How to write a launch post people read to the end

Use this order. Keep each part short. Aim for 7 blocks, 2 to 4 sentences each.

• What it is in one sentence: the category and the twist. Example: "A bug tracker that auto-groups duplicates from logs."
• Who it is for: one role or team. Example: "For solo founders and seed-stage teams shipping weekly."
• The problem in your words: the moment of pain. Example: "We lose a day a week triaging the same crash reports."
• What it does today: the current scope, 3 to 5 bullets, real features.
• What it does not: set expectations, list 2 to 4 gaps you know you will be asked about.
• The price: one clear plan or a simple tier list.
• The ask: the action you want now, and how to give feedback.

Write it once. Reuse it on Hacker News, Product Hunt, Indie Hackers and your newsletter. Change only the header and links for each place.

Know what each site accepts, as of 2026. You are a guest there. Fit the format and the etiquette.

• Hacker News, Show HN: for something you made that people can try. Not for landing pages, sign-up walls, newsletters or reading material. Title starts with "Show HN:" and links to the thing. You post a first comment that explains what it is and why. Asking friends to upvote is a voting ring and is detected. New posts start in "new" and "show" and reach the front page on votes and comments. Moderators may repost good submissions that were missed. Front-page traffic is large and brief. Comments are candid.
• Product Hunt: you launch on a day. Ranking is by upvotes. You add a tagline, description, images or a video, and a first comment. Asking directly for upvotes is against the guidelines. You get a day of visitors, and a listing that keeps ranking for your name.
• Indie Hackers: a forum of founders. Launch posts are accepted in the right place. Sharing numbers and lessons gets read. Bare promotion is removed.
• Newsletter: you own it. Use the same structure. Link to the thing, a doc for feedback, and your roadmap.

1. 1

   Draft the one-liner

   Name the category and the twist. Example: "A changelog tool that writes release notes from pull requests." Keep it under 12 words.

2. 2

   Pick one audience

   Choose one role. "For staff engineers at SaaS companies" beats "for developers". Your readers self-sort faster.

3. 3

   Describe the problem in your words

   Write the moment you felt it. One paragraph. Use a real number, a real task or a real bug ID if you can.

4. 4

   List what it does today

   Use 3 to 5 bullets. Each one should be visible in a single GIF or screenshot of your UI.

5. 5

   List what it does not do

   Write the 2 to 4 features you know readers will ask about. Say if they are on the roadmap or out of scope.

6. 6

   State the price

   Write one plan and a date the price holds until. If you have tiers, list them in one line each.

7. 7

   Write the ask

   Pick one action: try it, sign up, comment, or reply. Add a link to a public doc or issue tracker for feedback.

8. 8

   Add proof

   Add 2 to 4 screenshots or a 30 to 60 second video. Add one short quote from a beta user if you have consent.

9. 9

   Cut filler

   Delete the sentences below. Remove adjectives you cannot prove today. Keep verbs and nouns.

Assume a fictional tool at yourproduct.com. A small SaaS that reads logs and groups duplicate errors. Here is the full post.

What it is
LogLasso is a bug tracker that auto-groups duplicate errors from logs in real time.

Who it is for
Engineers at seed-stage SaaS teams who handle on-call and product work.

The problem
We lost a day a week triaging the same crash reports. Different stack traces, same root cause. We were closing 50 "new" issues a month as duplicates. We wanted a queue that grouped them before a human touched it.

What it does today
- Ingests JSON logs over HTTP or from S3.
- Groups errors by stack similarity and message fingerprint.
- Opens one issue per group in GitHub with a short title and steps we extract.
- Suppresses repeats with a 24-hour cooldown per group.
- Sends a daily digest to Slack with counts and top groups.

What it does not
- No PII scrubbing yet. Do not send raw user data. We hash emails and IDs by default.
- No on-prem agent yet. Cloud only today.
- No Jira integration yet. GitHub only.
- No query UI for arbitrary logs. This is not a data warehouse.

