
How to Not Launch a Startup - TomSawada
https://medium.com/@tomsawada/how-to-not-launch-a-startup-e5331c9d7f8d
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JohnFen
> In 2018 we did our small, invite-only beta launch.

The author was extraordinarily lucky here.

When I started my most successful company to date (a couple of lifetimes ago),
we launched our product with a ton of fanfare. It was a communications
product, and our launch event consisted of a live demo attended by most of the
tech media and a surprising amount of mainstream media on both coasts of the
US.

The demo failed hard, in the most embarrassing way possible, and my company
was subjected to a humiliating amount of ridicule by some of the tech media's
heaviest hitters for months. Especially from John Dvorak.

A small, invite-only beta launch would have been much better!

It worked out in the end, since as I mentioned, the product and company
eventually became a substantial success for everyone involved. But man, I
still occasionally get night sweats over that launch.

~~~
TomSawada
Wow! If this was hard for us, I can only imagine how hard that must have been.
Kudos to you for going through such a storm. We're OK now, the product is
working and we have users, but we could have easily gone up in smoke. Good
thing your business actually became a business and it was good for everybody
involved.

