First, I’ll tell you a story. Then I’ll tell you why you care.

When we launched Online Business School, some things went wrong. There was a plan, and some things decided that they didn’t like that plan. The details of this would bore you senseless so I won’t get into them, but we can basically sum it up by saying we had distribution problems.

We had a good product but had problems delivering it the way we wanted and distributing it the way we wanted.

The Short, Less Boring Version

Suprise! File is massive. Zipping it doesn’t help. Decided to host it for download on own server. Didn’t realize how long it would take to upload. Lots of people waiting. Lots of affiliates telling lots more people that something is coming.

Finally got it uploaded. Didn’t realize how many people had slow internet connections. Cue numerous emails saying downloading will take 40 hours. Realize one of the bonuses didn’t make it into the zipped file. Couldn’t get it to people in timely manner.

Fulfillment provider’s customer service takes too long to get back. Nanny quits. No childcare. Moving to England.

(While we’re on the topic, for people who have been wondering, the Rolodex is up on the download page and we’re reshooting the video with the audio gap as soon as we have our recording equipment back from Canada. Sorry dudes, and thank you for your patience.)

That pretty much sums up the interesting stuff, anyway. Nothing earth shattering, and nothing an experienced business owner would consider to be out of the ordinary stuff on launch day. But there’s a chance you are not an experienced business owner and you could benefit from me making a handy little list of advice that stems from this experience.

1. Give perks to the buyers who accept the most risk.

This one we got right. The people who pre-bought Online Business School, before it even had a sales page, were taking the highest risk. I could’ve flown off to Bali with their money and they sent it to me anyway. For this, they got a 75% discount off cover price.

The people who bought during the launch phase were taking slightly less risk. This was a fairly high profile launch and while I still could’ve flown off to Bali, it was less likely considering the level of exposure this product got. Still, though, these people are among the ones who will have to suffer through a few wrinkles and kinks. For this, they got a 50% discount off cover price.

Your early buyers are like beta testers. You have a product and it’s good, it’s just not ready for the queen yet. (Remember here, beta ain’t what it used to be. Gmail is still officially in beta, for Christ’s sake.) Therefore, they get extra perks. In this case, they get your product for cheap and can’t really complain too much when you’re trying to iron out the wrinkles.

2. Every public thing your business ever does will have problems that could never have been predicted.

This Christmas, I bought Jamie the full series of The West Wing on DVD and we’ve been watching a few episodes each night. What never ceases to amaze me is how many colossal fuck ups take place. They have an in-house staff of hundreds and TENS OF THOUSANDS off-site. Their staff are among the most highly trained people in the world, and shit still goes horribly wrong. They do their best to predict, but there’s only so much they can do.

They have thousands of people employed to predict and prevent disaster. You have you. Cut yourself some slack.

3. A percentage of your buyers, prospective buyers, and the world at large will decide they hate you.

In keeping with our presidential theme, many were delighted when Senator John Kennedy decided to run for president. So many, in fact, that he was elected, and there was much rejoicing.

If you look back to the footage of the parade route, it would be pretty easy to asume that everybody loved President Kennedy. Cheering, crying, general panty throwing. And look what happened to him.

Not only was he disliked by some, he was SO disliked by SO MANY PEOPLE that 40-odd years later we’re still not sure who shot him. And it’s not like he got forty irate letters. He was shot.

4. There is no crying in baseball. I mean, business.

Do not simper. Do not effuse. Do not say how incredibly sorry you are. And don’t cry.

Simpering apologies and terrified hysteria makes the world know how small and insignificant you and your offerings really are.

“OhmyGod I’m so sorry, please excuse me while I go throw up from the stress of it all” doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. It is not a Richard Branson thing to do.

(General bonus advice: When unsure of what to do, “What would Richard Branson do?” is a question that will seldom steer you wrong.)

Do not trip over yourself begging for forgiveness when something goes wrong. Fix it. Or, if it can’t be fixed, calmly explain that it can’t be fixed and accept that some people won’t like it. Dem’s da breaks.

5. A B is good enough.

When Jamie was in school, he got good grades. Not mind-blowingly great, but good. One time, his mother — who knew he wasn’t exactly burning the midnight oil on his schoolwork — asked him why he didn’t want to raise his grades. He, like many others, had a different perspective.

“If I put in a reasonable amount of effort, I get a B. If I put in an insanely ridiculous amount of effort, I may get an A+, but I may just keep my B. And I’m not giving up my life for a potential A+.”

Good advice, really, when it comes to school, but when it comes to business, it needs some revising. Because when you’re in university, your work has to please one person. When you’re in business, your work needs to please shit-tonnes of people.

Bust your ass gets you a B.

Bust your ass, alienate your family, sacrifice your quality of life, don’t shave and eat total rubbish for the better part of a year gets you a B+ at best.

It is not worth killing yourself, your personal relationships and the rest of your business for a B+.

6. Good on time is better than great too late.

Someone who I used to work for — we’ll call her Louise because I know she’s reading this and will want to remain anonymous — gave me this advice and it’s some of the best I’ve ever received. Shit has to go pretty damn wrong before it’s worth missing a publicly announced launch date.

If you said it’s going out on the 15th, put it out on the 15th, even if it’s not perfect. Because honey, it ain’t never gonna be perfect.

7. Creating a customer service plan is never a bad idea.

Throughout the whole launch day craziness, the thing that impacted Jamie and me the most was the fact that we didn’t have a plan in place to deal with customer service issues. We had literally hundreds of very nice and well meaning people — many of whom were my friends — emailing to notify us that something needed fixing.

But there’s only two of us and no childcare. We don’t have time to fix a relatively minor problem because we’re so busy answering emails telling people that we’re aware of the relatively minor problem. Not ideal. So it would be a good idea to have someone on call — a VA would be perfect for this — to deal with these administrative and customer service details while we were working on the stuff only we could work on.