Baseplate Launch Checklist

This section provides a working draft of all the steps that are required to create and launch a company that leverages the Baseplate framework.  We’re including all the steps - not just those related to development - so that you have full insight into all the different things that go into launching a business focused SaaS company.   As we go if we have ideas on ways we can accelerate, automate or increase the efficacy of steps in this process, by all means, lets talk about it!

The goal of the process is to ensure that the final business built using the Baseplate framework is set up and deployed in a standardized and efficient manner.  This is intentionally a larger aperture than simply the stock applications code as the success of the business is ultimately the goal.

Corporate Structure

  • Corporate Address - PostScanMail.   Note that to complete this process you'll need to go online and have a Notary autorize a postal form 
  • Legal Incorporation - Clerky - You'll need to chose if you want to be an LLC or a C-Corp.
  • EIN Registration - Clerky
  • Contractor Support - Upwork

Setup Bank Accounts

  • Accounting Software - Quickbooks Online
  • Checking Account - Wells Fargo (Requires EIN)
  • Credit Card - Wells Fargo (Requires EIN)

Key Strategy Items

If you haven't completed them earlier in the process please consult the Startup Strategy Guide and build out the key documents in that.   For your reference here's what we expect you to build out:

  • Solution Overview - A "one" (okay, sometimes two) page overview of the solution, who it's for and what it's competing against.   This informs the rest of the items.
  • Primary Competitor - The one, key competitor or functional alternative that we compete with.   In most cases early stage companies will most likely compete with functional competition versus a specific, competing solution.   While we recommend you build out a more structured analysis of competition the key thing we want to focus on is the most common competitive force.
  • Written Style Guide - The requirements for generating a written content for the company.
  • Visual Style Guide - The requirements for generating visual content for the company

Website

Now that we have our key strategy items built out you'll want to create a website for your company.   Typically we do this with a contractor off of Upwork.   We give them all the key strategy items above plus the following two items:

  • Sitemap: A hierarchical structure of all website pages.
  • Content: The content of the pages including a description of an imagery that needs to be developed.

We have a standard set of pages that we build for all B2B SaaS companies and prompts we use to generate the raw content.   While you can build your own from scratch we recommend using ours!

The work to build a website typically covers the primary templates of the site being developed and the taking the Content you've defined above and "dropping" it into each page of the site.  At the end of it you should have a fully functioning site and you should be able to easily add new pieces of content to it.

In building the site you could opt into a highly formal, multi-stage process.  In this approach you design each and every template down to the pixel level, approve all designs, build the templates, approve those, and then build the site.   Our experience is that's a little *too* formal at this stage and you're better off to give your site developer some flexibility on how to build things and structure the project.

A key thing to work through in this stage is how you'll integrate your site with either your app and CRM.   You'll typically want to unify site registration and login with your app.   You'll typically want to have registration and other forms be driven by your CRM.   If you use Baseplate  for your app you can check out that documentation and we'll give you approaches for that.   If you use HubSpot as your CRM we recommend the HubSpot Forms Wordpress plugin.

Key Website Vendors

  • Domain Name - NameCheap
  • E-mail, Documents, Files - Google Workspace Business Starter Edition
  • Phone Number - Google Voice Starter Edition
  • Website CMS - Namecheap Hosted WordPress
  • Payments - Hubspot Commerce
  • Chat - Hubspot Chat
  • Integrations - Quickbooks <> Hubspot Integration

What?!?! No Stripe?  We initially used Stripe for payments because, well, everyone uses Stripe.   That allowed us to quickly spin up payment sites for customers.  As we've developed this a little further, though, we've chose to simplify to Hubspot Payments versus utilizing a separate payment system.   For the needs of most early stage companies we think the functionality provided by HubSpot is more than sufficient and reduces our system count by one. 

Social Media Setup

When thinking through your social media strategy the first decision you have to make is *which* social media networks you want to target.  Here are the ones we'd recommend:

Platform Why It’s Recommended for B2B Enterprise SaaS
LinkedIn Core B2B platform. Ideal for reaching decision-makers, enterprise buyers, and industry professionals. Supports company updates, product announcements, thought leadership, and direct outreach.
Twitter (X) Real-time industry engagement. Useful for sharing insights, news, and engaging in conversations around tech, SaaS, and innovation. Good for building presence among peers, analysts, and influencers.
YouTube Video-first education and demo hub. Perfect for customer testimonials, product walkthroughs, and recorded webinars. Helps build authority and improve SEO visibility.
Medium Key for long-form content and SEO. Ideal for publishing technical explainers, customer case studies, and market analysis articles to attract and convert high-intent traffic.  Content typically published here and to our blog.
Facebook Secondary channel for retargeting and syndication. While Facebook is not ideal for direct B2B engagement since our audience spends time here we want to spend time here.
TikTok (optional) Emerging opportunity for brand creativity. Only suitable for SaaS brands with visual, humorous, or innovative storytelling content.

