ApolloAn ADHD-native social app with no streaks, no counts, and no color.

Apollo shown across four iOS screens: the camera, the feed of daily wins, a profile, and North.
Role
Founder & product designer
Scope
Designed end to end, solo
Timeline
1-day hackathon + ongoing updates
Year
2026
Overview

You capture a daily win, big or small, and it becomes a post your close friends witness. Apollo is built for the way ADHD brains actually work: no streaks, no shame, no doomscroll.

Problem & research

Small wins are the whole game.

Apollo grew straight out of Strata, aimed at winning instead of habits. I have ADHD, and it is built for the part I find hardest: the middle, where the reward feels furthest away, and it is not a niche, because $14,092 is what adult ADHD costs one person every year in lost productivity, missed work and healthcare.Schein et al., 2021

Everyone wanted it to be social. While building Strata I ran 30 user interviews, and one request kept surfacing: a social layer, a way to stack wins together. The bet is that witnessing beats willpower: when you watch your friends show up, showing up becomes contagious, and no streak counter can do that. 76% of goals get finished by people who write them down and send weekly progress to a friend, against 43% who keep them to themselves.Matthews, Dominican University

From the 24-hour hackathon
Capturing a win in Apollo, step 1 of 5.

Nothing chosen yetThe camera opens first and asks what the shot is for.

Capturing a win.
The design

The first camera captured the feeling, not the angle.

I kept the camera restrained on purpose. A camera roll means posting your most posed shot, but a win is about the feeling, not the frame.

Designed for ADHD

Designed for the way ADHD brains work.

No follower counts, no leaderboards, nothing that turns showing up into a number you can lose.

Apollo holds one calm, grayscale world, a deliberate ADHD decision. Dysregulated dopamine leaves ADHD brains most vulnerable to the saturated color apps use to trigger a hit, so there is no red anywhere and no color in the interface at all. The only color in Apollo is your own photos.

Where it stands today
The latest home: friends orbit the sunset countdown.
The latest design.
North

North gives. It never nags.

North is a small AI companion that reflects back a pattern it noticed in your wins. It encourages rather than nags, and it never pretends to be human.

The redesign

What I changed after the hackathon.

Redesign

The feed

Social feeds reward you on a variable schedule, the loop that hits ADHD brains hardest. So wins stay locked until sunset, when everyone’s unlock at once: one fixed daily moment instead of a compulsion.

Before
The feed, before
The always-open feed: an all-day scroll.
After
The feed, after
Wins unlock once, at sunset. Checking becomes a ritual.
Redesign

The camera

I gave the viewfinder the whole screen so capturing a win feels cinematic, not clerical. Flash and rotate move to the thumb edges so nothing competes with the shot.

Before
The camera, before
The viewfinder shared the screen with chrome.
After
The camera, after
Full-screen viewfinder, controls at the thumb edges.
Redesign

Connect becomes Find

Connect was a bare utility for adding people. Find makes it one hub: albums curated to you, friends’ profiles, requests, and settings one tap away.

Before
Connect becomes Find, before
Connect was a bare list for adding people.
After
Connect becomes Find, after
One hub: albums, profiles, requests, and settings.
Outcome

The one I built for me.

I carried an entire product, every flow and every decision, on my own. It is still in progress. Reach out and I’ll walk you through where it stands today.