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The Complete Startup Checklist: Every Step, Every Phase, In Order

startup checklist laid out across all phases of business building using physical action cards

You know you need a checklist. You probably don't know it's this long — or that missing one item in the first phase costs you three months in the third. Here is the complete list.


Most startup checklists are one page. A few bullet points. Register your business. Build your product. Start marketing. Done.


That is not a checklist. That is a rough sketch of a checklist — and the gaps in it are exactly where first-time founders lose time, money and momentum.


A proper startup checklist covers eleven phases. It starts before you touch a product or brief a designer, and it does not end until you have a working measurement system tracking the numbers that actually matter. Miss a step in phase one and you are fixing it in phase four — at three times the cost and twice the stress.


This is the complete startup checklist. Every step. Every phase. In order. And at the end of each phase — the cards in The StartUp Deck that cover it.


Phase 1 — Foundation & Legal


This is the phase most founders rush through or skip entirely. It is also the phase that creates the most expensive problems to fix later.


  • Choose your business structure — sole trader, partnership, company or trust

  • Register your ABN (Australian Business Number)

  • Register your ACN (Australian Company Number) if operating as a company

  • Register your business name with ASIC

  • Open a dedicated business bank account — separate from personal finances immediately

  • Draft and sign a founder agreement if there are co-founders

  • Draft and sign a shareholder agreement if equity is being split

  • Register your trademark — name and logo — with IP Australia

  • Draft contractor and employment agreements for any early hires

  • Set up your terms and conditions and privacy policy before you launch anything publicly


Do not move to phase two until this phase is complete. Legal problems created here are expensive and disruptive to fix later. The StartUp Deck covers every item in this phase across the Foundation & Legal card category.


Phase 2 — Finance & Accounting

Getting the financial structure right from day one is not about having a CFO. It is about having the right systems in place before money starts moving.


  • Select and configure accounting software — Xero or MYOB for Australian businesses

  • Understand your GST obligations — register for GST if turnover will exceed $75,000

  • Set up a simple chart of accounts appropriate for your business model

  • Calculate your unit economics — cost to deliver one unit of your product or service

  • Establish your pricing model — cost-plus, value-based or competitive

  • Build a 12-month cash flow forecast

  • Understand your burn rate — how long your current cash lasts at current spend

  • Engage an accountant — not at tax time, from day one

  • Set up payroll systems if you are taking on employees

  • Define your financial reporting cadence — monthly at minimum


The Finance & Accounting cards in The StartUp Deck cover every item in this phase — including the unit economics framework most founders skip.


Phase 3 — Branding & Identity

Branding is not a logo. It is the strategic work that makes a logo worth designing. Do this phase before you brief any designer.


  • Define your brand positioning — what you stand for and who it is for

  • Write your positioning statement — one sentence that captures what you do and why it matters

  • Build your messaging hierarchy — primary message, supporting messages, proof points

  • Choose and register your business name — check ASIC, trademark registry and domain availability

  • Define your target audience in specific, behavioural terms — not demographics alone

  • Develop your tone of voice — how your brand communicates in writing

  • Brief a designer only after the above is complete

  • Develop your visual identity — logo, colour palette, typography

  • Build a basic brand style guide — rules for how the identity is applied

  • Confirm domain name, social handles and email format


The Branding & Identity cards in The StartUp Deck give you the strategic framework to complete this phase before you spend a dollar on design.


Phase 4 — Products & Services

This phase is where most founders spend the most time — and where the most expensive mistakes get made. Validate before you build.


  • Define the problem you are solving — in the customer's language, not yours

  • Validate that the problem exists at scale — customer interviews, not assumptions

  • Define your solution and why it is better than existing alternatives

  • Validate that people will pay for your solution — not just that they like it

  • Scope your MVP — the smallest version that tests your most critical assumption

  • Build your MVP — no more, no less than what is needed to validate

  • Launch to a small audience and measure

  • Gather structured feedback — what works, what doesn't, what is missing

  • Decide — iterate, pivot or scale

  • Define your full product or service roadmap only after MVP validation


The Products & Services cards in The StartUp Deck cover idea validation, MVP scoping and launch frameworks in sequence.


Phase 5 — Marketing & Content

Marketing before you have validated your product is expensive noise. Marketing after validation is how you build traction.


