I learned that 80% of launch success is determined before you ship anything. Poor preparation leads to confused customers, overwhelmed support teams, and missed business targets.

1. Define Your Launch Goals

Every launch needs measurable success criteria. Define what success looks like before you start. Are you targeting a specific adoption rate? Revenue milestone? User engagement metric? Write it down with specific numbers.

Good launch goals follow the SMART framework: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Instead of "increase engagement," define "achieve 40% day-7 retention among new users within 4 weeks of launch."

Document your primary metric (the one number that defines success), secondary metrics (supporting indicators), and guardrail metrics (things that shouldn't get worse during the launch, like customer satisfaction or system performance).

2. Validate Market Readiness

Don't assume your product is ready just because development is complete. Validate that your target market actually wants what you're launching—and that they're ready to adopt it now.

"We had interviewed 30 product managers before we started coding. We also had launched a landing page to test the acquisition model before we had a product."
— Jim Semick, Founder of ProductPlan

Jim's approach of validating before building applies equally to launches. Test your messaging with target customers. Gather feedback on positioning. Confirm that your value proposition resonates with the people you're trying to reach.

Run pre-launch research to validate: Does your target segment understand the value? Can they articulate why they'd use it? What objections do they raise? What questions do they ask? This research shapes your launch materials and helps you anticipate support inquiries.

3. Create Product Documentation

Write comprehensive internal documentation that covers every aspect of what you're launching:

• Feature description and strategic goals (why this matters to the business)
• Business value (revenue impact, cost savings, strategic positioning)
• Customer value (problems solved, jobs-to-be-done addressed)
• Research and validation findings (what you learned, how you validated)
• Functionality and usage instructions (how it works, step by step)
• Comparison with existing functionality (what changed, what moved)
• Planned rollout timeline (staged rollout phases, target customer groups, beta testing schedule)
• Links to supporting resources (Jira board, design files, API documentation, feature comparison matrix)

This document becomes your single source of truth. Every stakeholder should be able to find key information in one place. Update it continuously as details change during the final push to launch.

4. Build Your Comparison Matrix

When launching a redesign or major update, create a comprehensive before/after comparison sheet. Screenshot every changed screen and highlight specifically what moved or changed. Include annotations explaining why changes were made.

This comparison document is invaluable for:

• Customer support training (so they can guide users through changes)
• Support center articles (showing customers how to find familiar features)
• Internal stakeholder alignment (demonstrating scope and impact)
• Sales team preparation (explaining value of improvements to prospects)

For completely new features or products, build a competitive comparison matrix instead. Document how your solution compares to alternatives on key dimensions. This helps sales and marketing position your offering against what customers are currently using or considering.

5. Prepare FAQ Document

How do you write FAQs before launch? Start with questions people ask internally during development. Document every trade-off you made and why. Note functionality that changed location or behavior, even if it seems minor.

FAQs serve two distinct purposes. First, they help customer support handle initial inquiries quickly and consistently. Second, they help potential customers understand your product well enough to make a purchase decision. Structure your FAQs around common customer journeys and pain points.

Include both "how do I" questions (operational) and "why did you" questions (strategic). Customers often want to understand your reasoning, not just the mechanics.

6. Write Release Notes

Release notes should be human-readable and focused on customer benefit. A mistake I see often: notes written in technical jargon that means nothing to users. Instead of "bug fixes and performance improvements," explain what you fixed and why it matters.

Structure release notes around what customers can now do that they couldn't before, or what's now easier than it was. Lead with the most impactful changes. Use simple language a non-technical person can understand.

For app store release notes specifically, remember that many users scan these before updating. Make every word count. Highlight the improvement that will make them want to update.

7. Update Website and Landing Pages

Coordinate with marketing early to ensure all customer-facing materials are updated before launch. This includes:

• Homepage messaging and hero sections
• Product pages and feature descriptions
• Feature comparison tables (especially if competitive positioning changed)
• Pricing pages (if pricing or packaging changed)
• Blog announcements and launch posts
• Help documentation and knowledge base
• Demo environments and trial experiences

Create a checklist of every page that mentions the feature or product being updated. Review each one for consistency. Stale or conflicting information confuses customers and undermines trust.

8. Create Support Center Articles

Based on your product documentation, FAQ, and comparison materials, draft support center articles before launch—not after. Review them with your operations or support team to identify gaps.

Structure support articles around tasks customers want to accomplish. Use screenshots liberally. Include troubleshooting sections for common issues. Make articles discoverable through search by using the language customers actually use, not internal terminology.

Stakeholder Communication Timeline

The biggest launch failures I've witnessed happened because key stakeholders weren't informed in time. Teams launch features that support can't explain, sales can't sell, and marketing can't position. This is completely preventable.

