I've shipped a lot of small digital products. Most of them launched to silence, and it was almost never the product — it was the first 30 minutes after going live. Nothing was verified, nothing was measured, and I'd gone back to building instead of selling.
So I wrote down the first-30-minutes routine I now run on every launch:
- Confirm the storefront loads like a stranger sees it: fresh browser, no cache, on mobile. Your own logged-in session lies to you.
- Click BUY on your own product (then refund yourself / use a test mode). A checkout you've never clicked end-to-end is a rumor, not a checkout.
- Paste the live URL in three places minimum — one channel you own, one community, one social profile. Launches fail on distribution, not quality.
- Watch the first hour: any 404, any broken image, any wrong price. Fix within minutes, not days.
- Have your first follow-up written before launch. The post-launch gap is where momentum dies; pre-write the "thanks, here's what's next" message.
Item 2 feels obvious and yet it's the one that burned me the most — I once drove traffic for a week to a broken checkout. Never again.
I turned the whole routine (plus the failure drills from my own disasters) into a short kit if anyone wants it: https://hive80lab.gumroad.com/l/first-30-minutes
What's your pre-launch checklist? I'd love to steal good steps.
