Start a Paid Newsletter
90-Day Launch Checklist
Companion to "Your First Ninety Days."
Days 1 to 14: get live
The only goal of the first two weeks is a working storefront with one real issue in it.
- Niche sentence written: the reader, the outcome, the cadence, in one line
- Ten issue ideas listed; the first three outlined
- Platform chosen and publication created with name, one-line promise, about page
- Welcome email written; custom domain secured; first list export saved
- Pledges switched on, paid subscriptions off for now
- Issue one published, free, public, substantial
Day-14 checkpoint. Binary: is it live? Polish can wait.
Days 15 to 60: prove the cadence
- Publish on the announced rhythm without exception (one paid issue per week is the baseline, two the ceiling)
- Week 1 of this stretch: warm notes sent (twenty a week for a month from the sixty-to-one-hundred-name list)
- Comments and recommendations running on the platform; several short notes a week
- Week 3: draft the lead magnet from existing material
- Week 4: lead magnet page live, offered in exchange for an email address
- Week 5: welcome sequence wired
- Keep the reading session that feeds every issue; capture replies into the idea file
Day-60 checkpoint (no number to hit). Is the free list growing at all, and do issues get opens and at least a reply or two? A trickle is a pass. Zero engagement across six weeks is a positioning problem: go back to the niche lesson and adjust the frame.
Days 61 to 90: open the doors
- Pick the launch week; set the founding price; decide exactly what founding members get; mark the honest deadline
- Two weeks out: seed the upcoming founding window in issues and notes
- Launch week: the announcement issue
- Mid-window nudge with a real testimonial or two from early readers
- The new tangible asset ships behind the wall
- Final-day email to the full list (operators report it is the heaviest-converting send of the window)
- Close the founding price on schedule, publicly, and keep it closed
The day-90 review (answer in writing)
1. Is the free list growing, even slowly? Yes is continue.
2. Did at least a handful of readers pay real money at the founding window, and did pledge signals precede them? Yes is strong continue.
3. Is the work sustainable at the real weekly hours (8 to 12 for a weekly publication), honestly, for another six months?
All three yes: keep going, and expect the month-four-to-eight wobble right on schedule. No on growth despite real effort: adjust the niche frame first, the paywall second, one more quarter before any stop decision. What you do not do in ninety days: redesign the logo, buy subscribers, add a second publication, or start building a course. The stack comes after the inbox.