As we’re wrapping up the Mega Launch Week, I wanted to reflect and think about the future of launchweek.⁠dev.

Below are some personal thoughts.

MEGA LAUNCH WEEK

1 week. 22 devtools launching together. December 2-6, 2024.

tldr

  • launchweek.dev is a place for developers to discover devtools and for founders to learn about launch weeks.
  • I’ll maintain the social accounts and post weekly about upcoming launch weeks, insights, and best practices.
  • Every week, you’ll get an email on what dev-first companies announced the previous week and what they’ll launch next.
  • I’m also working on improving product discovery and building comprehensive guides.
  • It started as an open-source project and will remain open-source thanks to sponsors.

initial commit

I started this project last year as an open collection — a public repository that lists past and upcoming launch weeks.

Paul reached out on Twitter/X, and we started brainstorming ideas.

We own launchweek.dev. Perhaps we can repurpose it and use it for the entire dev community?

— Paul Copplestone, CEO & co-founder of Supabase, on September 4, 2023

Early on, we wanted to make launchweek.dev a documentation site for developers to discover new products and for founders to find inspiration and learn best practices to run successful launch weeks.

Four weeks ago, we refreshed the project.

We introduced a new layout, logo, and color theme. We launched social accounts on Twitter/X and Bluesky (follow us). We started a newsletter, too.

People reached out asking:

Is it an alternative to Product Hunt?

That made me think about the future of the project.

the future of launchweek.⁠dev

Product Hunt is a place where I enjoy hanging out, so I’m humbled by the comparison. launchweek.dev is different thought for three main reasons:

  1. It focuses on the dev tools space
  2. Filtered out by default
  3. Spam-free by design

focused on dev tools

First, it focuses on the dev tools space.

Developers are the target audience. Serverless and API-first are frequently used keywords. Usually, this means that the announcements include some code examples. And if you want to add your launch week, there’s no submit form — you need to create a pull request.

filtered out by default

Second, featured products are filtered out by default.

Launch weeks are challenging. They create buzz and excitement around the product. They require planning and coordination across the team, too. Running a launch week has a “cost” for one company — if many experimented with it, few companies managed to do it consistently. This year, we tracked 123 launch weeks run by 92 different companies. Only 7 companies have run 3 launch weeks or more this year: Highlight, Daytona, Memfault, Mux, Outerbase, Supabase, Wasp. 7 companies — in the world.

spam-free by design

Third, this place is spam-free by design.

Because launch weeks filter out featured products by default, there’s no need to add an upvote system to find out the best products, no need to hack (read: spam) the system to be Product Of The Week (POTW). Take this year 2024. If you exclude the Mega Launch Week that featured 22 developer tools, there were exactly 2 launches per week on average. When your team runs a launch week, you are by default.

From my perspective, this fundamentally changes the way it works.

Launch weeks are high peaks — 5 announcements in 5 days — the most significant “sign of life,” Resend’s co-founder Zeno Rocha said, and they require effort. Launch weeks are so intense. We should celebrate them, not add a layer of stress with competition. Here is a place that shines a spotlight on those dev-first companies that run launch weeks, those teams that ship.

looking forward

To wrap up, launchweek.dev is a place for developers to discover great dev-first products and for founders to find inspiration and learn how to run successful launch weeks.

Starting today, I’ll maintain the social accounts and post weekly about upcoming launch weeks, insights, and best practices. Every week, you’ll get an email on what dev-first companies announced the previous week and what they’ll launch next. I’m also working on improving product discovery and building comprehensive guides.

Please let me know if you have any expectations. This started as an open-source project and will remain open-source forever — star this repo.

supabase-community/launchweek.dev

launchweek.dev on GitHub

Oh, and one more thing — I couldn’t be able to build on this vision without sponsors, and I’m thankful for Supabase’s early support. If you want to help and support me, please reach out.

Thank you for your time reading this note. You can follow me @fmerian on Twitter/X. I’m building launchweek.dev in public.

Enjoy your day — and keep launching!