We started Shimmer in 2022 after my adult ADHD diagnosis, and have shipped several iterations of ADHD support since then (1:1 coaching, web tools, body doubling, and AI-assisted coaching).
Across these launches and 80k coaching sessions, we kept running into the same constraint: “knowing what to do” is rarely the problem for people with ADHD. The harder problem is actually doing it consistently over time, especially when attention, motivation, and emotional state fluctuate.
That maps to a useful distinction that is explored in the literature (e.g. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4589250/): “cool” executive function (future-oriented planning, direction, values) vs. “hot” executive function (in-the-moment emotion, urgency, impulse, overwhelm). Most tools lean hard into managing the latter. Productivity apps push execution, general chatbots give advice, but neither reliably supports the interaction between hot + cold EF across weeks and months.
So we built Indy, an AI support system designed to support both. Here’s an overview of how it works:
Guided future mapping: users are guided to create a structured map of meaningful past experiences, current priorities, and upcoming future moments. This becomes the foundation for personalization so that everything that they do in the app helps move them closer to these goals
Daily + weekly check-ins: users engage in short, low-friction chat flows to set their priorities for the day (most popular use case is brain dumping priorities then having Indy help sort through them). The system does not assume consistency or linear progress, and adapts prompts based on prior behavior rather than enforcing a fixed routine.
Longitudinal insights: over time, Indy surfaces patterns across inputs so users can see trends in effort, focus, and blockers. This helps counter the common ADHD experiences of 1) forgetting what works / doesn’t work, and 2) feeling like “nothing changed”
Problem-solving when stuck: when users report feeling blocked, Indy uses structured, behavior-change-informed prompts to help identify what is actually getting in the way (e.g. energy, clarity, emotional load, environment) and narrow toward a concrete next step
Progress that includes effort: Indy tracks wins, effort, and insights separately, and helps users draw out positive ways that members showed up (e.g. effort, mindset) even on days where no objective outcome was achieved
Why use AI to do this? and why now? Two main reasons: (1) Affordability: Although continuous human support would mostly be better than a tech solution, that level of availability is too expensive for most people. Even weekly coaching (our core product) is still too expensive for many people. A tech solution allows some support rather than none. (2) Personalization: AI makes it possible to build systems that maintain continuity, personalize over time, and respond to context without relying on rigid templates or requiring constant human presence.
The main challenge we’ve experienced using AI for Indy is preventing it from collapsing into generic advice, productivity pressure, or over-automation/reliance. Instead, we’ve focused on using AI as scaffolding and capacity-building: something that supports reflection, problem solving, and accountability, while keeping agency with the user and clear boundaries around non-medical use.
Indy is free to try: https://www.shimmer.care/indy
If you’re building in applied AI, and/or if you have ADHD, we’d love to know: - what other AI tools you’ve tried for ADHD and things you liked vs. felt missing; -how you think about the role of AI vs. human support for ADHD in your life; - how the onboarding and first-use feels and any positive or critical feedback you have.
I’d love to hear your (ADHD) experiences or feedback on Indy.
I used Shimmer in 2022. The app had poor UX and frequent bugs, and the core offering (weekly Google Meet sessions with a “coach”) felt like generic self-help and not personalized coaching. The promised between-session support mostly consisted of DM'd article links, even after I raised that concern directly.
The sessions themselves often felt unprofessional, with background noise, unstable connections, and poor audio quality. The coach WFM'd on their couch during call. Given the price (hundreds of dollars per month at the time), the gap between what was marketed and what was delivered was significant.
Hopefully the new product addresses these issues, but I’d encourage people evaluating it to look at Shimmer’s prior execution and customer feedback, not just the announcement.
This isn’t for me (because I’ve already built a system that works), but this looks like something that would be very useful. For the target user who does feel stuck and hasn’t successfully built their system, this looks like a phenomenal product.
I appreciate the emphasis on self-reflection and perhaps the implied focus on continuous improvement.
Over the last few years I implemented a weekly self-review + planning practice (think solo agile retrospective), and my life has been on a steady trajectory of improvement since.
