I’m so tired

Apologies in advance cause this is long

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I'm 16 and I've been grinding on this startup for over a month and a half now and I'm so exhausted I don't even know if I believe in it anymore. I built this AI watch called Hollow in like 26 days because I was tired of the friction of pulling out my phone every time I wanted to use ChatGPT or ask something. But I also kinda wanted to build a Jarvis sort of thing, so I added emails too.

I got my first paying customer almost immediately which felt amazing but I don't even know if he bought it because he actually wanted it or just to support me. The product had a voice recognition lag bug that I had to stay up all night to fix. I finally shipped the fixed version to him today but now I'm sitting here wondering if it even matters.

I have an investor who's been coaching me and asking me to do market research and I did it—I found data showing 42% of seniors think smartphones are too complicated—but he left me on delivered and I don't know if he's actually interested or just being nice. Everyone keeps telling me to pivot to making an app instead of hardware but if I do that I lose the one thing that makes my product special which is the speed from custom hardware. As an app I'm just a worse version of ChatGPT.

But I'm so tired. I haven't worked out in a week. I haven't boxed in months. School starts back next week and I have two tests on Tuesday that I'm not ready for and my parents are on me about grades. I feel like I'm carrying school pressure and business pressure and family expectations and faith guilt all at the same time and I can't breathe.

I keep seeing other kids my age making money from apps in like 30 days and I've been grinding for over a month with one paying customer and no funding and I just want proof that this is worth it. I don't actually need money right now but I want school to go away and the only way my parents will let me stop stressing about grades is if I either get a term sheet from an investor or make $80k a year on my own.

I asked ChatGPT for advice today and it told me to demote the watch and go software-first but that felt so wrong because the hardware IS the point. But now I'm doubting myself. What if I'm just holding onto this because I'm stubborn and it's actually a bad idea?

I don't know if I'm tired of the idea or just tired of waiting for proof. I feel like I'm at the exact moment where most founders quit right before things hit but I also feel like I might be delusional and this might never work.

I just needed to get this out somewhere because building this alone at 16 is lonely as hell and I don't know who else to talk to about it.