Onista

Finally after lot of hard-work, now we are (seriously) 4-6 weeks away from our Alpha launch. Code is ready and we are testing it on our production instance and making sure we have scalable infrastructure setup. Writing help documents and creating helpful screencasts.

Is there a checklist somewhere that entrepreneurs usually follow before launch?

We want to find out about where and how should we announce the launch event so people know about onista

we are thinking of following,
1. Press Release (Using PRweb)
2. Announce on YC news
3. Announce on Reddit
4. Announce on Digg
5. Send emails to important technology blogs like TechCrunch, GigaOM, Venturebeat, and Mashable
6. Send emails to all of our friends and family
7. Send email to auctions, ecommerce blogs like,

• http://www.auctionbytes.com/index.html
• http://www.ecommercetimes.com/
• http://ebaystrategies.blogs.com/ebay_strategies/
• http://www.topix.com/business/auctions
• http://www.liveauctioneers.com/pr/
• http://bigblog.com/
• http://topauctionnews.com/
• http://theauctionboard.tblog.com/
• http://www.pheebay.com/
• http://www.sitepoint.com/

8 Create Wikipedia page for Onista
9. Upload our demo video on video sites like youtube, metacafe, vimeo.
10. Update everyone that we know on Orkut and Facebook, Twitter.
11. Update on forums like,

• http://www.powersellersunite.com/
• http://www.auctionforums.org/
• http://forum.ebizinsider.com/
• http://auctionhints.com/forum/index.php
• http://forums.ebay.com/db1/forum.jspa?forumID=102
• http://www.pheebay.com/forums/
• http://forums.tutorialized.com/ecommerce-103/
• http://www.auctionlotwatch.com/forum/
• http://www.generalforum.com/auctions.php
• http://www.generalforum.com/auctions.php
• http://www.ecommercearena.com/forum/
• http://www.auctionrhino.com/forums/index.php
• http://www.amazonsellercommunity.com/forums/index.jspa
• http://forums.smallbusinesscomputing.com/
• http://www.eshopforums.com/
• http://www.e-junkie.com/bb/
• http://www.webproworld.com/ecommerce-discussion-forum/
• http://www.dropshipforums.com/index.php

12. Contact Sellers on craigslist to update them about Onista availability
13. Send info to startup and web 2.0 news blogs

• http://startupmeme.com/
• http://www.readwriteweb.com/
• http://startupnewz.com/
• http://amarinalameda.com/
• http://www.startup-marketing.com/
• http://startupnewz.com/blog/
• http://blog.pmarca.com/2008/02/silicon-valley.html
• http://www.buzzshout.com/
• http://www.launchfeed.com/
• http://news.zdnet.com/
• http://news.cnet.com/newsblog/
• http://www.mapleleaftwo.com/

Are there any other ways to announce the initial release?

The site will be live at http://www.onista.com within next 4 to 6 weeks.

Please let us know if you know other ways to announce the availability of new website.

You can also get in touch with me at prashant@onista.com

Thanks in advance,