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 7 / 24 items
Scaling & Sellability
Growing the team without chaos, and building something someone else could run. Whether you exit or not, this makes everything easier.
Document architecture and key decisions
Document all third-party services
Document domain and hosting credentials
Separate business logic from framework
Document CI/CD pipeline
Ensure test coverage for critical paths
Define engineering levels
Document interview process
Create onboarding checklist for new engineers
Document decision-making process
Establish remote work guidelines (if applicable)
Set up knowledge sharing mechanism
Verify tech stack is standard/common
Keep financial records accurate
Make customer data easily exportable
Eliminate single points of failure (people)
Ensure legal ownership is clear
Build metrics dashboard
Monitor customer concentration
Review SaaS CTO security checklist
Run static code analysis for security
Plan third-party penetration testing
Consider bug bounty program
Prepare security assets for enterprise customers