  • Define your primary audience with precision — who they are, where they are, what they care about

  • Choose two or three channels to focus on — not eight

  • Build a content framework — what topics, what format, what cadence

  • Set up your organic presence — website, social profiles, Google Business Profile

  • Build your email list from day one — even before launch

  • Develop your launch campaign — announcement, early access or waitlist strategy

  • Create your content calendar for the first 90 days

  • Establish your brand voice in content — consistent with your brand guidelines

  • Set up basic analytics — Google Analytics 4, Meta Pixel if running paid ads

  • Define your 90-day marketing goal — one primary metric to move


The Marketing & Content cards in The StartUp Deck cover audience definition, channel strategy and campaign planning in order.


Phase 6 — Digital & Web

Your website is not a brochure. It is a conversion tool. Plan it before you build it.


  • Define the goal of the website — what you want visitors to do

  • Map the pages the site needs — and why each one exists

  • Write the content hierarchy for each page — what it needs to say and in what order

  • Define the CTA on every page — one primary action per page

  • Choose your platform — Shopify, Squarespace, Webflow or custom build

  • Brief your designer with a complete creative brief — not a mood board

  • Brief your developer with a scope document — deliverables, timeline, IP ownership

  • Set up your domain, hosting and SSL certificate

  • Connect analytics, tag manager and any marketing integrations

  • Test across devices before launch — mobile first


The Digital & Web cards and the 50-card Website Planner Pack (included free with every deck) cover this phase completely.


Phase 7 — Sales & Customers

The first ten customers are always the hardest — and the most important. Not because of the revenue. Because of what they teach you.


  • Define your ideal customer profile — specific, not general

  • Build a simple prospect list — who you will approach first and why

  • Write your outreach sequence — first contact, follow-up, follow-up

  • Prepare your discovery conversation framework — questions first, pitch second

  • Develop your proposal or offer structure

  • Define your sales process — every step from first contact to closed deal

  • Set up a basic CRM — even a spreadsheet works at this stage

  • Close your first ten customers — manually, founder-led, no automation yet

  • Gather structured feedback from early customers — what they bought, why, what they expected

  • Use that feedback to sharpen positioning, product and process


The Sales & Customers cards in The StartUp Deck cover the complete founder-led sales process from first outreach to close.


Phase 8 — Recruitment & Team

Who you bring in and when is one of the highest-leverage decisions a founder makes. Most get it wrong by hiring too early, too late or for the wrong role.


  • Define what the business actually needs before defining a role

  • Decide — employee, contractor or agency

  • Write a role brief — not a job ad. What does this person own and what does success look like?

  • Define the hiring process — how you will evaluate candidates

  • Check your employer obligations — superannuation, tax, workers comp, Fair Work compliance

  • Onboard new hires with a structured first-30-days plan

  • Define your culture and values early — before the team is large enough to define it for you

  • Use the Key Players Cards to identify who you need at each stage


The Recruitment & Team cards and 13 Key Players Cards in The StartUp Deck cover every hiring decision across every stage of growth.


Phase 9 — Design & Collateral

Design is a communication tool. Brief it like one.


  • Audit what collateral you actually need — not what looks impressive

  • Write a design brief for each asset — purpose, audience, format, dimensions, deadline

  • Confirm brand guidelines are documented before briefing any designer

  • Define the approval process — who signs off and by when

  • Establish an asset management system — where files live, how they are named, who has access

  • Build your core collateral set — business cards, email signature, presentation template, social templates

  • Review all collateral against brand guidelines before use


The Design & Collateral cards in The StartUp Deck cover the brief, the process and the asset management system.


Phase 10 — Advertising & PR

Paid media and PR amplify what is already working. They do not fix what is not.


  • Confirm organic traction before committing to paid spend

  • Define your paid media objective — awareness, leads or conversions

  • Choose your paid channel based on where your audience actually is

  • Set a test budget — enough to generate data, not enough to hurt if it fails

  • Write your ad creative against your messaging framework — not from scratch

  • Define your PR goal — coverage, credibility or backlinks

  • Build a media list — publications and journalists relevant to your audience

  • Write a press release or media pitch — newsworthy angle, not a product announcement

  • Define what partnership or referral opportunities exist in your market

  • Measure every channel against the same metric — cost per acquisition


The Advertising & PR cards in The StartUp Deck cover channel strategy, paid media and PR fundamentals in sequence.