The above are the core networks we'd counsel you to have an active presence on.   In addition if you can do it we'd encourage you to be present in the following communities and actively participate where appropriate:

  • Reddit (select subreddits) - Community-based discovery and trust-building. Useful for joining authentic discussions around enterprise IT, SaaS, DevOps, or vertical-specific topics.
  • Product Hunt - Effective for feature launches or visibility within early adopter circles. Great for building awareness with startups, developers, and tech-forward users.
  • Instagram - Culture and brand showcase. Works for recruiting, employer branding, and humanizing the company via employee stories, office life, and behind-the-scenes content.
  • Quora - Thought leadership and demand generation. Answering relevant questions in your niche can build trust and funnel traffic to gated content or trials.
  • SlideShare - Ideal for repurposing presentations. Great for sharing sales enablement assets, implementation guides, or industry benchmarks in a visual format.

Now that we know which social media channels we want to setup let's get into the business of actually getting them setup.   The base assets and content we need will have been developed in the Solution Overview and the Visual Style Guide.   We'll use the content present in those as a base to develop these items:

LinkedIn

  • Custom Banner Image -  Modified version of the Generic Banner Image for LinkedIn
  • Showcase Pages - Used for highlighting specific products, solutions, or verticals.
  • Custom Button / CTA - Setup of a LinkedIn specific landing page and link to the landing page (website, demo, sign-up).
  • Image and Video Templates - Branded visual templates for sharing thought leadership and updates in image or video format.

Twitter (X)

  • Header Image - Modified version of the Generic Banner Image for for Twitter dimensions.
  • Handle - Ideally the exact name of the company or company name + _ + Top Level Domain
  • Branded Post Templates / Quote Cards - Visuals for promoting stats, thought leadership, or features.
  • Hashtag Strategy - Use 2–3 hashtags consistently for industry alignment and visibility.

YouTube

  • Channel Banner - Modified version of standard banner including responsive support (different viewport sizes)
  • Branded Thumbnails Template - Consistent look across all videos for brand recognition.
  • Intro/Outro Bumper Animation - 3–5 second logo animation for professional video presentation.
  • Playlist Organization - Categorization structure for content: demos, customer stories, webinars, tutorials.
  • CTA Links (Header & Descriptions) - Targets for CTA links focused at getting a demo and learning more.

Medium

  • Medium Publication Logo - Circular version of your logo for Medium’s layout.
  • Tag Strategy - Use 3–5 relevant tags consistently to drive discoverability.  Consistent with Twitter hashtags.

Facebook

  • Cover Image - Modified version of standard banner tailored to Facebook's aspect ratio.
  • CTA Button - Action options like “Contact Us,” “Sign Up,” or “Learn More” with link to lead form or product page.
  • Retargeting Pixel / Ad Integration - Set up for remarketing and custom audience campaigns.

TikTok (Optional)

TikTok is most often used by consumer brands.  That noted, it’s increasingly becoming a viable channel for B2B enterprise companies to reinforce brand and mind share.   Your customers spend time here.  If you can get them to consume your content you get another little slice of their attention.

Tik Tok is decidedly not for most B2B companies.   Situations where it might make sense:

  • You Have a Visually Engaging Product - If your product has clean interfaces, slick automation flows, dashboards, or satisfying results you can see, TikTok can showcase those in a way that grabs attention quickly.
  • You Want to Make It Fun - TikTok excels at breaking down the perception of corporate coldness. If you're hiring, building brand awareness, or showing off internal culture, quick behind-the-scenes clips, employee spotlights, or “day in the life” segments can give your brand a face and voice.
  • You're Targeting Earlier Career Professionals or Emerging Roles - The next wave of B2B buyers are digitally native and active on TikTok. Creating light educational or humorous content around trends in your market can help plant brand awareness early.

All that noted set your expectations clearly.  Tik Tok is principally about long term awareness and brand building.  Don't expect it to be a magic spigot of leads anytime soon.   If you do want to move forward with Tik Tok here's what you'll need to setup:

  • Video Templates - Visual consistency in brand tone and format.
  • Sound / Caption Style Guidelines - Caption format (subtitles, emojis, music, etc.) to maintain identity.
  • Campaign Theme - Lightweight creative concept to validate audience interest and format fit.

