"Stealthy" launch is like putting it online and hoping that no-one finds it :-) I think it's either launched and marketed or offline and no-one using it.

Not knowing the exact product, just an idea: consider contacting small design furniture shops and ask them to submit their stuff to your site and you could send them promotional stickers-banners they could use at the store? Good content is the key and crossing online-offline border could become a good viral advantage.

Problem with visual search is that you can't draw an orange in a google search, think how you can maximize SEO with text content so visual search makes sense for indexing. Also how other sites could be motivated to send incoming traffic.

You're absolutely right on the problems with visual search and I'm trying to encounter it by writing short teasers/abstracts about the presented products or designers.

Thanks for Your advice!!

You shoul dannounce to the world as if it was your first born child.

OK...I know this way. I did with my first born son :)