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.