Any advice on this “good problem” to have?

Seeking Advice

I’m a grad student and this is my first ever app. I turned my PhD research on procrastination into an AI app: dawdle - where you talk to Pebbles (a little character), and it matches your reason for procrastinating (fear of failure, overwhelm, boredom, etc.) to interventions backed by 100+ research papers.

Here’s the thing: A VC told me not to raise until I had traction. So I bootstrapped. Full transparency: I could only scrounge up $1,000 for AI compute before I’d have to start charging. That felt safe… until 700 people joined the waitlist. And now I launch in 2 days (Sept 15).

I keep spiraling on the what-ifs. Like… what if people actually use it and burn through the budget on day one? I’ve already told the community it’ll be free until I run out of bootstrapped $, but I don’t even have a plan for what happens after. I don’t know pricing, I don’t know financing - I’ve never done this before.

I know it’s a “good problem,” but I’m honestly terrified. What do I do???

Posted Sep 13, 2025, 10:51 PM UTC

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