This one started as App Launcher, a weekly launch site for indie apps that I built, grew and sold. The idea outlived the sale: a launch that gets a week at the top instead of three hours. So I rebuilt it as an engine where the niche is a setting, and pointed it at four new markets.
A site has a rhythm. Makers submit a product and book a launch week. Each week has a limited number of places. Visitors vote, and the top three take the badges. Free places bring the makers in. Skipping the queue, featured listings, adverts and relaunch credits are where the money is.
Setting one up happens in the browser. A wizard runs once on a new install, and a niche pack loads the categories, the wording and some starter listings so the site does not open empty. The site has its own words for a listing and for the person who made it, so an agent site and a store-app site read differently without a line of code changing.
One brand colour is spread into a whole palette and graded for readability, and there are four looks to choose from or mix. A site can stay closed behind a coming-soon page that collects emails while it is being filled, then open with one switch.
Email is built in: templates, campaigns and automations for the moments that matter, like a draft left unfinished or a featured place about to end.
Recent work
- 2.8: footer credits. A maker's signature and a "Built with" line, with a choice of how the two are arranged.
- 2.7: a Brand screen that draws every icon and the share image from one uploaded mark, and brand kits as files that can be applied to another site.
- 2.6: Google sign-in rebuilt, and Cloudflare Turnstile on every public form.
- 2.5: coming-soon mode with sign-ups, and a deploy script with safe updates, rollback and backups.
Python and Flask, like Local Lab, and for the same reason: it is small, it is boring, and one modest server runs many sites. Launch Lab is one of three kits sold at DirectoryLab.
