Launch Day: What it’s like to launch a new web app
12:30 AM - The app is done
12:35 AM - First user
1:00 AM - Try to fall asleep
2:00 AM - Still awake in anticipation
7:30 AM - Alarm goes off for work. Damn I thought I was launching the app to stop this.
7:45 AM - Try to send e-mail campaign to subscribers. Blocked. Saying we need special approval to send to a list this large. E-mail Campaign Monitor.
8:00 AM - 37signals Product Blog article goes live: Getting Real with SixCentral
8:15 AM - Catch bus downtown
9:00 AM - Get in to office, E-mail Campaign Monitor again trying to get quick approval.
9:30 AM - Informed we shouldn’t do the giveaway to only paying customers (as it’s illegal). Changed the giveaway so everyone is eligible.
9:45 AM - Fuel Your Apps Interview goes live: Behind the App SixCentral
9:55 AM - SSL is acting funny. Redirecting users to odd pages.
10:00 AM - Still no approval, but it’s a blessing in disguise. Found some issues
10:06 AM - SSL fixed.. and broken again
10:35 AM - Non-SSL URL’s are not redirecting to the secure site. This is bad. Freaking out
10:41 AM - Realized I haven’t eated in 16 hours. Starving.
10:47 AM - Redirect is fixed. We’re back in business
11:00 AM - 50 users. Our first mile stone. Still waiting to send out the massive launch e-mail
11:03 AM - Campaign Monitor is up after their security fixes. Incoming e-mails.
11:12 AM - 4 Out of Office replies. They’re missing out. Sad.
12:11 PM - 100 users. Starting to relax
1:07 PM - Finding more and more bugs. Wishing we had a QA team.
2:00 PM - Twitter goes down (second time in 2 weeks). There must be a full moon. Everything is going wrong.
2:17 PM - Have enough paying users to pay for our operating costs. Relief sets in. Let’s hope we can retain them next month.
2:23 PM - Twitter is back. The world begins to turn again.
2:40 PM - Only 20% of people have opened their launch e-mail. Before we were getting 80% open rates. Darn.
4:00 PM - 162 users. Not bad for the first 8 hours.
Day 2
3:00 PM - 300 users. It’s getting sad how often I check the user count. Maybe I should stop. OCD tells me I can’t.
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Thought it would be interesting to share my thought process as we launched.
