alt Hacker NewsLaunch HN: Indy (YC S21) – A support app designed for ADHD brains
Hi I’m Chris, one of the co-founders of Shimmer, and today we’re launching our new app called Indy (https://www.shimmer.care/indy). Indy is an ADHD app for structured planning, reflection, and self-awareness exercises. Here’s a demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDSDxyXv6i4.
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.
Comments
As an ADHD person, this app looks like a repackaging (with nice design) of all the stuff I’ve built up over years - habit tracking, daily/weekly/yearly reflection, detailed task management, etc.
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’m an adult with combined type ADHD. I feel very strongly that any device which has other apps is a terrible tool for ADHD management and organization. No matter how well intentioned, and I know that you are.
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).
As an ADHD person, the landing page is absolutely anti-ADHD - a lot of stuff with basically no info about what it really does. It should have been all concise and tangible information, simple example, demo. Instead just a lot of marketing fluff. I spent all the focus budget there and I have no idea what it does.
As a privacy concious ADHDer, it is a sad reality that OP's product is never going to be something I can trust enough to use. Anyone has any experience of similar/alternative local-first FOSS alternatives / replacements, or resources on how you figured out how to build workflows that worked with you with non-ADHD focused tools? I have come to the point where I am going to be losing my job very soon because I have 0 executive functioning, silver-lining of this is that I can maybe take some time to figure out how better processes than I have and enough non-work related things I want to get done to have an incentive for this
Good stuff, I appreciate your work.
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?
My son (12 year old) has ADHD ... I wonder if they did any testing of this with kids.
Nice to see a fully free app without ads. Curious, do you plan to keep it that way and make no money from Indy?
Thanks! Why would a user prefer this service instead of a conventional AI subscription service with memory (and possibly read access to their desktop data)? The latter can automatically capture key interactions during the day and set reminders for regular checkins. Is there a secret sauce that makes this better so it is worth the extra effort?
I'm AuDHD and I think the marked for products to help with ADHD that do not actually work for anyone except for the person who came up with them is absolutely saturated. I think what I've come to realize is that the process of building a system is at least as important as the system itself. This means nothing designed by someone who is not me will really work for me, and that's that. I suppose a lot of money can be made off of people who have not yet realized this.
I also have to say something about the "for those who feel stuck... indy will be your compass" reads incredibly fucking dystopian to me.
i made an account on shimmer when you launched and even tried it out. i have made multiple requests to your nonexistent support to delete it and it all goes into a dustbin apparently. very subpar experience that makes me not trust at all how you'd handle my data.
The app-store handling (QR code on desktop, app to right app store on phone) is probably supposed to be clever, but browsing on desktop it just felt annoying. QR codes are fine, but at least give me a small direct link below the code. I don't want to take out my phone to figure out if it's supported, I want to click on a link that takes me to the app store so I can have a look at the page, the reviews, and if I'm logged in click install to trigger my phone to do its thing (not sure if the last part also works on apple or is only a google thing)
I applaud the effort put into this product, and the willingness to help others in our situation. As someone with ADHD et al, I'll give my feedback.
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.
Some ADHD folks have something called "justice sensitivity"[0]. Put plainly, we get more bothered than neurotypical folks by actions and events we view as morally wrong.
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.
Saving you sometime, after you put your email and answering a few questions It's a paid app with monthly payment of ~$40 .
Basic collection your data.
I click on the link and see that ublock origin blocks a total of 15 tracking scripts on your health-related website. At the bottom there is a "cookie management" popup and I wonder what went wrong that your website includes Google, Intercom, Stripe, and several others BEFORE the user has clicked through the "cookie" dialog.
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.
This new product might be better, but Shimmer was publicly criticized exploitative when it launched. I saw those criticisms at the time, gave the product a fair chance anyway, and unfortunately found them to be accurate.
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.