Founder's Guide
The Complete SaaS Development Checklist
A stage-by-stage guide to building, launching, and scaling your SaaS product—from initial validation to exit-ready. Built from 50+ real-world checklists and Reddit war stories.
192 items • 7 stages
Stage 3 / 29 items
MVP Development
Build the minimum product that delivers your core value. One feature that works perfectly beats ten features that exist.
Core feature delivers the primary value proposition
User can complete entire core flow end-to-end
User data persists correctly across sessions
Basic CRUD operations work for primary entities
One feature that works perfectly > ten features that exist
Design empty states for all list/data views
Design error states (network, server, validation)
Add loading states that provide visual feedback
Show inline form validation errors
Handle timeouts gracefully
Prevent double-submission on critical actions
Choose and integrate payment provider
Test mode payments working end-to-end
Implement webhook handling for payment events
Handle failed payment webhooks
Implement subscription upgrade/downgrade flow
Build cancellation flow
Payment confirmation page clearly shows what user bought
Generate invoices/receipts
Capture request context in logs
Integrate error tracking service (Sentry or similar)
Attach user ID to logs and errors
Use structured logging format (JSON)
Log critical business events
README explains project setup from scratch
Enforce code style with linter
Write tests for critical path
Set up CI pipeline for automated testing
Require CI to pass for PR merges