We want First Launch to be a place people trust for discovering brand new digital products with genuinely strong launch offers.
So before you submit, here's what we look for — and what makes a launch a good fit for the platform.
The short version
Before you submit, make sure your launch fits these rules:
- Your product must be digital — like an app, software tool, SaaS product, plugin, extension, or platform.
- Your product must have been publicly available for 12 months or less.
- Your offer on First Launch must be equal to or better than any other publicly accessible offer.
- Your offer must also clear a minimum bar — free trials must be longer than one month, and discounts must be more than 25%. For other offer types, we use our judgement on whether the value is strong enough.
- "Publicly accessible" includes offers available through sign-up, registration, waitlists, gated launch pages, partner platforms, or similar flows.
- If you promote an offer, you must honour it for the full promo period or threshold you advertise.
- Minor updates, backend changes, or model swaps usually do not count as a new launch.
- Your product must be real and built with genuine effort — no thin AI wrappers, copycats, or low-effort tools.
- A genuinely new product component may qualify if it unlocks a meaningful new use case.
- We may reject or request edits to submissions that don't fit the platform guidelines.
The full version
1. First Launch is for new digital products
First Launch is built for brand new digital products.
That includes things like:
- SaaS products
- web apps
- mobile apps
- software tools
- plugins
- browser extensions
- digital platforms
- AI tools
If people can go online and use it, there's a good chance it fits.
What we're not looking for:
- physical products
- service-only businesses
- agencies
- consultants
- offline businesses
- general business promos that aren't tied to a real digital product
2. Your promo needs to be the real deal
If you launch on First Launch, your offer should be your best publicly accessible offer during the promo period.
That means it needs to be equal to or better than any offer someone can get elsewhere in an accessible way.
This includes offers available through:
- your own website
- launch platforms
- partner platforms
- sign-up flows
- registration walls
- waitlists
- gated promo pages that anyone can access by joining
The simple rule: if someone can reasonably get to the offer, we treat it as public.
We want users to feel confident that if they see a promo on First Launch, it's the best offer available.
3. Your offer has to clear a real bar
A brand new product isn't enough on its own — the promo behind it has to be genuinely strong. First Launch is about standout, exclusive offers, so we set a minimum bar on how good a deal has to be.
We don't accept:
- free trials of one month or less
- discounts of 25% or less
For other offer types — lifetime deals, bonus credits, free tiers, and so on — we use our judgement on whether the value is strong enough to qualify.
If your best offer is a two-week trial or 20% off, it's not a fit yet — even if the product is new and the offer is your best one publicly.
This isn't about being flashy. It's about making sure that when someone sees a promo on First Launch, it's actually worth showing up for.
4. If you promote it, you need to honour it
If your listing says:
- first 100 users get free accounts
- 50% off for 14 days
- lifetime access
- bonus credits included
- premium features are part of the deal
… then that's what users should get.
Your offer needs to be honoured for the full period, threshold, or access level you promote.
If you're not ready to stand behind it, don't list it.
5. Your product needs to be genuinely new
First Launch is for products still in their early launch window.
As a general rule, we only accept products that have been publicly available for 12 months or less at the time of submission.
That means we're not the place for long-established products doing another promo run.
If your product has already been around for years, it's probably not a fit for First Launch, even if the campaign is new.
6. Not every update is a new launch
A better version of your existing product is great. But it's not always a new launch.
Usually, these don't count on their own:
- switching to a newer AI model
- performance upgrades
- backend improvements
- pricing changes
- tweaks to an existing feature
Those are updates, not new products.
What can qualify is a genuinely new product component that opens up a meaningful new branch of customers.
For example:
- if your product already handles text extraction and you now launch AI image extraction, that may qualify
- if your app adds a distinct new product layer or feature set that changes what users can actually do, that may qualify
7. Clear beats clever
The best submissions are easy to understand.
That means your listing should be:
- clear
- honest
- specific
- easy to verify
- upfront about what the user is actually getting
If something is vague, overhyped, or feels like it's stretching the truth, we may ask you to tighten it up before approval.
8. A good deal doesn't fix a bad product
A strong offer is only worth something if the product behind it is. So even with a great promo, we don't list products that feel low-effort, copied, or thrown together to ride a trend.
Usually these don't make the cut:
- generic AI wrappers — a thin layer over ChatGPT or another model with nothing real added on top
- low-effort tools — basic converters, generators, or calculators that took an afternoon to build and don't do anything new
- copycats — clones of existing products with no meaningful difference
- spam or placeholder products — anything that isn't actually functional, or only exists to farm a link or a listing
We love early and unpolished. Indie makers and rough edges are welcome here. What we're filtering out isn't "small" — it's "empty."
9. We reserve the right to protect the platform
To keep First Launch useful for everyone, we may reject, remove, or request edits to any submission that:
- doesn't fit the platform
- doesn't feel like a genuine launch
- has unclear or misleading claims
- doesn't offer real launch value
- promotes restricted or inappropriate products
- breaks our Terms or other platform rules
We're trying to build a platform people trust.
So the goal is simple: exclusive promos, brand new products, every week — and launches that actually live up to that.
What happens if my submission isn't approved?
If we can't approve your launch, we'll let you know — and where we can, we'll tell you why.
In most cases it's fixable. If we've asked for edits, make the changes and send it back. If your product wasn't a fit yet — too old, offer wasn't strong enough, not quite a new launch — you're welcome to resubmit once that changes.
Ready to launch?
If your product is new, your offer is the best one out there, and you're ready to stand behind it — we'd love to see it.