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

Hey! We’re Seb, Levi, and George, co-founders of Inflow. We have built a self-help app for adults and adolescents to better manage ADHD.

Accessing treatment for ADHD is expensive, slow, and can be difficult for ADHD people to organize due to struggles with executive functioning. Inflow makes accessing many of the benefits of in-person ADHD therapy significantly more accessible and affordable.

Based on the principles of cognitive behavioral therapy, our app enables people to better understand ADHD and how it impacts them. It also gives people practical tools and helps them to develop the skills needed to better manage ADHD. This is combined with a welcoming community to share experiences and learnings.

Half of our team is neurodiverse and our co-founder Dr George Sachs, as well as having ADHD, has over 10 years of experience treating people with ADHD through CBT. Consequently, we are aware of the impact of ADHD on day-to-day life and how underserved the ADHD community has been in terms of accessible and affordable support. Levi also previously worked for Babylon Health to develop products for chronic condition management and saw how technology could enable access to care.

The core of the app is a CBT-based program that provides short, daily exercises as well as tools to develop helpful habits and skills. The program is broken down into different modules each focusing on specific areas ADHDers may find challenging such as time management, organization and impulsivity. Our community lets people connect with and learn from a range of other diverse individuals with ADHD in a safe and stigma-free environment. We offer daily live events with specialist ADHD psychologists and coaches including topic deep dives, Q&A, coworking sessions and group meditations.

Other features include prioritization tools, which let you set daily goals to prioritize your most important tasks, and guided journaling—prompts and triggers to help you better understand yourself and your behaviors. We’re just getting started and have a range of exciting new features in the works including routine building tools, accountability check-ins with a real coach, progress tracking, group-based challenges, and more.

The average cost of an in-person ADHD CBT session in the US is $200-300 ($10k-$16k/year). This is compared to Inflow’s cost of $95.99/year. Of course, no app is a direct replacement for in-person therapy but it offers a far more accessible and cost effective solution which allows many more people to get the help that they need.

You can download our app here: https://inflow.app.link/0FXmBEAWjkb. We offer a one-week free trial followed by a monthly or yearly subscription.

If you’ve been trying to or previously had difficulty accessing treatment for ADHD we’d love to learn about your experiences. If you do try the app, please let us know any improvements or additional features you’d like to have. Thank you!

One thing I've wanted in an app is some kind of organized quick way to do "where did i put that?" and "did I try this food option before and did I like it or not?"

My main concern with any app is remembering to use it. I have a dozen or so alarms, and todo lists, and I still forget to check them. Beyond some push notification, what ways can your app help me remember to use it to make it a habit?

Hyperfocus is actually one of the odd trades of ADHD. If people with ADHD work on a topic that motivates them, they can easily loose hours just like you describe. However, if the task is too mundane or overwhelming, I can easily procrastinate months on them.

At risk of asking a stupid question, have you had people without ADHD try your app? Does this type of CBT have any potential benefits for non-neurodiverse people?

^ This. As a 45 year old recently diagnosed with ADHD, I realize how much of my life was described by things like this. The more I learn about ADD/ADHD, the more sense I make to myself.