Corporate Collateral

Last but not least are some very basic sales and marketing materials and templates that you'll need to develop to ensure your formal documents and communications embody the brand.  I'd keep the list *short* and just build the stuff you need - you can always get more templates later.   That noted here's the stuff you'll likely need:

  • Sales Deck - Professionally designed Google Slides template for sales presentation.  Yes, you actually need one of these.   Your ugly presentation isn't going to cut it and the process of working with a third party will help you refine your approach.
  • Product Sheets - One or two page PDF detailing product features, benefits, and use cases.  For some reason customers always want these even though they are largely superfluous these days.   Go figure.
  • White Paper, eBook, ListicleTemplates - Design template(s) for other content types that you want to be able to produce in a standard fashion.
  • Letterhead / Document Templates: Branded stationery for official communications and reports.  No, you're not going to be sending lots of letters.   Yes, you do want an official letterhead and long form report template so you can send out official looking documents.
  • Email Marketing Templates: Branded templates for various email campaigns (newsletters, promotional emails, transactional emails).
    • We generally recommend text only e-mail for outbound so designed e-mails are limited to system messages and current customers.
    • These templates will get used in a bunch of different systems including your CRM and proprietary software - so worth getting them "right"

Setup Development and Production Environments

  • Supabase - Create project and app in Supabase
  • Federated Authentication Apps
    • LinkedIn
      • Create LinkedIn page for the company
      • Create LinkedIn app to support LinkedIn Auth
    • Microsoft Entra
      • Create a Microsoft Azure customer
        • You have to register this separately as a new account with Azure
        • If you just sign up with your e-mail it won’t wor
      • Go to Entra customer
      • Setup the domain name
      • Setup any admin users
        • Entra > Manager > Users > Add
        • Once added go to Roles and add “Global Administrator”
      • Create the app authorization end point for the app
    • Google - You’ll get Google for free with Firebase and it’s easy to create from the Firebase UI - so I’ll ignore that one
    • You’ll need to create an app in LinkedIn and invite your developers to the app.  
  • LLM customers / Data Sources
    • Diffbot - Most apps will need a Diffbot customer even if they use Creso as the backend for Company and People Data
    • Gemini - Setup via Google Workspace and accessed through Genkit and Vertex frameworks
    • Perplexity - For deep research and writing tasks
  • Source Code Control - GitHub - Specific apps setup as branches from the main stock application code base.
  • Cursor - Setup of the AI enabled IDE for development 
  • CRM - Integrations between the various apps and the shared 1 to 100 Salesforce instance
  • Figma - All designs are setup and controlled via a central 1 to 100 design customer

Create Code Branch

  • Create a child branch of the Baseplate app for your specific app.  This branch will serve as the app's dedicated codebase, separate from the main Baseplate main codebase.

Remote Configuration

Use the application configuration tool to create a new list of key / value pairs that can readily be loaded into the specific app.  

Application Build and Deploy Process

  • Create development, staging, and production environments for the app.
  • Setup and validate standardized CI/CD pipeline (e.g., GitHub Actions) works for this app
  • Ensure that app is pulling and applying the appropriate settings from Firebase Remote Configuration.

Developers will work within this branch to develop the app's features.

Handoff to Developers

  • At this point environment should be fully configured and usable to developers
  • Developers will be provided the Developer Guide: Building Applications on the Stock SaaS Platform and relevant customers to access the development, staging and production environments
  • Validate that developers have access to the app's codebase and all necessary customers and tools.
  • From that point forward developers should be able to build and deploy code for the application

Ongoing Support

  • The central DevOps team will provide ongoing support to the app's development team.
    • This includes monitoring the app's production environment, troubleshooting issues, and assisting with deployments.
  • A central team is responsible for updating and extending the Stock App framework over time.   They are available for consultation and feature requests as specific applications are implemented on the framework.
  • A central design team will design all the screens to be implemented in each app and provide the relevant development teams access to Figma prototypes for all screen the need to be (i) implemented in the app or (ii) updated or extended in the Stock app to support application specific functionality

Stuff To Do Later

  • Investor Deck - Profession designed Google Slides template for investor pitches
    • While not strictly required our general point of view is that if you're going through the trouble of having a lot of collateral built out you should get a professional investor deck built out at the same time.
  • Email Signature Guidelines: Consistent email signature design and usage instructions.   If you don't define this your team members will adopt whatever the hell they want and it won't be what you want!