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 2 / 28 items
Technical Foundation
Make the boring decisions that prevent painful rewrites later. Choose familiar over trendy, plan for the future without building it yet.
Choose tech stack for familiarity over trendiness
Document reasoning for tech choices
Start with monolith (unless strong reason otherwise)
Decide on rendering approach (SSR vs CSR vs hybrid)
Select PaaS/hosting prioritizing easy deploy over cost
Design database schema supporting future multi-tenancy
Use app.domain.com from day 1
Keep marketing site separate from app codebase
Plan API structure even if not exposed yet
Avoid naked domains for primary hosts
Enforce HTTPS everywhere
Hash passwords with modern algorithm (bcrypt/argon2)
Ensure no secrets in codebase or git history
Use environment variables for all configuration
Prevent SQL injection (parameterized queries/ORM)
Implement XSS protection
Configure CORS restrictively
Add rate limiting on authentication endpoints
Secure session management (httpOnly, secure flags)
Scan dependencies for vulnerabilities regularly
Implement password-based auth first
Build complete password reset flow
Implement email verification
Configure appropriate session timeout
Plan MFA architecture (even if not built yet)
Plan SSO architecture (even if not built yet)
Create protected admin role
Establish role-based access control foundation