Launch checklist for indie hackers
The 14-day launch checklist for indie hackers.
Built for indie hackers whose ship-post got cheers but whose Stripe stayed flat. Ten ordered moves that take you from community validation to one paying customer outside the community.
Verified · editorial policy
TL;DR
As of , the short version is: Built for indie hackers whose ship-post got cheers but whose Stripe stayed flat. Ten ordered moves that take you from community validation to one paying customer outside the community.
Checklist TL;DR for indie hackers
- Who this is for
- You shipped on Indie Hackers, the cheers landed, the launch traffic was real, the credit cards never were. This checklist is the next 14 days.
- Steps
- 10 ordered moves, grouped into Foundation, Offer, Proof, Traffic, and Follow-up
- Time to complete
- Roughly 14 hours of focused work spread over 14 days
- Final step
- Run the free 90-second diagnostic on the rewritten page
- Last verified
- May 21, 2026
Who this checklist is for
You shipped on Indie Hackers, the cheers landed, the launch traffic was real, the credit cards never were. This checklist is the next 14 days.
The 10 ordered moves
Find the cohort outside the IH/PH community
Foundation1 hrIH/PH cheers builders, not buyers. Pick the cohort 3 steps removed: not 'indie hackers' but 'freelance copywriters who need a content calendar tool', not 'developers' but 'agency project managers tracking 30+ retainers'. The cohort outside the community is who pays.
Rewrite the homepage to address that cohort
Foundation1 hrHero names the cohort and the outcome. The build stack moves to the footer. The product description shifts from 'I built X' to 'You stop doing Y'. Wrong-fit IH/PH traffic still bounces; right-fit traffic from the cohort outside the community now lands.
Build the Stack Slide on the pricing page
Offer2 hrsEvery paid tier carries an offer-stack: the app, templates, support SLA, integrations, lifetime updates. Dollar-anchor each line. Pricing pages without a Stack lose to feature-comparison readers; pricing pages with a Stack reframe to value-comparison.
Add a $7–$27 tripwire below your core price
Offer4 hrs (product design + page)A tripwire below the core price (a $9 template pack, a $19 audit tool, a $27 one-off micro-tool) creates the value-ladder bottom rung. Trip wire buyers convert to core at 5–15%; never selling a tripwire caps the funnel.
Seed three dated specific testimonials outside IH
Proof5 hrsFind 3–5 beta users from the cohort outside the community. Comp them or reduce-rate them in exchange for a 200-word dated testimonial. Three dated specifics from your real ICP beats 100 'congrats on the ship!' replies. IH replies are not testimonials.
Pick one niche channel and engage daily for 30 days
Traffic1 hr/day (ongoing)Drop the 'launch on five platforms' habit. Pick one channel where your real cohort lives (subreddit, Slack, niche Twitter, Substack). Engage daily, not pitch. The cohort starts pulling the link out of you by week 3.
Wire the in-trial Soap Opera Sequence
Follow-up3 hrsWhoever signs up gets a 5-email sequence over the trial: Attractive Character intro, failed-then-won, the in-product 'aha', the offer, the urgency. Same emails forever. Trial-to-paid lifts 30–80% with the SOS in place.
Add the post-purchase OTO at 2–4x core price
Offer2 hrsImmediately after the core purchase, present one specific upsell: an implementation pack, an annual prepay discount, a higher tier. 20–40% take-rate is typical. The OTO is where bootstrapped unit economics start working.
Ship one comparison or alternatives page
Traffic3 hrsHonest /vs/ or /alternatives-to/ page against the named competitor your cohort searches for. Comparison pages convert 3–10x homepage traffic on bottom-funnel intent. Critical for bootstrapped SaaS because you can't outspend competitors on top-of-funnel.
Run the diagnostic on your repositioned page
Foundation10 minOnce items 1–9 ship, run the free 90-second diagnostic on your URL. The triage labels whether the rewrite now reads as Wrong Person / Weak Offer / Weak Belief from a cold reader's perspective – the cohort outside the community.
How the buckets work
- Foundation · 3 steps · The hero, the headline, the cohort definition. Where the page either earns the next four seconds or loses the reader.
- Offer · 3 steps · The Stack, the guarantee, the pricing structure. What turns the reader from interested into ready-to-pay.
- Proof · 1 step · Dated, named, specific evidence. What turns ready-to-pay into actually-paid.
- Traffic · 2 steps · How the right cohort finds the page. Always after the page is rewritten, never before.
- Follow-up · 1 step · Soap Opera, Seinfeld, OTOs, post-purchase sequences. What turns one customer into compounding revenue.
Questions indie hackers ask before starting
Why didn't my Product Hunt / IH launch convert?
Community traffic is curiosity-shaped, not buyer-shaped. PH conversion of 0.1–0.5% is normal. The fix isn't another launch; it's a Wrong Person diagnosis – step 3 in the checklist.
I want to stay bootstrapped. Does this checklist push paid ads?
No. Every step works for zero-spend founders. Paid ads are explicitly deferred until the funnel earns back at organic – usually after step 9.
How long until I see my first $1K MRR?
The checklist itself takes ~14 days of focused work; first-paying-customer events often happen mid-checklist. $1K MRR depends on traffic and pricing, but the bottleneck is the funnel work, not the timeline.
Read the cohort breakdown first
The diagnostic page for indie hackers walks the Hook / Story / Offer triage on the cohort's vocabulary, money mechanics, and most common mistakes. Pair it with this checklist for context.
Open the indie hackers cohort page →Step 10 made easy: run the diagnostic now
The free 90-second Launch Diagnostic runs the Hook / Story / Offer triage on your actual URL and labels what’s broken. You can run it before step 1 (to see where you start) and after step 9 (to see what shifted).