Phase 11 — Growth & Analytics

Vanity metrics feel good. Revenue metrics save businesses. This phase is where you build the measurement system.


  • Define your north star metric — the one number that captures business health

  • Set up your core metric dashboard — CAC, LTV, churn, conversion rate, MRR

  • Calculate CAC by channel — know exactly what each customer costs to acquire

  • Calculate LTV — know exactly what each customer is worth over their lifetime

  • Track churn rate — monthly and annually

  • Monitor conversion rate by channel — where are you losing people?

  • Review your metrics weekly — not monthly, not quarterly

  • Define what triggers a strategic review — what number, at what threshold, forces a decision

  • Build a retention strategy — keeping customers is cheaper than acquiring new ones

  • Use data to decide what to double down on and what to cut


The Growth & Analytics cards in The StartUp Deck give you the complete measurement framework — what to track, how to calculate it and what to do with what you find.


150+ Cards. Every Checkbox Covered. Stop Guessing.


The StartUp Deck is a physical toolkit — 150+ action cards covering every phase of building a business, from Foundation & Legal to Growth & Analytics. Structure you can hold in your hands. Every step covered. Nothing missed.


No synthetic advice. No fluff. No guessing.

  • 150+ Core Strategy Cards — Every phase. Every decision. In order.

  • 13 Key Players Cards — Who to hire, when and how.

  • 50 Card Website Planner Pack — FREE bonus. Map your website before you build it.

  • 6 Months Digital Resource Library Access — Launching soon.

  • Gift-ready premium packaging — Ships next business day.


$249.00 AUD | Limited Run | 30-Day No-Questions-Asked Returns




How The StartUp Deck Covers This Checklist


Every item in this checklist exists as a card — or a set of cards — in The StartUp Deck. The checklist above is the map. The deck is the system that makes each item actionable.


The difference between a checklist and a system is what happens when you pick up an item. A checklist tells you what to do. A system tells you how to do it, why it matters and what comes next.


That is what the cards do. Each one is a step, a decision or a framework — not a heading with a tick box next to it.


Stop guessing. Start building.


Go Deeper: Every Phase Has Its Own Post


Frequently Asked Questions


How long is a proper startup checklist? 

A complete startup checklist covers eleven phases — from Foundation & Legal through to Growth & Analytics. Most one-page checklists cover two or three of those phases at best. The gaps are where founders lose time and money.


What order should I follow when starting a business in Australia? 

Foundation & Legal first — always. Get your structure, ABN, agreements and IP protection sorted before you build anything. Then Finance & Accounting. Then Branding. Then Product. The sequence exists because each phase sets up the next one.


What happens if I skip a phase? 

You pay for it later. Skipping legal setup means expensive fixes when things go wrong. Skipping validation means building the wrong product. Skipping finance setup means losing visibility on cash when it matters most. The sequence is not arbitrary — it is the order that minimises risk.


Is this checklist relevant for Australian founders specifically? 

Yes. The Foundation & Legal and Finance phases reference Australian-specific requirements — ABN, ACN, ASIC, GST, Fair Work, IP Australia. The strategic phases — branding, product, marketing, sales, growth — apply to any founder anywhere.


How does The StartUp Deck relate to this checklist? 

Every item in this checklist corresponds to one or more cards in The StartUp Deck. The checklist is the map. The deck is the system — each card gives you the how, not just the what.


Do I need to complete every phase before moving to the next? 

The phases are designed to be sequential — each one sets up the next. That said, some items within phases can run in parallel. Foundation & Legal is the one phase that must be substantially complete before anything else begins.


What is the most commonly skipped phase? 

Foundation & Legal. Most first-time founders skip or rush it because it feels administrative. It is the phase that creates the most expensive problems when skipped.


Stop Guessing. Start Building.

The complete startup checklist is eleven phases, 100+ steps and one logical sequence.

The StartUp Deck puts every step in your hands — as an action card, in the right order, ready to work from.


$249.00 AUD | Limited Run | Ships Next Business Day | 30-Day Returns

 
 
 

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