Moatly Crew
Launchpad

Ship like a Champion

The Launchpad is a workbench for product owners — a featured weekly spotlight, a battle-tested launch checklist, templates and playbooks the crew uses to take technical products from quiet alpha to a serious launch day.

Spotlight of the Week

Featured Launch

Aether Engine: Localized LLM Inference

High-performance, privacy-first inference server for local hardware. Hand-picked by the editors and live for crew feedback all week.

Stage
Public Beta
Stack
Rust · CUDA
Goal
500 users
Aether Engine spotlight

Launch Checklist

T-4 Weeks2/3
  • Lock the positioning: one sentence, one promise.
  • Identify 5 design-partner customers willing to vouch.
  • Draft landing page hero + below-the-fold proof.
T-2 Weeks0/3
  • Cut the 60-second demo video (hosted, no signup).
  • Pre-brief 3 friendly press / newsletter writers.
  • Stage docs site with quickstart under 5 minutes.
Launch Day0/3
  • Publish Show HN / Launchpad submission at 9am ET.
  • Founder thread on X with demo + technical write-up.
  • Open #launch room in Discord; staff for first 6h.
T+1 Week0/2
  • Ship the launch retro: metrics, surprises, asks.
  • Convert top 10 inbound leads to design-partner calls.

Launch Toolkit

Launch Brief Template

One-page brief covering positioning, ICP, demo, distribution plan, and metrics.

Open

Announcement Kit

Show HN, X thread, LinkedIn, and newsletter copy ready to fill in.

Open

Metrics Dashboard

Track signups, activation, and inbound by source from day zero.

Open

Demo Sandbox

Hosted, no-signup sandbox so reviewers can play in under 60 seconds.

Open

Playbooks & Teardowns

PLAYBOOK

The Technical Show HN That Actually Lands

8 min read
PLAYBOOK

From Closed Alpha to 1,000 Stars in 30 Days

12 min read
TEARDOWN

Anatomy of the Linear v1 Launch

9 min read
TEMPLATE

60-Second Demo Video: Shot List & Script

5 min read