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I'm 16 and spent 6 months building an AI group travel planner — What should I know before launching?

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Hey PH 👋

My name is Nicolò. I'm 16, from Italy, and I've been building SplitPlan — an AI-powered app that takes the chaos out of planning group trips.

You know the drill: 8 people, a WhatsApp thread that won't die, a Google Sheet no one updates, and someone who "forgot" to Venmo you back. We've all been there.

SplitPlan uses AI (Gemini) to generate destination proposals based on everyone's preferences, runs a group vote, builds an optimized day-by-day itinerary, and handles expense splitting — all in one place.

I built the whole thing: FastAPI backend on Supabase, React 19 frontend, Stripe integration, the full stack. It's live at . No users yet — just me, my brother, and 4 teammates trying to figure out how to go from "we built it" to "people actually use it."

I'm about to start reaching out for beta users and I'd love one thing from this community:

If you've launched a product before — what's the single most important thing you wish you'd known before your first real users showed up?

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Hey Nicolò, that's incredible...building a full-stack AI travel planner at 16? SplitPlan sounds like a game-changer for group chaos.

I've launched a few times on PH (one was POTD), and the one thing I wish I'd known sooner: outreach...outreach...outreach. DM friends/founders, post in communities, hit up beta lists early...it snowballs.

If you're up for it, I'm launching The Sponge (AI-powered flashcard app that turns webpages into spaced repetition decks) on PH soon...would appreciate a follow for the launch (link in profile). Good luck! 🚀

Hey Rian, thanks a lot — "outreach, outreach, outreach" is exactly the kind of blunt advice I needed to hear. I've been tempted to keep building features instead of talking to people, so this is a good reality check. Just followed you — The Sponge sounds genuinely useful, spaced repetition on top of any webpage is a smart idea. Will keep an eye on the launch. 🚀

Congrats on building and shipping something at 16 — that's already ahead of where most people start.

One thing I wish I'd understood earlier:

Users rarely struggle where founders think they do.

When I started building travel tools, I assumed people mainly needed information. What I discovered is that they often need help making a decision.

For example, knowing the flight time isn't enough. People want to know whether they should drive instead, whether the layover is safe, which airport makes the most sense, what the real trip cost will be, etc.

My suggestion: spend your first weeks after launch watching where people drop off, get confused, or leave without completing their trip planning flow. Those moments are usually more valuable than feature requests.

Don't measure success by signups at first. Measure how many people successfully complete the problem your product was built to solve.

Good luck with the launch!