Here's when to communicate with each team—and what they need from you:

9. Marketing Team (8 Weeks Out)

Marketing needs the most lead time because their work requires creative development, media planning, and content creation. Provide them with:

• Screenshots and demo videos showing the product in action
• Beta or preview access so they can experience it firsthand
• Positioning guidance and messaging framework
• Your unique selling propositions and competitive differentiation
• Target customer segments and their characteristics
• Launch timeline and any flexibility in dates

Eight weeks is the minimum lead time for a major launch. For smaller releases, adjust accordingly—but always involve marketing earlier than you think necessary.

10. Customer Support Team (6 Weeks Out)

Early in my career, I launched what I thought was a tiny feature without informing Customer Support. The result: customers couldn't use the old functionality (which we'd changed), we deployed a bug that affected a core workflow, and hundreds of people called us. My boss was not happy.

Always update the support team at least 6 weeks before launch and involve them in preparation. Provide training materials, expected questions, escalation paths, and known issues. Let them test the product themselves. Their questions during training reveal what customers will struggle with.

11. Sales Team (4 Weeks Out)

Share comprehensive documentation, conduct live product demos, and run interactive workshops to build shared understanding. Sales teams need to understand not just what features exist, but why they matter to different customer segments.

Create a competitive comparison matrix showing how you stack up against alternatives. Provide talk tracks for common objections. Summarize Q&A discussions in follow-up emails—salespeople sometimes promise capabilities that don't exist yet, so clarity matters.

12. Business Development Team (4 Weeks Out)

If your BizDev team works with partners using your SDKs, APIs, or integrations, share technical documentation at least 4 weeks in advance. Partners need time to update their own implementations.

Bring a senior developer to Q&A sessions for technical deep-dives. Partners often have integration questions that product managers can't answer authoritatively. Provide migration guides if APIs or behaviors are changing.

Internal Training and Alignment

Documentation alone isn't enough. People learn through interaction and practice, not just reading. Build multiple touchpoints for teams to engage with your launch.

13. Send Internal Launch Email

Announce the upcoming launch to the entire company with a pre-launch email 2-4 weeks before ship date. Include what's launching, why it matters, when it's happening, and where to learn more.

After successful deployment, send a post-launch email celebrating the milestone and sharing early results. If you use Slack instead of email, use dedicated channels—but don't assume everyone sees Slack messages.

14. Host Product Demo Sessions

Monthly product demo sessions where employees can test products live—either in person or via video call—build company-wide product knowledge. Use these sessions to showcase what you're shipping and gather feedback from colleagues who represent diverse perspectives.

Record these sessions for people who can't attend. Make recordings easily discoverable. Many of your best internal champions will reference these demos when talking to customers.

15. Schedule AMA Sessions

Ask Me Anything sessions work well for interest groups and cross-functional stakeholders. People affected by the launch join voluntarily, bringing real questions from their domain.

Keep the agenda open for questions rather than structured presentations. Be prepared—these audiences ask tough questions that reveal gaps in your thinking. Take notes on questions you can't fully answer and follow up.

16. Create Sales Enablement Materials

Beyond comprehensive documentation, sales teams need bite-sized materials they can use in customer conversations:

• One-pagers they can share with prospects via email
• Slide decks for formal presentations and discovery calls
• Demo scripts with talking points for each feature
• Objection handling guides for common pushback
• Case studies or early testimonials (if available from beta)
• ROI calculators or value assessment tools

Test these materials with sales reps before finalizing. What seems clear to you may confuse someone who doesn't live in the product daily.

Launch Day Readiness

The week before launch requires intense preparation. This is where rollback planning—often overlooked by less experienced teams—becomes critical.

17. Final QA and Testing

Run complete regression testing across your entire product, not just the new features. Major launches sometimes break existing functionality through unexpected interactions. Verify all third-party integrations work correctly.

Test on all supported devices, browsers, and operating systems. Document any known issues with workarounds. Decide which issues are launch blockers versus acceptable for post-launch fixes.

18. Prepare Rollout Phases

Plan your staged rollout with clear criteria for each phase: which customer segments get access first? How quickly do you expand to the next group? What metrics or conditions trigger progression? What would pause the rollout?

Start with your most forgiving users—internal employees, trusted beta customers, or segments with lower stakes. This lets you catch issues before they affect your most important customers.

19. Define Success Metrics and Thresholds

Here's something most teams forget: define not just success metrics, but failure thresholds. What specific conditions would trigger a rollback?

