When Chef Joe and I decided to go all in on Tantos, I don’t think either of us fully grasped what “launch day” would actually look like. It took us a year and a half of building everything from sourcing pellets, finalizing flavors, perfecting the branding, and piecing together our tech stack, just to get to this point. But on July 24, 2024, we were finally ready to say, “We’re live.” And let me tell you, seeing that moment arrive was as surreal as it was exhilarating.
Flipping the Switch
We’d run countless test orders the week before, making sure our 3PL (third-party logistics provider) had our products inventoried and that everything was syncing with our website, Amazon storefront, and inventory management software. The second I set the inventory from zero to 999, we were officially open for business. It felt more like toggling a back-end setting than a grand unveiling, but inside, I was buzzing with anticipation. After all, it had been 18 months since we said, “Let’s do this,” and I was more than ready to watch those orders roll in.
You might think launch morning was a total emotional tornado, excitement, panic, relief all rolled into one. And yes, anxiety swirled in my head: Are people going to buy this? Are we ready for any surprises? But surprisingly, the day itself felt almost… normal. Because we’d tested everything so thoroughly and set up a fairly automated system, I didn’t have to do anything special once we went live. My job was to open my laptop and watch the orders come in—if they came in at all.
We knew we needed to drive traffic somewhere, people don’t just magically discover a snack brand. So we tapped every channel we had: our social media, Chef Joe’s social media, email blasts, and direct messaging all our friends and family. We’d been hyping Tantos for about a week prior, reminding folks of the launch date to generate buzz. Our hope was to get enough initial traction to secure positive reviews, which would then persuade everyone else checking us out to say, “Okay, I’ll try these puffed pasta chips.”
Miraculously, launch day was drama-free. No shipping fiascos, no last-minute website crashes, no sudden inventory snafus. I know that might sound anticlimactic, but after months of bracing for potential disasters, I’ll take a smooth launch any day. We’d planned meticulously, plus, we had plenty of time to be paranoid about things going wrong. All that prep paid off.
The biggest question was, “Will we see orders right away?” The answer: yes. We did get an initial rush, but it wasn’t an instant stampede; more of a wave that built over the first two weeks. I like to call it our “14-day launch,” because that’s how long it felt like we were in peak hype mode—driving traffic and fulfilling a surge of orders.
On that first day, Chef Joe was everywhere, livestreaming on Instagram, posting announcements, and basically serving as the public face of Tantos. This was his time to shine: while I’d tackled the tech and operations, he was all about marketing, content creation, partnerships, and collaborations. That’s how we balance each other out as business partners, I’m behind the scenes with inventory management, sales, finances, and ops while he takes center stage. Now that Tantos was officially live, his responsibilities only grew. It was exciting to watch him in his element, and he’s a huge reason we’ve grown so much and are where we are today.
Feedback & Reaction
Those first orders primarily came from people who’d been following our journey, friends, family, fans of Chef Joe. Their feedback was generally super positive: they loved the flavors, the crunch, and the novelty of a pasta chip. A few constructive comments rolled in later about shipping times, but nothing shocking or upsetting. We’d built a robust enough system to handle the volume we were seeing.
After the first few days, the adrenaline wore off a bit, but orders kept trickling in at a decent pace. I was both relieved and energized, seeing real people put Tantos in their carts, leave reviews, and post on social media about how much they enjoyed the snack. It’s the kind of fuel you need after 18 months of relentless work and occasional doubt.
Tantos’s launch day was all about “Preparation is everything.” Yes, there’s emotional chaos leading up to it, but if you carefully piece together your tech, logistics, and marketing, the actual day can be almost anticlimactic and that’s not a bad thing. It just means you did your job right. Sure, there was a rush of sales and excitement, but I wasn’t putting out fires left and right, which felt like its own kind of victory. And, of course, none of it matters if you don’t have a product people want. Our early wave of orders confirmed Tantos was something snack lovers were ready to try.
