When I launched 6 months ago, I didn’t try to charge anyone.

Not because I was being generous, I was scared.

I didn’t know if people would “get it.”
It wasn’t a hot AI app. No big feature set. Just something simple I wished existed, and frankly built for myself to start with.

So I gave it away.

For 6 months I onboarded users 1-on-1.
I wrote cold DMs, answered support emails like therapy sessions, and shipped tiny UX fixes almost daily.

What I didn’t do:

• Launch on Product Hunt
• Write a blog post
• Buy ads

Instead, I asked one question to every user “When and why do you actually use this?”

The answers shaped everything.
I redesigned it twice to match when/how they use it.
I stripped out features that users did not need and were borderline irrelevant.

Then something changed:

Users started coming back daily. Some using it as much as 8 HOURS A DAY!
Then they asked, “can I pay to support this?”.

This completely shocked me cause I would have never imagined someone would ACTUALLY volunteer to pay me without asking.

I flipped on paid plans in July.
We crossed $1,113 MRR in the first 30 days.

Here’s what actually moved the needle:

• Free products allow feedback at scale
• Emotion > features (users stick around because of how it feels, not what it does)
• Be small on purpose. Deep usage by 50 people > shallow adoption by 500

If you’re sitting on something that “isn’t ready yet,” maybe it is.
Give it away. Watch what they do. And you'll have people begging to pay you once you crack it.

Happy to answer anything if you’re in that weird phase between idea and traction.