Price
Starter plan, up to 10 million log lines. Growth plan, up to 100 million. Annual plans are discounted. Figures shown here are typical, not measured.

The ask
Try it on a staging environment: yourproduct.com. If you hit a false group, comment on this GitHub discussion with the payload, redacted: yourproduct.com/feedback. We answer within one business day.

On Hacker News, your title would be: "Show HN: LogLasso, auto-group duplicate errors from logs". Link to yourproduct.com, not to a blog. Post the same body as your first comment.

On Product Hunt, use the one-liner as the tagline. Upload 4 screenshots that match the "what it does today" list. Use the post body as your first comment, trimmed for space.

In your newsletter, paste the same post. Add a P.S. with your roadmap link and the date of your next sprint demo.

Delete lines that add no proof or reduce trust. Readers skim. Earn each sentence with a fact or a clear choice.

• "We are excited to announce". Cut it. Start with what it is.
• "Revolutionary", "cutting edge", "game changing". Cut adjectives. Show the screenshot instead.
• Roadmap promises without dates. Either give a date or say it is not planned.
• Vague asks. Pick one. Try it, comment, or reply. Not three.
• Long backstory. Keep history to two sentences unless it explains the product choice.
• Competitor swipes. State differences. Do not disparage.
• SEO bait lines for unrelated searches. You are writing for people, not crawlers.

Show the feature list, not the marketing site. Aim for proof in 30 to 60 seconds and 4 screenshots.

• A 30 to 60 second silent screen capture. Cursor only. Show one task end to end.
• A dashboard screenshot with real, redacted data. Labels large enough to read on mobile.
• A modal or form with the tricky field solved, highlighted.
• An error state. It builds trust.
• One quote image from a beta user, only with explicit consent.

Price is part of product truth. Write it near the top. Do not hide the number behind a click.

• Pick one default plan for launch. State the cap or quota in plain units.
• If you have a free plan, say what happens when someone hits the limit.
• If there is a waitlist, give an honest date for the next batch and the batch size.
• If taxes apply, say so. If you are VAT registered, say so.

One clear ask works. Two asks split attention. Three get no action.

• Hacker News: ask for feedback and edge cases. Link to a public changelog or issue. Reply to comments fast while your post is live.
• Product Hunt: ask for use cases and missing integrations. Thank people in the thread. Update the description at the end of the day with what you learned.
• Indie Hackers: share one number and one lesson. Ask one focused question about the next step.
• Newsletter: ask for replies with one question. Example: "What is the one log source we should add next?"

Listings send buyers and citations. Treat them as channels for discovery, not for links. Google treats paid links that pass ranking as spam, and low-value directories as low-quality links. You list for the audience and the mention.

• BetaList: for pre-launch and recent launches that take sign-ups. Queue can take weeks. There is a paid expedite. Write a clear one-liner.
• G2 and Capterra: free vendor profiles. Reviews from verified users are the currency. Capterra is part of Gartner Digital Markets with GetApp and Software Advice, one listing feeds the three. Both offer paid placement. Both give badges based on reviews.
• AlternativeTo: anyone can submit an app. Users like apps. Alternatives sort by likes. Pages rank for "X alternatives" and are cited by assistants.
• Reddit: each subreddit has its own rules on self-promotion. Many ban it. Some have weekly share threads. Site-wide, your promotion should be a small share of your activity. Founders who disclose and help for months, then post in an allowed thread, are welcome. Reddit threads rank in Google since 2024 and are read by assistants.
• AI product directories: There’s An AI For That, Futurepedia, Toolify, AI Tool Guru and many small ones. They list AI tools. Some are paid. Most links are nofollow. The value is presence on the lists.
• Small launch sites: Uneed, MicroLaunch, Dev Hunt for developer tools, Launching Next, Peerlist launches, Fazier, SaaSHub. Each is a listing with votes and a page that links to you.

Adjust the wrapper, not the core. Keep the seven blocks. Change the header and links per site. Here is how to tailor it in minutes.