NerdSip is a micro-learning app for curious people. Like Duolingo, but for any topic. Built by two PhDs in Physics.
Minutes ago, we submitted our very first app to the App Store.
This isn’t the story where two founders raise a seed round, rent a loft, and ship from a standing desk with a matcha latte. We both have 9-to-5 jobs. We built this thing on borrowed time.
The unglamorous reality
Our "build time" starts when the rest of the world clocks out. Evenings, weekends, early mornings before work. That’s when NerdSip got built. There’s no office, no ping-pong table, no investor deck. Just two people with laptops and a shared Google Doc that grew way too long.
We also have 3 failed projects still live on the internet. Zero customers between them. We know what it feels like to build something nobody uses. Each of those projects taught us what not to do, which turns out to be just as useful as knowing what to do.
What we learned from failing three times
The first project was over-engineered. We spent months on features nobody asked for and launched to silence. The second had a real audience problem: we built for ourselves and assumed everyone thought the same way. The third was the closest to working, but we ran out of steam because neither of us believed in the idea enough to push through the hard parts.
NerdSip is different because the problem is personal. We both love learning random things, but courses are too long, articles are too shallow, and YouTube is a time sink. We wanted something bite-sized that actually sticks. That’s the app.
Trading sleep for code
We’ve been building since December. Three months of snatching hours wherever we could. Fifteen-minute bursts between errands. Late nights where the code starts blurring and you realize you’ve been debugging a typo for forty minutes.
It was exhausting. Honestly, some weeks we questioned why we were doing this again. Another side project, another attempt at the internet. But this time the idea kept pulling us back. We kept opening the app, using it ourselves, showing it to people. That hadn’t happened with the other three.
The first sun of spring
Today was the first warm day after a long winter. We took our laptops outside, sat in the sun, and went through the App Store Connect checklist one last time. Screenshots, descriptions, privacy details, the works.
Then we clicked Submit.
Watching the status flip to "Waiting for Review" was surreal. Not in an over-the-top way. More like a quiet "we actually did it" moment. Months of late nights compressed into a single button click.
What NerdSip actually is
Since you’re reading a post about us clicking a button, you might want to know what the app does. NerdSip generates personalized micro-courses on any topic. You tell it what you want to learn, and it builds a short, structured course with lessons you can finish in a few minutes. Think of it as Duolingo for everything that isn’t a language.
We’re both physicists by training, so we care a lot about whether the content is accurate and whether people actually retain what they read. The app uses spaced repetition and active recall, not just passive scrolling.
Update: rejected (but barely)
The first review came back rejected. Two minor issues: we hadn’t linked our EULA properly in App Store Connect, and we needed clearer disclosure around how we handle user-generated content per Apple’s guidelines. Nothing about the app itself, just compliance paperwork.
We fixed both the same day and resubmitted. We’re expecting to be live on the App Store early next week.
Now the hard part actually starts
We’re under no illusion that submitting is the finish line. If anything, it’s the starting gun. Now comes the marketing, acquiring actual users, getting feedback from people who aren’t us, and iterating on a live product while still keeping our day jobs.
We’ve been here before, sort of. But this time it feels different. We’re building something we use every day. We’re learning about building daily habits by building an app about daily habits. That’s new for us.
If you’ve been following along since the early days, thank you. If this is the first you’re hearing of NerdSip, come check it out. We’d love to have you along for the ride.
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