We're due to launch this week and I'm getting very excited. In fact, it's a Saturday night and I'm going over everything that needs to be prepared as closely as possible while my husband has hit the town on his own.

I couldn't have fun anyway. I'm just too focused and excited about the launch.

Thanks to Michael at TechCrunch, I have a constant stream of alpha requests (I think I've received close to 400 emails in the past two days just requesting alpha invites). Of course, not everyone will get in the first round. Remember, being at a small company, the 'feedback' team is pretty small. To date, it's just the marketing department. Wait a minute....that's just me.

Thankfully, on Monday Mario will be joining me and taking the graveyard shift.

Up to the point of launch, marketing has it pretty easy. Other than the paperwork and strategizing (which always changes upon launch anyway) and chipping away at stuff like community relations, user testing and writing and editing...among some other things...we have it easy compared to the engineers and programmers.

Bent over their machines, they become machines themselves, dealing wih bugs and issues and lines and lines of code to go through. Just when they think they've solved an issue another one arises. Long, arduous hours wreak havoc on their health and the pressure is extreme. They are under deadlines and can't make a single mistake.

When the product launches, they don't stop, but it is assumed that they can take a bit of a sigh of relief that what they've been working on for months is finally ready for people to give it a whirl. Issues encountered after launch are ongoing, but the 14 hour days turn into 10.

Then it's marketing's job to get crazy. I had an email from a friend the other day suggesting we have dinner. I wish she had sent it a couple of weeks ago. Dinner? From this point forward, I'm not eating unless it's on the fly or during a meeting. Every second of my time will be spent in the throngs of strategy and execution. But it's at this moment that the measure of a marketing natural comes out: does she/he make it look like a cake walk? Is she/he enjoying her/himself?

Of course we are.

My poor orphaned family will feel even more abandoned. I'll run on pure adrenalin for the next undefined period of time. I'll be under immense pressure to achieve my 'targets' and 'measurables' and juggle 100 things at once without dropping a ball once. Once I get into the groove, I'll be a well-choreographed dance troupe, a master of martial arts. I'll be the Bruce Lee of marketing...or I'd like to think of it that way. ;)

Just imagining the dance makes my heart beat faster. I'd better get some rest now...I'm almost on!

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