Helfy v.1.0 is out. Gamified way to improve health.
Health is a bit complicated, well, at least it seems like this to me.
For the past several years, I have been trying to live a healthy lifestyle; however, it wasn't so simple — every piece of advice on the internet was different, every health-related action seemed like climbing Everest, and everything required insane levels of discipline for basically nothing. Generally, everything seemed so unclear: what to do? how much to do? how often? what to eat? and the most important question, how to stick to this shit?
To most of the questions, science and personal experience (trial and error — don’t recommend it for everybody, I’m just obsessed with health) have given answers; however, the “how to stick to this shit?” part was still relevant. Yes, up to that point I had personally built a lot of health habits, but it was so hard and relied so much on discipline, and I knew that this was not the way. So I decided to build something.
It started in late November 2024, when I created a “No BS guide to working out” PDF guide. I personally think it was a cool thing. I showed it to my mom (not the mom test), and she said: “you need to build an app out of it”. My first response was “nah, nobody’s gonna use it”, but then I thought: “but I kinda need to practise coding, so why not”. It took me six months to build a very bad version; there was no gamification or anything, just health-related tasks and learnings. It was awful. I didn’t even deploy it because I didn’t know how).
After several months, I thought that the problem I was trying to solve was still worth solving, but how?
Duolingo
Nothing special bout it. I just have a 1500+ streak (never thought I could flex with it) in Duolingo, and I thought that this thing, besides knowing where I live and how to blackmail me in case of not doing Español, knows how to engage people in studying languages.
So I decided to make Duolingo for health — an app (actually a web app, because I don’t know how to build mobile apps) where you can learn about health and complete daily tasks and habits while gaining XP that is used to develop companions.
Helfy
A gamified web app that helps individuals improve their health by completing daily actions and habits, and acquiring small amounts of essential knowledge, while developing a personalised visual companion that reflects their progress.
I released the first version at the end of August (link to the Indie Hackers post).
It worked, but it was an MVP, nothing special, and nobody really wanted to use it (also nobody knew about it because I didn’t really market it). Even though I didn’t receive enough feedback, I started making the first version. I updated the styles and logic and added a Plus plan in version 1.
For who?
Everybody.
Alright, I know that it is not specific enough. Helfy is for people who want to live a healthy lifestyle but feel overwhelmed by the amount of information. Helfy is ideal for complete beginners who are just starting, as it helps to build long-term habits from scratch. Helfy has gamification features; therefore, it can be more familiar for some geeks or people who just enjoy some sort of customisation and video games.
Helfy is free. Yes, there is a Plus plan, but it is not necessary. I would really appreciate it if you could try it out. Any feedback is valuable.
https://helfy.space/
https://helfy.space/
https://helfy.space/
Thank you for reading this.