Edit: commenting on the product concept, not the company, pricing, or concerning tracking practices.
I love the weekly self review and planning practice you mention; I do a similar one with myself and my co-founder each week and have started moving that process into Indy recently!
Hyper scheduling: https://dev.to/maxpatiiuk/series/32301 (I stumbled upon this and implemented a form of it, although mostly I just like the colors in my calendar)
Yearly reflection: https://yearcompass.com/
Weekly reflection:
```md ## Preparation
- [ ] Review year compass - [ ] Review journal entries from the week - [ ] Review last week's reflection
## Quick summary
> *Headline for the week*:
## Basic planning
- [ ] Set up outline of the week in Outlook - [ ] Plan a fun weekend activity: - [ ] Plan to visit one new restaurant: - [ ] Plan one meet up or social activity:
## Values-based reflection
1. Health: - 2. Resilience: - 3. Social connection: - 4. Mindfulness: - 5. Adventure: -
## Retrospective
1. Went Well - 2. To improve - 3. Plan to improve/action items -
## Other notes
- ```
Daily reflection/journal:
```md
_Created: {{date}} {{time}}_ ({{date:DDD}}/365)
Gratitude (I am for three items):
Healthy Living Plan:
- Diet: - Exercise: - Work+Learning:
Daily reflection:
- Overall wellbeing (1-10): - Career: - Lifestyle hygiene: - Rose and thorn:
Journal:
```
I use TickTick because of the habit-tracking feature. Used to be todoist loyalist but it sucks for habits. https://help.ticktick.com/articles/7055781878401335296
Key habits I track:
- meditation (I combine with a fancy LED face mask to help reinforce the habit via my desire to combat wrinkles and acne - the cryoglow is better at acne than wrinkles so far) - exercise (you can add notes) - evening leisure time (if I don’t have dedicated leisure time, I end up revenge bedtime procrastinating/doomscrolling) - stretching (there are two simple band stretching exercises that solved what I thought would be life-long neck and shoulder pain)
When I really struggle with productivity, I find the pomodoro system is a good bootstrap, and TickTick makes it easy to start. I like seeing the pomos on the built-in calendar.
One needs to spend less time on devices. Go analogue. Pen and paper. The best tool that I have found is the Bullet Journal Method. It takes time, effort, and there is a learning curve. The ROI is higher than from any app. No other tool has impacted my life and productivity more.
That said, I have found some tertiary apps to be helpful, though my BuJo is my compass. Endel for time boxing/Pomodoro, and sleep. Headspace for guided meditation.
No, it doesn’t have to be aesthetic, with pretty lettering and doodles (as seen in social media).
Why are you (indirectly by omission) asking a cohort of people who need information to be direct, to redirect? That's a serious market/message mismatch.
> Our care team has skewed the landing page to be a bit more of "show the benefit" rather than the functionality
That is what the snake oil industry does. Or enterprise sales. Even cults. ("Look at what we say these people say about us!" "We have a solution to your problem! [restated several times in different ways]!"
I am baffled by the term "care team" in this context.
I find that being concrete and credible, instead of asking people who don't know you for trust and unrewarded interest out of the gate, is a much better way to communicate something that is real.
If you do have a way to help ADHD people, I wish you luck communicating that. As an ADHD person myself, I have system creation/adoption fatigue. You seem to be aware of this. So be very direct about exactly what you do that helps, so someone that has tried many things, i.e. a sophisticated customer by necessity, can judge anything you say. (As they say in science, non-testable claims are not worth much. When marketing solutions to serious problems, this relates to the first thing you show people.)
A huge intro post, like a text wall. That's everything an adhd person is trying to avoid.
Started the app. A couple of "motivational speeches". Asking some questions I don't even understand. Answered randomly, just to see what the app is offering. At the end: account required.
That's where you first lost me.
So I tried the website. First sentence just some sale-pitch-speech:
> Built from lessons learned after 80,000+ ADHD coaching sessions, Indy gives you the structure you need, daily support that keeps you accountable, and momentum you can actually sustain.
