I wanted to share what the final stretch before launching an AI product feels like. With just 10 days until AVELIN goes public, the pressure is immense, and the reality is a mix of controlled chaos and sharp focus.

Our team is feeling the strain. As tasks pile up and deadlines loom, fatigue is a real factor. We’re constantly fighting the dilemma of adding ‘just one more thing’ versus locking in the release date and moving forward.

As the owner, you feel like an octopus—one head trying to manage countless critical arms at once. Here’s a snapshot of the parallel workstreams in motion:

  • Legal & Compliance: Finalizing the user agreement, ensuring data privacy, and handling all legal details.
  • Payments & Infrastructure: Integrating and verifying the payment system to meet provider requirements, while simultaneously building out the server infrastructure—environments, key updates, and backup protocols.
  • Technical Integrations: Managing data intake from external APIs and ensuring it’s processed correctly.
  • Operations & Support: Setting up monitoring, logging, and a disaster recovery plan. We’re also finalizing support documentation and first-line user instructions.

And that’s just the internal work. It runs alongside negotiations with partners, investors, and funds, addressing feedback from competitors, and managing my own energy.

How We’re Cutting Through the Noise

In this environment, focus isn’t a suggestion; it’s a survival mechanism. Here’s our strategy:

  • Focus on the Finish Line: Every action is measured by how it gets us closer to our goal and deadline.
  • Ruthless Prioritization: We’ve identified a short, critical list of tasks. We are closing them out, one by one. Large features are on hold for now.
  • Hard Dates: We’ve locked in our dates and milestones to maintain momentum.
  • Finalizing Assets: The press release and product descriptions are being finalized.
  • Feature Freeze: We have frozen all new ’nice-to-have’ features. From this point on, it’s only critical fixes and deployment.
  • Day One Support: We’re designing an internal plan to provide immediate, hands-on support for our first users.

I’ve made the call: we are launching AVELIN and opening sales on July 17th. It’s time to ship. 🚀

P.S. The spirit of this moment—the intense, focused energy of shipping a major AI product—is perfectly captured in photos from Elon Musk’s xAI team preparing for the Grok release. It’s a universal feeling.