I have just launched, few people know about it, and even fewer are paying for it. While it's a decent MVP, it's still far away from my vision. Google barely knows about it, I have a lot of marketing to do, but the longer it stays online, necessarily the more people it will have reached. It might not go viral, but people still talk about and share good products, so the focus is to concentrate and making a good product. And, of course, marketing. ( I literally have just invented the idea of SEO Saturdays. No coding for me today!)
We chose the life, it's very tiring, I'm exploring the depths of being broke as shit, but remember, if you keep at it, time is on your side.
(Also quick hack: link your project, your blog, whatever in your HN profile. Every comment on this site is always bound to attract a few drive-by visitors.)
They could be your first users, first collaborators, first customers, or first haters. Then maybe you won't feel all that weight of uncertainty upon you and you may have gathered enough energy and motivation to keep going.
Or it may prove worthless for anyone but you, which is perfect because you can be more relaxed about it and not think too much into or around it.
Kind of agrees with what I had in mind.
It's been said, if you're going through hell, keep on going!
But I say if progress has drawn to a standstill, why stay where you are?
Even if progress has been remarkable, all the more reason to preserve what you have accomplished by coming to an advantageous stopping point, before . . . mothballs.
First of all it really is a complete about-face, away from working so hard toward a goal which is a realistic vision of completion. Overnight your new objective is to stake your ground and maintain distance from your goal instead, as you directly wind down to a halt in an orderly way.
Some well-earned breathing room seems in order.
You may need to catch up on a number of other unrelated things that could be de-prioritized for too long during such an all-consuming project. You may also get a more well-informed viewpoint about why you might want to get underway again, and how or when you would feel good about re-animating the project if so.
Hey it could be like Frankenstein bringing the inanimate back to life, do it on your own terms when you are fully ready, don't set the stage for your own creation to turn against you.
Reading between the lines, your use of the term "project" when talking about your endeavour suggests you are focused on your own ideas and vision, but perhaps you not focused on better understanding the group of people you will be helping, what their problems and challenges and priorities are. Take a break from your project, then when you are refreshed, spend some time talking to different communities of people who you believe you may be able to help. Ask them what their main problems are, or their priorities, and listen to what they say. Maybe there is something completely different you could focus on, that happens to be something they want enough to pay for.