Launch planning tools: the five records that actually matter

A launch fails on records nobody kept, not on software nobody chose well. The five records that matter are the dated condition list, the ask register, the claim list, the prediction and result record, and the observation log. Five launch planning tools hold them better than the rest.

Each tool below is named, priced where a public figure exists, and matched to the record it holds best.

What to take away

Airtable

Airtable is a hosted database with a spreadsheet face. Each base holds tables, each table holds typed fields, and the field types do the work here.

It earns its place on the ask register. One row holds a request, a lead time in days, a sent date, an answered date and a person. A view sorted by lead time puts the longest-lead ask at the top.

A request marked sent is not marked answered. That distinction is the reason the record exists.

The claim list fits the same way: claim text, source, date checked, checker, and a status field whose unsupported option blocks publication instead of sitting quietly.

Airtable publishes a free tier, a Team plan around $20 per seat per month billed annually, and a Business plan around $45. Record limits climb with the tier, and the free tier caps a base at roughly 1,000 records. It suits a founder who wants structure without a developer.

Notion

Notion is a document tool with databases inside it. A page holds a table, a checklist and prose in one scroll, which is why it takes two of the five records.

The condition list lives here as a database with a date field and a person field, filtered to unmet items.

The refusal script lives here as prose. A script has to be read aloud, revised in conversation and agreed, and fields do not help with any of that.

A date that has moved three times is itself a finding, and Notion keeps the edit history that shows it.

Notion is free for personal use. Plus costs about $10 per member per month with annual billing and about $12 month to month. Business runs about $15 per member per month on annual billing. It suits a small team that writes more than it queries.

Linear

Linear is issue tracking built for software teams. It earns a place only when engineers already inside it run the launch, because then the condition list is a project with dated issues and named assignees.

Every issue has one owner, one state and a due date, and a slipped date stays visible in the history.

The ask register is the weak spot. Linear marks an issue done when the work is done, and a request to a supplier is not done when you send it. Keep asks elsewhere.

Linear's free plan caps a workspace at about 250 issues. Basic runs about $8 per user per month, and Business about $14. It suits engineering-led launches and nobody else.

Google Sheets with Apps Script

Sheets is the record keeper most teams already have. Apps Script is the piece that makes it hold a prediction nobody can edit after the fact.

The prediction and result record needs one property above all: a value written before the result arrives, locked so it cannot be quietly changed. A short script writes the prediction into a protected range with a timestamp.

That property is the whole value of the record. No dashboard gives it to you, because a dashboard shows the present and never the expectation.

Sheets is free with a Google account. A Workspace Business Starter seat runs about $6 per user per month with an annual commitment, around $7 month to month. It suits a founder who will write twenty lines of script to avoid a subscription.

A wall board: Quartet, Post-it and Expo

A whiteboard or a sheet of paper on a wall is a launch planning tool. It earns its place on the condition list, because the point is that everyone sees the same short list of unmet items.

Any tool with a filter gives each person a private view. Write the conditions, the owner and the date in Expo marker on a Quartet board. Cross them off in front of each other.

A 4 by 3 foot melamine whiteboard typically costs $30 to $60 at an office supply store, Expo markers a few dollars, and a Post-it easel pad about $20 to $30. The constraint is that the board does not travel.

The records these tools hold

The claim list carries a legal edge. The standard for advertising claims is a reasonable basis before the claim runs, and where the material includes testimonials the endorsement guidance adds requirements about what the endorsement must reflect and what must be disclosed.

Those rows need a column for the connection between you and the endorser. A tool that cannot hold that column is the wrong tool for the claim list.

The observation log needs a count, a source and a denominator in the same row. Two out of nine and two hundred out of nine hundred display identically as a percentage and mean entirely different things, which is the reasoning behind the discovery counts.

What no tool does

No tool decides what the launch is for, and that decision changes the whole plan. No tool confirms a supplier's lead time; a person does that in writing. No tool can tell you whether a claim is true, and no tool produces reach.

Reach is the constraint most first launches hit, and it sits with the channel work in the promotion and sales guidance, not with software.

The failure to watch for is the week spent configuring a system for a launch with no audience yet. It feels like preparation and it is delay. It is one of the launch planning mistakes that costs you the channel itself.

Choosing without wasting a week

Write the five records down. For each, ask whether what you already have can hold it. Most teams can hold four in a spreadsheet and a document, and the fifth, usually the observation log, needs whatever your purchase path already produces.

Then check one thing before you pay for anything: can you export every record to a plain file, today, and read it without logging in. If the answer is no, the record is on loan.

Writing a rule that can come back negative before the result arrives is the same requirement offer testing puts on any test worth running.

The sequencing these records support is set out in launch planning.

Common questions

Why name tools if the choice barely matters?

Because a reader looking for launch planning tools should find some. Airtable, Notion, Linear, Sheets with Apps Script and a Quartet board each hold the records, and the capability list decides the outcome. Take the requirements to whatever you already pay for if none of them fit.

Is a project management tool enough?

For the condition list, yes. For the ask register it usually is not, because task software marks a request done when it is sent. That single mismatch is why launches lose track of what they are waiting on.

What about a tool that scores launch readiness?

A score compresses the one thing you need to see, which is the list of unmet conditions and who owns each. Read the list.

Should the prediction live in the same place as the results?

Same file, different section, with the prediction dated and locked. Separating them makes it too easy to write the result and never open the prediction again.