The product, moving.
The morning offering, start to finish, screen-recorded from the live beta.
Every habit app runs on guilt. Kindness can't.
A kindness practice has to feel like a gift to return to, not a duty to perform. The entire habit-app genre runs on a mechanic this category simply can't survive.
Streaks. Badges. Shame.
Habit apps work by making you feel a little bit behind. A streak you can break. A badge you haven't earned. A red dot demanding return.
You can't guilt someone into being kind.
The moment kindness becomes an obligation, it stops being kindness. The whole genre runs on a mechanic this category can't survive.
A kindness practice has to feel like a gift to return to,
not a duty to perform.
Holding the thesis across every screen.
Five moments where the easier path lost, and what the thesis cost in return.
The decision that forced every other decision.
A soft streak. A weekly rhythm. A quiet personal count of completed acts.
None of it. No numbers anywhere. The garden grows visually: users see what they've done, never how much.
Retention may suffer. Protecting the meaning of the practice is the thesis. That's the right cost.
Not a difficulty curve. Five different kinds of kindness: each one right for a different kind of day.
Library mix: 20% / 35% / 25% / 12% / 8%. Most days, most people want gentle or bold. Brave stays rare on purpose.
When AI would have been easy and wrong, I chose rules. Every result traceable.
What it saved$50–200/mo in API costs · full control of voice · zero unpredictable outputs in a sensitive product.
Wrong tool, right product, wrong moment.
A six-section marketing site, 1,800 words, ready to deploy.
8 in-app discovery cards, opened from a small prompt below the day's offerings.
Marketing sites acquire users. I wasn't acquiring. I was in invite-only beta. Users needed the philosophy where they actually were.
Restraint scales. Cleverness doesn't.
The clarity of thought, and the journey you took me on in those five minutes was very, very special. I loved it as a designer, and more as a user.
What grows instead of a number.
Every act plants something. The garden is the only record: you see what you've done, never how much. Testers said it became the part they show friends.
A system designed to disappear.
Warm, restrained, generous with space. Distinctive type does the emotional work; everything else steps back.
The act-detail page is a small system.
Three content tables collaborate to make one quiet moment: lead-in, act, reflection.
“this one asks for a little courage. you have it.”
A one-line lead-in chosen by the cascade. Settles the user before the act.
“tell a friend specifically what you admire about them.”
Lowercase, imperative, concrete. The thing the user actually does.
“what did it feel like, in the moment you actually did it?”
Reflection: an open question or warm affirmation. Closes the loop.
Open Sprig on your phone.
It's live, it's free, and it works in any browser. The morning flow takes about a minute. Three small acts will be waiting.
Solo, with AI as execution partner.
Tools handled execution. Every design decision was mine.
Honest signal from real users.
No invented metrics. Three weeks in beta: here's what testers are telling me.
Testers consistently mention the tone. Several said variations of “it doesn't feel like an app.” The thesis returning as a quote is the best signal a designer can get.
I designed the garden as a quiet personal record. Several testers said it's the part they show friends, earning its keep visually, even without metrics.
The about-cards are dense, and several users skipped them. v2 will start with three cards, with deeper philosophy unlocking progressively as users return.
A handful of testers asked “how do I track my progress?” The absence isn't legible to people raised on streak-driven apps. Experimenting with a “your week so far” record. No count.
I can do the work, alone.
I can frame a problem nobody handed me. Hold a thesis across hundreds of decisions. Design a system, not just screens. Ship something real, solo, using modern tooling without losing rigor.
How I collaborate.
No PM, no engineer pushing back, no design director critiquing. I know I can do the work alone. I'm looking for a team where I can do it alongside others.