Launching an app with governmental and EU grants
Hey guys,
I’ve built one product now more than 3 years and I need help with understanding what would be the best way for us to launch it. It all started with a government grant I saw that offered up to 150K€ for research and development activities with 70% of the whole project getting financed. The topics were related to health, AI, circular economy and so on. The public AI time was just getting started and therefore I took a chance and applied to get a psychological research financed, to build scientifically validated psychological advisory tool.
Didn’t go that easy, the governmental organization of course wanted my team to have either scientists or to take a university as a partner for the research. Therefore, I went to talk with a local university, we brainstormed the ideas and found a possible hypothesis that fit the requirements of the grant. I got the best psychology researchers in our country to join us, because the premise sounded good for them as well.
Over a year later (and after one dismissal), we got the research financed. We conducted over 50 interviews with possible end users and included more than 350 people in the research + built an MVP to validate our hypothesis around psychology and finance. The results were great and we continued to build the app.
Now, there are few things left for us to launch the app. As it’s been so long since the start, we’ve invested so much into it, have even received awards and more grants to build it, I’m not confident how to launch. People have waited to start using it, but I’m afraid that after all the hype, the product may disappoint them. I can’t continue building it forever and I must launch as soon as all the minimal functions are ready, but minimal functions may not be as good as people have been waiting for. And of course the design, I won't invest more money into design. I just want to get it launched already.
So here’s my question. How to be different in a world where there are thousands of vibe coded apps being launched daily? How to make users less critical in the beginning days? And how to make our scientific background stand out without sounding… arrogant? Right now my enthusiasm starts to be replaced with fear, because it seems almost impossible to be differentiated with another vibe coded wellness tool.
The closer the launch time comes, the more afraid I am to fail miserably and f* the initial launch up, which could be the most important step in our whole journey.
All the advice is important for me at this stage.