"We need to agree on what is the threshold of when to roll back. If you don't define it, someone gets cold feet at 2% and you have panic-driven decisions."
— Christian Strunk, on the Product Bakery Podcast

Write down specific numbers before launch. If adoption drops below X% of baseline, if error rates exceed Y%, if customer satisfaction falls below Z points—these are your rollback triggers. Make these decisions with a clear head, before you're in crisis mode.

20. Create Your Rollback Plan

This is the step that separates experienced PMs from novices. During the planning phase, always ask yourself:

"What if this goes wrong? How do we roll back? Can we roll back? How do we want to roll back? What is involved by rolling back?"
— Christian Strunk, on the Product Bakery Podcast

Document the rollback procedure step by step. Is it just an app update that users can choose not to install? Do you need to roll back backend changes (usually more painful and risky)? Are there database migrations that can't be easily reversed?

Clarify who has authority to trigger a rollback and under what circumstances. Make these decisions during calm planning, not during a 2 AM incident response.

Launch Day Execution

Launch day should feel calm, not chaotic. If you've done the preparation work thoroughly, execution becomes straightforward—you're following a playbook, not improvising.

21. Execute Communication Plan

Follow your pre-planned communication schedule without improvisation:

• Internal announcement when the launch goes live
• Customer email campaigns (segmented by relevance)
• Social media posts across appropriate channels
• Press releases or media outreach (if applicable)
• Partner communications for ecosystem stakeholders

Have communications drafted and scheduled in advance. On launch day, you should be monitoring and adjusting, not writing copy under pressure.

22. Monitor Key Metrics

Set up real-time dashboards for your success metrics and failure thresholds. Watch closely for the first 24-48 hours. Assign specific team members to monitor specific metrics—don't assume someone is watching everything.

Create a war room (physical or virtual) where key stakeholders can gather, share information quickly, and make decisions. Establish regular check-ins during the launch window.

23. Activate Support Team

Ensure your support team is fully staffed and ready for increased volume. Have escalation paths clearly defined so urgent issues reach the right people quickly. Make product team members available for technical issues that support can't resolve.

Monitor support queue volume and sentiment in real time. Unexpected spikes often indicate problems your metrics dashboards haven't caught yet.

Post-Launch (First 2 Weeks)

The launch isn't over when you ship. The first two weeks determine long-term success. This is when you learn whether your preparation paid off and what you need to improve for next time.

24. Gather Customer Feedback

Actively collect feedback through multiple channels:

• In-app surveys triggered by specific actions
• Support ticket analysis for common themes
• Social media monitoring for public sentiment
• Direct customer interviews (especially with power users and critics)
• Usage analytics showing actual behavior patterns
• App store reviews and ratings

Look for patterns across channels. What confuses people? What delights them? What did you miss? The first two weeks generate the richest feedback you'll ever receive.

25. Run Launch Retrospective

Within two weeks of launch, run a comprehensive retrospective with all involved teams. Document what went well, what didn't, and what you'd do differently. Be specific—vague lessons don't improve future launches.

Add these learnings to your post-mortem documentation for future reference. Build a knowledge base of launch learnings that your team and successors can reference.

Download Your Free Product Launch Checklist

I've compiled all 25 steps into a downloadable checklist you can use for your next launch. It includes space for notes, stakeholder assignments, timeline tracking, and metric definitions.

Download the Product Launch Checklist (PDF)

Common Launch Mistakes to Avoid

After 50+ launches across different companies and product types, these are the mistakes I see most often—and the ones with the highest cost:

• Launching without a rollback plan: When things go wrong (and they will eventually), you need a documented way to revert. Figuring this out during a crisis leads to bad decisions and prolonged outages.
• Not defining success thresholds: Without clear metrics and decision criteria, you'll make panic-driven decisions based on gut feeling rather than data. One stakeholder's nervousness can derail a successful launch.
• Forgetting internal stakeholder training: Your support and sales teams can't help customers with a product they don't understand. Untrained teams create confused customers and damage your brand.
• Siloed marketing communication: When marketing isn't involved early, launches feel disconnected. Messaging suffers, campaigns underperform, and you miss the window of maximum attention.
• Skipping the retrospective: Every launch teaches you something valuable. Document those lessons systematically or repeat the same mistakes indefinitely.

Summary

Launching products successfully requires preparation, communication, and the humility to plan for failure. Use this 25-step checklist as your foundation, but adapt it to your company's specific needs and culture.

The best launch processes aren't static—they evolve with experience. After each launch, review what worked and what didn't. Update your checklist. Share learnings with your team. Build institutional knowledge that makes every subsequent launch better than the last.

What are your biggest challenges when launching products and features? Connect with me on LinkedIn and share your experience. I'm always learning from other product managers' war stories.