The startup launch copy checklist we use: one line, every surface

The week we launched Caret, our launch video ended on a card that said "Free to start." By then the site had gone invite-only. Our designer bot caught it by watching the last frames, and the fixed video shipped before the post went out. In the same stretch, an FAQ draft said there was "nothing to pay," when invited teams could already see a paid plan. Two surfaces, two different stories about the price, both written by people and bots who were trying hard.

That's the usual way launch copy breaks. Nobody writes a bad line on purpose. Each surface gets written on a different day, from a different doc, and the product changes in between.

Start with two documents

A launch copy pack is two documents and a list of surfaces.

The one-liner is the sentence you'd say if someone asked "what is it?" in a lift. Ours: Caret is where you build your own AI teammates. Give each one a job, its own computer and a seat in your team's threads. Every surface repeats it or a trimmed version of it, word for word. When people see the same sentence in three places, they remember it. When they see three different sentences, they remember none of them.

The fact sheet is a short list of things that are true today: price, platforms, what's shipped, what isn't, what you call the product, and what you must never claim. Ours started as a page of bullets with one rule at the bottom: if unsure, mark it [CHECK]. It's the most useful file in our marketing folder.

Then you write the surfaces. Here's the pack we build for a launch:

Surface	What it needs	Length	How the one-liner shows up
Home page title and meta	Brand plus category	Title under 60 characters, meta 140-160	Category words from the one-liner
Home page hero	Hook and one-liner	1-2 lines	Word for word
FAQ	"What is it?", price, "is it the same as X?"	2-4 sentences each	First answer is the one-liner
Launch post (LinkedIn, X)	The story of why, one ask, one link in the body	150-300 words	Last paragraph
Directory listings	Short and long description, category	60 and 300 characters	Short description is the one-liner trimmed
Founder bio	Who you are, what you're building	2-3 sentences	Second sentence
Launch email or DM	Why this person, one link of their own	Under 120 words	One line, then the ask
Video or image end cards	Name, URL, call to action	One line	Never a price unless checked that day

The checklist before anything goes live

Run this the day you publish, not the day you write. Things change in between.

1. Price matches the live site today. Open the pricing page and read it. Don't trust your notes. Our notes once said "never write free" a week after the site went free on Mac.
2. Every product fact was checked by its owner. Whoever owns billing confirms the price. Whoever owns the code confirms the feature exists.
3. The name is searchable. If your name is shared with other products, put the unique version next to it. We write "Caret (caretbot.com)". "Caret" alone brings up a meeting assistant, a Discord bot and an R package.
4. The one-liner is identical on the hero, the first FAQ answer and the directory short description.
5. Bios and profile links are plain. No UTM tags in bio fields, and your canonical tag drops query strings so tracked links don't count as separate pages.
6. The link is in the post body, and each DM or email gets its own tracked link so you can tell which one worked.
7. End cards and images were checked last. They're made early and forgotten. Watch the final frames.
8. The channel allows what you're launching. Show HN wants something people can try. A request-an-invite page gets flagged.

An example: a launch pack from one release note

This is an example, with a made-up product, to show the steps.

A four-person team is launching a tool that reads bank exports and flags duplicate vendor payments. The founder pastes the release note into a team thread and asks the marketer bot:

"Build the launch copy pack from this. One-liner first, then hero, FAQ, a LinkedIn post, two directory descriptions and the email to our 30 beta users. Check the price against the pricing page."

What came back, in order:

1. Three one-liners to pick from. The founder picked "Finds the vendor you paid twice, before your accountant does," then cut the last four words because her co-founders thought it read as a jab.
2. A fact sheet with two [CHECK] marks. The bot had seen "free trial" in the release note and "free tier" on the pricing page. The engineer confirmed it's a 14-day trial, and the bot fixed both places.
3. The surfaces, attached as a Word doc, with the one-liner highlighted wherever it appears.
4. A LinkedIn draft with the link in the body, ending on a line that asks people who run month-end close to try it on last month's export.

The founder changed the post's first line (the bot opened on the feature, she opened on the afternoon she found a double payment herself) and approved the email. The bot asked once more before sending to the 30 beta users, and she said yes.

#launch

You

You

Build the launch copy pack from this release note. One-liner first, then hero, FAQ, a LinkedIn post, two directory descriptions and the email to our 30 beta users. Check the price against the pricing page.

Marketer bot

Three one-liners to pick from. Top pick: Finds the vendor you paid twice, before your accountant does. Fact sheet has two [CHECK] tags: the release note says "free trial", the pricing page says "free tier".

You

You

Cut "before your accountant does". Engineering confirms it's a 14-day trial.

Marketer bot

Fixed in both places. Attached launch-copy-pack.docx, one-liner highlighted wherever it appears.

Marketer bot

Approval needed

Send 30 emails

ApproveDeny

You

You

Approved.

An example thread, shortened.

How to set it up in Caret

We run our own launches this way. Our marketer bot wrote our launch copy, the SEO copy pack and our blog drafts.

1. Sign up at app.caretbot.com. Team starts with a 7-day trial.
2. Create a bot and give it the job of marketer: it owns launch copy, keeps the fact sheet, and never posts or sends without asking.
3. Save your one-liner and fact sheet in its memory, so every draft starts from them. Memory lasts between conversations.
4. Connect Slack and the other apps it needs through connected apps.
5. Save the checklist above as a skill, so "run the launch checklist" means the same eight checks every time.
6. Ask in a thread. Some asks we use:
   • "Draft the directory listings from the copy pack, short and long, and attach them as a sheet."
   • "Check every price and feature in this draft against the live site and mark anything you can't confirm."
   • "Ask our engineer bot whether the export feature has shipped before you put it in the FAQ."
7. Approve each post or send from the card in the thread. An admin approves or denies with one click, and the audit trail shows what went out.

FAQ

What should be in a startup launch copy pack? A one-liner, a fact sheet, and copy for each surface: page title and meta, hero, FAQ, launch posts, directory listings, founder bio, launch email and any end cards. All of it should come from the same one-liner.

How do I keep launch messaging consistent across channels? Write the one-liner first and repeat it word for word on the hero, the first FAQ answer and the directory short description. Re-check prices and features on publish day, because they drift between writing and launch.

Should I put the link in the first comment on LinkedIn? In our case it cost us every click: about 1,200 impressions and zero tracked visits. We now put the link in the body and measure clicks, not impressions.

If you'd like a bot to hold the fact sheet and draft the pack, read how an AI marketing bot for startups works. Put a bot on it: start your 7-day trial or download the Mac app.