launch-strategy

Trigger phrases

Phrases that activate this skill when typed to Claude Code:

• launch
• Product Hunt
• feature release
• we are about to ship
• launch checklist

What it does

launch-strategy is a Claude Code skill from Corey Haines’s marketing-skills repo. It turns Claude into a launch planner who builds the launch as a momentum loop, not a single PH-day spike — pre-launch waitlist, launch-day asset stack, distribution sequencing, and a 30-day post-launch plan that captures interest into customers. The skill activates when you mention “launch”, “Product Hunt”, “feature release”, or “GTM plan”.

The output of a session is a launch plan: positioning narrative, audience priority list, asset checklist (landing page, video, screenshots, social posts, email, OG image, PH listing), pre-launch waitlist plan, launch-day timeline, and a 30-day momentum sequence.

When to use it

Reach for it when:

• You’re 4–8 weeks out from a launch and need a sequenced plan, not vibes
• You’re launching on Product Hunt and want the supporting infrastructure right
• You’ve shipped quietly before and want this release to actually generate signal

When not to reach for it:

• The product itself isn’t ready; a launch on a broken product hurts more than helps
• You’re a single dev with no audience — launch playbooks assume some baseline reach

Install

The skill is distributed via Corey Haines’s marketing-skills repo. Install via the repo’s recommended path — copy the launch-strategy SKILL.md into your project’s .claude/skills/launch-strategy/ directory, or use the repo’s plugin install if you’ve set it up.

Once installed, the skill activates on the trigger phrases above. The first time it runs, it will check for .agents/product-marketing-context.md (or .claude/product-marketing-context.md) — populating that file with your product context first dramatically improves output quality across all of Haines’s marketing skills.

What a session looks like

A typical session has three phases:

1. Pre-launch (4–8 weeks). Waitlist setup, build-in-public posts, founding-user outreach, asset production schedule.
2. Launch week. Day-by-day timeline (PH submission, email send, social posts, founder outreach), asset finalization, hunter and hype-team coordination.
3. Post-launch (30 days). Momentum sequence — turn launch interest into trials, capture testimonials from early users, recycle the launch into evergreen content.

The discipline that makes it work: the launch is a campaign, not an event. The 30-day post-launch plan is where most product launches under-execute and most of the actual customer acquisition happens.

Receipts

Honest reporting on what launch-strategy produces and where it has limits:

Where it works well:

• The pre-launch waitlist play stops the “launched to 47 visitors” failure mode
• Asset checklist surfaces the missing items (OG image, social pack, PH gallery video) before they’re blocking
• Post-launch 30-day plan converts attention into customers, which most launches fumble

Where it backfires:

• Product Hunt’s algorithm and culture shift; the playbook accounts for the current state, not future state
• For B2B with long sales cycles the 30-day momentum plan needs lengthening

Pattern that works: trigger 6 weeks out. Less than 4 weeks and the pre-launch waitlist has no time to compound; more than 8 weeks and the plan stales before launch.

Source and attribution

Originally written by Corey Haines. The canonical SKILL.md and any supporting files live in the launch-strategy folder of his marketing-skills repository.

License: MIT. You can install, adapt, and redistribute the skill, with attribution preserved.

This page documents the skill from a practitioner’s perspective. For the formal spec and any updates, defer to the source repo.