Shimmer turned 80k ADHD coaching sessions into Indy, a free AI app for doing, not knowing

Started as online 1:1 ADHD coaching for adults at $140–345/month with 50+ licensed coaches; in 2026 it added Indy, a free AI app for structured planning, reflection and longitudinal self-tracking, with an in-app path into paid coaching.

ADHD fails on 'hot' executive function — moment-to-moment drive, not knowledge — so a free AI app reaches people coaching is too expensive for, then funnels them in.

$1.3M (2022 launch), then a $2.2M seed in Jan 2024 led by Worklife Ventures and SeedtoB Capital

Chris Wang was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult and started Shimmer through YC's Summer 2021 batch to make coaching accessible: live sessions with licensed coaches plus goal-setting tools, launched publicly in October 2022 with $1.3M. Within about a year it went from zero to $1M ARR with two full-time staff and contractor coaches, and gave 150 users full-ride scholarships.

Across four product iterations — 1:1 coaching, web tools, body doubling, AI-assisted coaching — and 80,000 sessions, the team kept seeing the same constraint: people with ADHD rarely lack the knowledge of what to do; they struggle to do it consistently while attention and motivation fluctuate. In January 2026 it launched Indy, a free app built on the 'cool vs hot executive function' distinction from the clinical literature: guided future mapping, low-friction daily check-ins, longitudinal pattern insights, and structured problem-solving prompts, with AI used as scaffolding rather than advice-giver, and explicit non-medical boundaries. The timing compounded a sector shift: DEA scrutiny had squeezed virtual-only prescribers like Done Global and Cerebral, pushing the whole virtual-ADHD industry toward coaching and therapy.

Still running. Indy is free with a quiet in-app path into the 1:1 coaching service, and Behavioral Health Business cited Shimmer as an example of the field's move toward non-pharmacological care.

The product thesis is grounded in proprietary data: 80,000 paid sessions is a large, repeated observation of where ADHD support actually breaks down.

The free app attacks the real ceiling of the coaching business — price — without cannibalizing it, because coaching converts through a soft in-app path.

Regulatory pressure on virtual prescribing pushed the whole category toward coaching, and Shimmer was already there with a licensed-coach model.

The risk is that free AI support collapses into generic productivity advice — the founders name it as their main AI challenge — and HN's ADHD users immediately stress-tested the marketing.

A service can be the research phase: 80k paid sessions showed exactly where users stall, and that insight — not a market report — became the free product that feeds the paid one.

As of September 2026 Shimmer runs both sides: the $140–345/month coaching service with 50+ coaches, and Indy, the free AI app launched in January 2026. The company has raised $3.5M across two rounds and remains deliberately small on the operational side. Behavioral Health Business's July 2026 sector review cites Shimmer as an example of providers shifting toward coaching and therapy as prescription scrutiny continues, with the DEA's special-registration proposal still unfinalized.