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Launch HN: Inflow (YC S21) – Self-help app for people with ADHD

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101–110 of 337 posts

Re: Launch HN: Inflow (YC S21) – Self-help app for people with ADHD

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the feedback. We're working on some potential solutions to this and in the meantime we refund everybody who requests one.

Such as?

- Opt in free trial without putting in card details - Longer free trial - One-off purchase vs subscription - Web sign-up

In addition to these we also send email and notification reminders before the free trial ends and refund everybody who requests one.

Re: Launch HN: Inflow (YC S21) – Self-help app for people with ADHD

#102

Many of the reviews of the Android app are quite critical of the trial and payment model, for example: > CAUTION: After the free trial period (7 days), they will charge for an annual subscription ($102.95 US). This is OPT OUT, not opt in. In other reviews they say they will offer a refund (I will update when/if I get one) but for an app for people with executive function issues, an opt out format seems shady. Either…

As someone with ADHD, I can confirm this model is super predatory. I cancel all my credit cards every year just to get rid of all opt-in charges on regular basis

Canceling a credit card does not cancel your obligation to pay a vendor unless you also terminate your plan with them. Some of them will try to collect, especially if you had a contract.

Re: Launch HN: Inflow (YC S21) – Self-help app for people with ADHD

#104

Does therapy actually work? I’ve always been under the impression that it was mostly placebo, and that only medication produces meaningful results. Happy to be proven wrong though

During my diagnosis I discussed both pharmaceutical and therapy options with my psychiatrist. His take, which is definitely subject to his own biases, was "lots of my patients choose to do both therapy and pharmaceuticals, but after starting the drugs they kind of lose interest in the therapy part of things because the drugs work so well for most patients. Not all. Some have benefited tremendously from therapy."

The meds available for ADHD are remarkably effective relative to other psychiatric disorders though. For depression there are a number of (placebo-controlled) studies showing CBT + meds reduces symptoms more than either alone do, to the point there is a hypothesized complementary effect. It's also pretty common for moderate depression cases to continue with maintenance therapy but go off meds (with proper supervision ofc) once things are under control.

Therapy is a lot more work for the patient - more time consuming, more costly, can be emotionally taxing in the early stages, etc. So I understand the desire for a meds only solution, and in some cases that is possible. But talking about therapy more generally I would encourage anyone who can to give it a try, just as I would encourage people to put effort into their diet, exercise, etc.

Obviously make sure it is evidence-based therapy though, something like CBT that has been well-studied. There are flavors of talk therapy that are total pseudoscience.

Re: Launch HN: Inflow (YC S21) – Self-help app for people with ADHD

#105

As someone with ADHD, I’ve stayed away from this product because it is a subscription service. I will sign up for subscription services fully well intentioned and then proceed to not use the service and forget to cancel it in time. I know myself well enough now to stay away from any product offering a subscription. There is no real “managing” it, it’s just a fact of life for me and something I live around. An app tar…

I just got a notification for my 1-year-anniversary for subscribing to blender university.

I've never logged in.

Re: Launch HN: Inflow (YC S21) – Self-help app for people with ADHD

#106
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW this is how several diet apps work as well. Short initial free trial, followed by auto-charge lump sum subscription of 6-12mo. Not my favorite model, but also probably not intentionally predatory towards a specific group of people. From a business point of view it makes some sense. It extracts maximum money from customers in a niche that is inherently flakey (dieting, self-help, etc.). People often start off str…

The massive difference that you are overlooking, however, is the fact that ADHD Brains are neurologically and/or biochemically incapable of defense against this. That inner voice telling you what to do or what not to do? ADHD brains have... well, let's just say "something else".. in its place.

> That inner voice telling you what to do or what not to do? ADHD brains have... well, let's just say "something else".. in its place.

Pretty much every description I’ve heard from people diagnosed with ADHD features the same kind of internal voice as neurotypical people describe; the “something else” seems to be between that voice and action, not in place of it.

Re: Launch HN: Inflow (YC S21) – Self-help app for people with ADHD

#107
post #27

> The average cost of an in-person ADHD CBT session in the US is $200-300 Is that real? Or the average cost in a city like NYC? My partner has been looking for this in the UK, and the cost is under half this (so long as you're not looking for a big-name London clinic)

The people I know in this field bill around $110-$120, though my friend readily discounts to $80 for cash pay patients who are struggling.

The $200-$300 might refer to the price they bill to insurance companies, which is not the real price anyone pays. Insurance pays the higher of the billed cost or the allowed cost, so anyone billing insurance makes sure to bill much higher than the allowed cost to avoid leaving money on the table.

In practice, people with decent insurance will be paying $15-25 copays on average, not $200-300. I suspect their marketing material is being deliberately misleading in order to dissuade people from actual therapy, which is not cool. Wish they’d just market it as an adjunctive tool instead of a therapy replacement while trying to discourage people from going to therapy.

Between this and the $110 automatic charge if people forget to cancel the trial, this app feels like they let the “growth hackers” loose on the app instead of trying to be genuinely helpful.

Re: Launch HN: Inflow (YC S21) – Self-help app for people with ADHD

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for highlighting this - we're trying to figure out what the best model is for our community. A lot of other apps follow a similar model, we allow people to cancel anytime and have refunded everyone that has forgotten to cancel. Some people also like having the subscription because it is a pay per use model rather than putting everyone under the same one-off bundle. We're working on extending the free trial / m…

Thanks, I appreciate your response on this, but I'd be interested in your thoughts on the following two points specifically: - Why have you chosen to make users opt out of a subscription when the free trial ends, rather than letting them opt in? - Why is the annual payment option pushed so hard, in favour of the monthly payment option? I'm reiterating this because promoting an opt-in, monthly payment model (thus givi…

Thanks for the follow-up questions.

We're actually working on several different sign-ups flows at the moment including opt-in post free trial, longer free trial, web sign-up and one-off purchase vs subscription. It is not our intention to push annual significantly over monthly - we wanted to give a significant discount to yearly subscribers but perhaps the difference between the two is too large. The previously mentioned issue with scrolling is due to to a bug with small screen sizes on Android which we're working to fix.

Re: Launch HN: Inflow (YC S21) – Self-help app for people with ADHD

#109
Disclaimer: I really appreciate the mission statement here. As someone who suspects they are impacted by some sort of undiagnosed ADD/ADHD, it's really great to know I'm not alone in these thoughts and that there are people trying to make solutions for it.

That said, while everyone is up in arms about the payment model here, I'm more concerned with the nature of the app's content.

What I was expecting to be an interactive, attention-grabbing set of modules turned out to be a whole bunch of audio recordings and generic goal-setting form fields. I almost laughed when I was creating my first goal, because in the introduction video by the cofounder he makes a point to explain that, "Like many of you, I've invested in planners and organizers hoping that they would magically help me become more productive." Can someone from the team please explain how this app's first iteration is not simply the modern & digital version of planners and organizers? Which features will be able to help users with which ADHD side-effects?

To be frank, I had high hopes when I started this free trial, only to realize that it smells a bit like a newer version of the self-help tapes people would fall asleep to in the '80s.

Re: Launch HN: Inflow (YC S21) – Self-help app for people with ADHD

#110
Why does your web page not explain what the app does and how it works, like with examples or something, anything, that describes what I would be signing up for?

Can I download this directly without signing into Google? I'm not a big Google or big tech supporter.

Also why does the front page of your app not explain precisely how it works and what it does? All it promises is an awesome black box that "helps". What does it even do exactly? Writing an increasingly complex "how it works section", like Fastmail had when I signed up or that great comic on cryptography, would be appropriate.

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