On the right some nothing-saying screenshot. Scrolling down. More text. Buzzword-Bingo. "Journey". "Build a vision." "Stop dreaming about your future. Start building it."
Great, another one of those catchy, fancy offers pretending to help you. Another pretty website from the default vercel-ish website-builder.
No offense - perhaps it's my asperger. This does not seem helpful at all. Maybe it is. Then it's on me.
I need clear, focussed messages. No noise. No modern interface. Form follows function. Not the other way around.
I suspect that the ADHD audience on HN would skew towards people who have already developed coping mechanisms and systems (and some people seem to have very high intellectual horsepower), so you might not find the best market fit or feedback here. I think I am past the point where this may have been a fit for me, but earlier in my life it may have been very useful.
Edit: Can you explain what "clear boundaries around non-medical use" means?
If there's anyone in your life who's earlier on in their journey, do send Indy their way!
re: Non-medical use, Indy doesn't give advice, diagnose, treat, or interpret symptoms. We don’t tell people what they SHOULD do. We focus on reflection, structuring thoughts, noticing patterns, and helping users orient themselves, so that they build autonomy and capacity over time. E.g. generic LLMs don't often have tight guardrails and they can drift into prescriptive or quasi-clinical territory simply because that’s what users ask for.
Can't speak for everyone, but as one guy - I wish lol. I'm just raw dogging life - to use Gen Z (or is it Alpha?) lingo.
(I wanted to add a sarcastic thing to my message but I'm too tired to even do that without sounding rude.)
1) A big differentiation is the guidance. Indy is based on science-backed frameworks and exercises that set the foundation for and fuel the main scaffolding interactions. For example, by going through the lifeline exercise when you sign up, members are prompted to think of future events across different life areas (vs. often when you tackle this yourself you may just start working on productivity/work oriented things for example) and the objective function of the app is general well-being rather than productivity
2) Indy is built not to give you answers but to build your capacity. For example, in the problem solving agent, it teaches you the COM-B framework through demonstration, and I've already talked to many members who are surprised that they found themselves going through similar thought process even when Indy wasn't there and getting things done that they haven't been able to in months or years
3) Sounds trivial but the design and user experience. It's built for ADHD and although not perfect and there's tons we want to add, the app is trained to help you see the good (pulling out wins, surfacing it in pretty ways, allowing you to add photos to build salience, etc.) to build self trust over time; and other UI / illustration choices to provide some dopamine (and we've considered hard the balance between providing dopamine but not trying to just get people to return to the app for the sake of it)
I think technological systems for managing ADHD are targeted mainly towards J-type personalities (Myers-Briggs).
As a hard P-type, I generally perceive Systems as detrimental to my well-being. A take which of course is riddled with both fallacies and exceptions (so don't hold me too harshly to it).
What's holding me back from checking out any sort of recommandation is the fear of commitment.
Everything eventually becomes one (or more) of the following:
- A joyous commitment - A meaningfull commitment - A stressfull commitment
Having a kitten is joyous. Having a 17 year old cat is all of the above.
Systems—good, usefull and fascinating as they may be—generally tend to fit in the 'stressfull' category. Especially those who encroach toward a hobby/hyper-fixation during the honeymoon period.
(The one system I still use on a day-to-day basis is a calendar. Because I have to. It's not joyous, but it's meaningfull.)
I also have to say something about the "for those who feel stuck... indy will be your compass" reads incredibly fucking dystopian to me.
And hear you on that copy! We tested it with our beta community and it was based off of thousands of ADHDers main sentiment & challenge. Here are the top ones if you're curious: “I’m stuck and something has to change”; “I don’t trust myself anymore”; “I want direction, not another to-do list”; “I want to work with my ADHD, not fight it”; we'll be continuing to test this as we talk to more users!
for apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/indy-your-adhd-copilot/id67543...
for google: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shimmer.co...
I think Indy has a lot of good intentions, but I am highly suspicious of its efficacy. Personally, I have always been somewhat opposed of using applications on distracting and addicting devices in order to help with executive function issues. It's all too easy to open my phone to use one application and then seemingly end up on a completely different application mere minutes later.
