Indie Hacker Launch
Ship Friday, launch Monday.
Without losing the weekend to launch admin. The launch-week system.
Indie Hacker Launch is the launch-week system for solo founders shipping their second-to-fifth product. It compresses the four weeks around a launch into one repeatable workflow: positioning, audience-building, launch day, reinforcement, differentiation. Same shape as Solo Consultant Ops; different role, different lifecycle.
How the launch-week system works
Five phases mapped to the actual lifecycle of a launch. Each phase hands off cleanly to the next, each driven by a specialist skill. Phase 5 is provisional and will be confirmed by tester feedback after phases 1 to 4 are running.
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Phase 1
Pre-launch positioning
Product Hunt copy that earns its hunters. A clear audience definition that survives the launch-day inbox. The boring shape work that makes the launch land.
Planned skill:
/product-hunt-prep -
Phase 2
Audience-building
Build-in-public cadence for the four weeks before launch. Refuses milestone theatre; demands a real artefact behind every post.
Planned skill:
/build-in-public-cadence -
Phase 3
Launch day
Hour-by-hour checklist that ships on time. On-brand replies to launch comments under load. Falls back to plain English when scripts break.
Planned skill:
/launch-checklist-runner -
Phase 4
Launch-week reinforcement
SEO foundations that compound after the launch wave passes. Schema, sitemap, internal linking, and the three pages search engines actually rank.
Planned skill:
/seo-foundation-installer -
Phase 5
Post-launch differentiation
provisional
Comparison-page writer that names competitors honestly and lets readers self-select. Provisional: ships only if tester feedback after phases 1-4 confirms it earns its keep.
Planned skill:
/comparison-page-writer
Who it's for
- You've shipped one to four products before; this is your 2nd to 5th
- You're code-comfortable (you can run a CLI, edit a config file, fix a markdown template)
- You don't have a growth team, a launch agency, or a marketing manager
- You'd rather ship Friday and have Monday be quiet than chase a press wave for a fortnight
Who it's not for
- Funded teams with a dedicated launch function (this is solo-founder-shaped; you'll outgrow it)
- Anyone without a specific product to launch in the next 4 weeks (the system is bound to a launch event)
- Anyone looking for coding help (this is launch operations, not a coding pack)
- Anyone wanting to 'AI-generate a viral launch' (refusing that is the system's whole point)
Try the free starter pack first
The free Knack Starter Pack ships under MIT and installs in five minutes. It uses the same canonical pattern as every paid pack. If the format works for you, the launch-week system will too.
See the free starter packApply to test the pack
Looking for around 10 testers to run the first four phases against a real product launch in the next 4 to 6 weeks. Free access to the pre-release pack, direct line to the author, your feedback shapes the v1.0 release. Best fit: shipping your 2nd to 5th product, and you'd rather not spend another launch weekend rewriting the same Product Hunt copy you wrote last time.
Seven questions, around two minutes. Every application is read; response within 48 hours.