I'd also love to hear of stuff that you wish was out there to help startups. Thanks.
Pre-Launch: - Contact blogger/journalist a,b, c and d, to give free beta invites and coverage during launch - Do ....(twitter, facebook) etc to engage with potential customers and start building a community that will end up becoming your first set of customers. - ... I am sure there are plenty of things a startup can do (and is applicable to any startup across the board), that will help build anticipation and buzz around the product/launch
Post-Launch: - Immediate steps that can be taken to get your first set of customers - Startups desperately need traction and attention now that they have launched. PR is critical. What are some of the strategies that can be applied here? For instance, going after middle level bloggers. You are not ready for TechCrunch yet, or you do not have the right contacts. No-name blogger will not give you any exposure (however, I should say that any mention/link helps) - but you need to find the right balance to get maximum realistic bang for your efforts. - Some strategies to monetize. If product/service based monetization - what are some of the important things that need to be done? Ditto with advertising based model. - Despite the amount of time you've put into development, you will need to listen. Do you have proper feedback channels in place? Based on this feedback, you might need to completely change your business model, or at least think about tweaking several things including better user experience / smooth user-flow.
I just wanted to say a few things to get a conversation started. You have started ene of the most critical and much needed conversation topics here. Let's here from others. In today's world with all the tools and more or less the same paths that users take to grow their startup, A "Startup Handbook" would be an asset.