Do you all have any analytics to share? I am curious how many people download Indy vs. how many people actually use it on a consistent basis. I can absolutely seem myself downloading such an application, attempting to set it up, and either stopping halfway through or never opening the app again.
> what other AI tools you’ve tried for ADHD
None. I do not believe LLMs in their current state can meaningfully help any neurodevelopmental nor mental health disorders. Until LLMs acquire the ability to force me to do a particular task or provide enough consequences for not doing a particular task, then I see them as no different than overcomplicated Todo lists for ADHD. Though, I do believe LLMs remove a lot of friction in getting started on certain types of work. Most importantly, I already have to be motivated in the first place in order to use LLMs to remove friction on whatever task I am attempting to complete.
I personally believe a lot of productivity apps, especially for ADHD, are just distraction traps that provide the user with an illusory sense of productivity, when in reality, the user is actually just procrastinating further.
Perhaps this is merely a projection on my part, but I think a lot of people have convinced themselves that various apps will yield better organization and that better organization will yield better habits. But why do people want better habits? My first inclination is that people believe if something becomes a habit, then it will become effortless and one will not have to rely on motivation or willpower anymore.
However, the irony is that it takes consistent and direct effort to even build a habit. Once a habit is built, the consistent effort never stops, but rather, one just adapts to the amount of effort required. The older I become, the more I convinced that there really are no shortcuts in life.
Interesting thought behind using 1) force and 2) consequences to get tasks done. I think those are definitely 2 useful levers, but there are other levers to get these things done too (of course, without context to what tasks you're referring to). On Indy, we use positive motivation & emotional salience to help users connect their current task to future goals, we help them explore if there's a gap of [capability], [opportunity], or [motivation] to get something done (COM-B model), and help them draw on past strategies that have worked for them that they may have forgot (non-exhaustive). Indy is intentionally not a to-do list, there's actually no lists in there, as lists get overwhelming, but instead helps the users cut down and reflect on what's really important today or this week to get to your life goals (existential productivity vs. traditional productivity).
I like your line of thinking at the end there. A lot of our members come in thinking they want better organization / productivity / habits, or in general just MORE, but we know through research that that doesn't actually yield a more fruitful life. And yes haha, no shortcuts in life, but I try to enjoy the process :)
I can't say for certain that this is caused by my ADHD or not, but I have a "sensitivity" to dark patterns. That is to say, dark patterns bug me more than they probably should.
Hiding the pricing until after signup is a dark pattern. It's a clear case of the company optimizing for their interests over mine and they are therefore unworthy of my trust (or so my brain tells me). After all, what other user-hostile design decisions are they going to make?
What ends up happening is that my brain puts its guard up, and keeps it up. It's constantly on the lookout for more subtle tricks and corner cutting.
Furthermore, I'm offended that they think I'm that stupid (but that's probably the developer in me and not my ADHD).
The landing page piqued my interest but then let me down. Hard. Not because $40 a month (as reported by another user here) is too much, but because I find dark patterns to be morally repugnant.
[0] https://edgefoundation.org/the-fairness-imperative-adhd-and-...
P.S. I struggled to write this as its first thing in the morning and I haven't even had coffee.
The cost you're seeing is for our other product that includes live body doubling (co-working) sessions that are guided by our ADHD coaches. I think I might remove that link or move it to the bottom. Sorry for the confusion!
Basic collection your data.
You might be heading to our community service on our main website, which is a different one (live body doubling, etc.)
Is this yet another US-based startup that totally misunderstands that GDPR is not about blocking "cookies" but instead that it is about not telling Google that someone just visited an ADHD-related website?
I'm dumbfounded by the ignorance every single time. Why do people spend effort on cookie banners and stuff when they simply include every tracking script on first load of the website?
I'm not advocating that you need to be GDPR compliant if you are US-based and dgaf about EU customers. But if you do these shenanigans with cookie banner then at least do them correctly. And even for non-EU customers it is extremely rude to share visits to a health related website with so many third party companies that clearly build tracking profiles and utilize them to extract as much money from you as possible.