How Long It Really Takes to Launch a SaaS

The Weekend Launch Myth

"I built this SaaS in a weekend."

You've seen the tweets. The ProductHunt launches. The triumphant announcements.

What they usually mean: "I built a demo in a weekend." A demo and a business are different things.

Demo vs Business Timeline

Demo (48-72 hours):

• Core feature that shows the concept
• Basic auth
• Simple UI
• Deployed somewhere

Revenue-Ready Business (4-12 weeks from scratch):

• Complete payment integration with edge case handling
• Lead capture and CRM
• User management that scales
• Email integrations
• Operational dashboards
• The actual features users want
• Testing and hardening

The gap between demo and business is 10-20x longer than the demo itself.

The Honest Timeline (DIY)

If you're building everything from scratch:

• Week 1-2: Auth, database, basic structure
• Week 3-4: Payment integration (more complex than expected)
• Week 5-6: Core features
• Week 7-8: Lead capture, CRM, email
• Week 9-10: Admin dashboards, operational tools
• Week 11-12: Testing, fixing, hardening

That's 12 weeks assuming everything goes smoothly. It won't.

The Honest Timeline (Production-Ready Foundation)

If you start with infrastructure that's already built:

• Day 1-2: Clone, configure, deploy
• Day 3-7: Customise branding and UI
• Week 2-3: Build your unique features
• Week 4: Testing and launch

That's 4 weeks to a revenue-ready business. The infrastructure that takes 8 weeks to build is done on day one.

Where Time Actually Goes

Most founders underestimate:

• Edge cases: The 20% of scenarios that take 80% of the time
• Integration debugging: "It should just work" never does
• Stripe webhooks: More complex than any documentation suggests
• State management: What happens when things fail mid-operation?
• Testing: Especially payment flows with real money

The gap between "it works in development" and "it works reliably in production" is measured in weeks, not days.

The Speed Equation

Actual launch speed = Starting point × Your skill × Scope

You can't significantly change your skill overnight. You can shrink scope, but below a certain point, it's not a business.

The biggest lever is your starting point. Starting from production-ready infrastructure vs. starting from zero is the difference between weeks and months.

Realistic Expectations

If someone says they launched a revenue-generating SaaS in a weekend:

• They started with significant prior work
• They're defining "SaaS" very loosely
• They haven't encountered edge cases yet
• They're measuring demo, not business

Set expectations based on reality, not Twitter highlight reels. A month to revenue is fast. Two months is normal. A weekend is marketing.