June 10: the moment before launch
On June 10, I was fixing bugs like usual.
At some point, I noticed something strange: there was nothing obvious left to fix. Not that the service was perfect, but the list of urgent issues had suddenly become empty.
I remember thinking, "Wait, is there really nothing left?"
Then I closed my laptop and went to sleep. It did not feel dramatic. There was no big launch ceremony, no countdown, no special feeling. The project I had been holding onto for about 18 months simply reached a point where it could be shown.
June 11: sharing the site
The next morning, June 11, I woke up feeling strange.
There was a blank space where work used to be. So almost impulsively, I checked the supporter-created content I had been postponing, fixed a few reviews, and shared the site on HiphopLE.
That was the first public release of Digging Music.
I posted it almost too impulsively, so at first I did not feel much. But after sharing it, I started caring a lot. I kept checking reactions, wondering whether people would like it, whether something would break, and whether anyone would actually use it.
The first reactions
The first response was better than I expected.
Some people said the UI looked good. Some said the site itself seemed useful. I even received messages of thanks, and the community post got a fair number of likes.
To be honest, I expected some of that. Digging Music was built around things people had often said they wanted: lyric explanations, music reviews, wiki-style information, and a Korean space for deeper music discussion.
But the real question was not whether people would say it was useful.
The question was whether they would actually use it.
People often say they need something. Turning that need into action is much harder. Signing up is annoying. Saving a link to a site that does not appear naturally in search results is inconvenient. Coming back is even harder.
That is why I tried to look at the early reaction carefully. Praise is good, but participation matters more.
On the first day, about 20 people visited.
It was not a huge number, but it was enough to make the service feel real.
Launch turns bugs into pressure
After that, development did not stop. In fact, it became more intense.
As real users entered the site, unexpected bugs started appearing. The message feature was not fully finished, the UI still needed polish, and new things to fix appeared every day.
The difference was that now there were actual users.
Before launch, a bug was just a task. After launch, a bug became something that might block someone, disappoint someone, or make someone leave. That changed the emotional weight of development.
There was pressure to fix things quickly.
Authentication broke at the worst time
One of the most frustrating issues happened with email verification.
At one point, new users suddenly could not complete email authentication. The cause was simple: the default daily email sending limit had been reached.
For several hours, new sign-ups were blocked. Some people probably left during that time.
I tried to fix it using an external service like SendGrid, but setup took too long. In the end, I temporarily removed the email verification step and modified the flow. Later, the verification process was restored properly.
It was a small infrastructure problem, but during launch it felt huge. A single default setting could quietly block the entire onboarding flow.
Mistakes and recovery
There were also mistakes caused by me.
Some reviews disappeared. In some cases, other people's review content changed unexpectedly. These were painful errors because they affected user-generated content, not just my own data.
Still, the overall reaction remained encouraging.
Some people genuinely enjoyed exploring the site. Reviews and lyric interpretations started appearing. I received collaboration inquiries by email, and some people sent supportive messages.
On the second day, around 20 people visited again, and the site was mentioned a few more times in communities.
I was excited, but also overly sensitive. Every piece of feedback felt huge. Every bug felt urgent. Every small reaction affected my mood more than it probably should have.
When the reaction cooled down
Around the fourth day, the initial reaction cooled down sharply.
That was harder than I expected.
After the first few days of excitement, the drop felt like the service had suddenly become quiet. I felt sad and drained.
But after resting and clearing my head, the next tasks became clearer.
First, Digging Music needed more content.
Second, the community tab needed to be improved.
Third, the wiki feature and server structure needed optimization. One reason automation felt burdensome was that if the amount of data increased too quickly, server costs could also increase quickly.
What opening the site taught me
Launching Digging Music taught me that releasing a product is not the end of development. It is the moment development becomes real.
Before launch, I was working against my own checklist. After launch, I was working against real friction: sign-up failures, broken flows, missing content, and the emotional weight of knowing that real people were using what I built.
The launch was not a moment of completion. It was the beginning of a different kind of work.