My personal life was always, always had the back seat. So I really wasn't taking care of myself, exercising, all that after I had my second kid. I was just finding myself at this pit that I found myself before, but you know, even worse because you now have I have multiple kids. They were well taken care of, they were fed, dogs fed, husbands doing great. I couldn't remember if I took a sip of water that day.
SPEAKER_00Hello everybody, and welcome to this episode of the ADHD Skills Lab. Before we get started, if you're a business owner making over 100K in a service business and you know that your ADHD is stopping you from getting the results that you want, then it might be time to build an operational layer. We do it for you, for your ADHD brain. We find people, install people, get operators set up. Just click the link down below to do a free business build-out with me to see if you're a fit and we'll get started. Today I am joined by the wonderful Sharon Pope, co-founder and CEO of Shelpful. Hang on, am I saying that right? Okay, good. Yes, you are. Um, the AI task manager that chats with you like a friend to keep you on top of your habits and daily tasks. Backed by Apollo Projects, led by Sam Altman with a $3 million investment. Sharon brings 15 years of startup experience, having led marketing and product teams at companies like Zero Down, Green Dot, Go Bank, and Looped, and advised startups at Y Combinator. She also shares her AI and automation life hacks on Instagram and TikTok, which is how we connected. Sharon, welcome to the show. Thanks, Sky. I'm so happy to be here. Yeah, I'm so happy to hear have you here. It's been interesting looking at just how much you've done to get to this place. So I'm very excited to talk about your app, but also to talk about your journey. I guess my first question then is like, tell me about your struggles with overwhelm that led you to decide you need to build something.
SPEAKER_01I mean, certainly has plagued me for my entire adult life, but I was undiagnosed with ADHD. So I guess we're here in the ADHD skills lab with the awareness I now have ADHD. But at the time, not no awareness there. I had been multiple times told by doctors that I didn't have ADHD because I was too successful, got too good grades. It's now, it's now I know a common story for a lot of women with ADHD. But I had kind of many times just felt like I was the biggest imposter in the world. I was, I was finding success at work. I was, you know, I happened to have jobs that were really compatible with my need for deadlines and just heat and needing to finish something and drive toward it, right? I worked at startups, I worked at agencies. So you have the demanding client, or you have the kind of burning passion with the like-minded individuals who are all really targeted toward the same goal and really fighting to survive at startups, right? And so it was really compatible with me, but I I my personal life was always always had the back seat. So I had, you know, just really wasn't taking care of myself, exercising, all that. That, you know, I really went in spurts throughout my adult life. And um after I had my second kid, I was on coming, coming back from maternity leave and just so like three months here, generously in the US. And I was just finding myself at this, just in this pit that I'd find my found myself before, but you know, even worse because you then now have I have multiple kids. They were well taken care of, they were fed, dogs fed, husbands doing great. And I I couldn't remember if I took a sip of water that day. One night was staring at myself, like mean mugging myself really in the mirror, looking at my, I like was wearing the workout outfit I put on that morning, never having worked out, and just judging, judging myself so harshly. And I also just judged myself because I was rich with resources, right? Like I had really good friends, really good family that would do anything for me, but I couldn't ask them to remind me to drink water. And I think that was the insight that I had was like, what if there was someone I could? What if there was someone who would check in on me on the little things and would follow with me to make sure I did it? Not just like an alarm bell going off and saying do this, because I was a professional notification uh ignorer. Yes, like goodness. I had I had like one time put a meditation on my Google Calendar like in 2009, I think, and like only recently removed it and literally have never meditated in my life. I really like to get into it, never have. So I just knew that about myself and I realized that that was something that I could like easily prototype. You know, like I could I could set it up so that people could sign up and then text with a real human person who was kind of like that the angel on their shoulder that would fall up with them, remind them to take care of themselves. And so that was the initial version of Shelf Fool. And I kind of had that like in a fever dream. Then the next day just built it. Like I built a prototype, and I'm not an engineer, so I built it kind of tape and glue style, just as a product person who was really kind of had a clear vision of like this could be a solution and I could just get it functional so that one person could maybe sign up and pay for this, and maybe I could see if it could actually be a business.
SPEAKER_00Amazing, amazing, and I love that tape and glue style. I mean, I will say if you look at the research, right? ADHD, we love a tape and glue glue style start. It's the scaling that is the problem, and and we'll talk about that in a minute because that is always where things get tricky. Take me through. So that was the original thing. So you were hiring people to like personally message people? Is that what was happening? Yeah. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01How did that work?
SPEAKER_00That's an intense service business.
SPEAKER_01It was, it was a really intense service business and ultimately really hard to make money from. So we, I mean, with the advent of AI, had the opportunity to scale more to have people pay a lot less for a similar vibe of support. But you know, people were paying $100 a month or more to text with a real human person, these wonderful people that we found. By the way, there's so many wonderful people that are were very good at this if you're willing to pay that amount of money. And we were so lucky to find these. We called them shelpers, like shelpful stands for super helpful, and they were our shelpers. And people, I mean, we had passionate users of this service who, you know, really felt like their life was transformed by having just that person who's checking in on them. It was very cost prohibitive for most people. And the the concept doesn't sit easily in people's minds because you think of an accountability buddy as something that's free, right? Like I help you, you help me. But that's a whole different business. It's very difficult too. Like that becomes a marketplace. And then you have to find, you have to have enough huge numbers in both sides and match them and match them well. And so it works great if you have lots and lots of customers, but getting lots and lots of customers is also hard. So there's there's so many difficulties with that. So yeah, that proved to be difficult. We didn't, you know, we didn't just shut it down. We we created the AI version. Actually, like, you know, the technology had kind of just started coming out. So this human-only version was before like ChatGPT launched. So it was kind of before this, the big wave of AI. And then after it did, that kind of had started brewing as something we should work on. But we ended up creating it on a whim because I had a medical event that happened. I had a stroke that went to my eye. And I didn't, I was like all of a sudden in this really this pit again, right? Where I just felt like I couldn't take care of myself. How I had all these medicines that I had to take that I never had to take. I didn't wasn't on any regular medicines, and then all of a sudden they had to be, and I, and supplements and doctor's appointments, and but we didn't have any available shelters. Like we had enough signups that like I couldn't, I felt like I couldn't take someone for myself or to, you know, take that from the business. And so my I like called my my co-workers or my my co-founders and said, like, hey, could we just can we like make a version and like hard code it to me? And my co-founder just like fully focused on it within a week he had you know prototype that I would I texted with and then we we kind of made it into what a WhatsApp version and then eventually made it into an app. And that just sold, I mean, just people just wanted that so much more and it was so much more affordable. People just weren't signing up for the human only one anymore.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's amazing. So you really built it because your own business, like it was good, but it wasn't at capacity to solve the problem that you had at the time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it wasn't at capacity and it kind of never could be like there was just such a push and pull of demand and supply, right? Like you, if you got brought too many shelters in, you know, our word for them, then they didn't, you know, if they didn't have enough people, then they weren't making enough money, so they weren't as interested to stay. And so this kind of push and pull of like hiring ahead of the demand curve, but not knowing, not having a sustainable demand that you could predict you know, because your startup problems. Exactly. So it's very, yeah, very classic service business problems. And you know, it and it was slogging along, like we definitely had like really big moments of growth, and then it kind of would peter out. And so it was, you know, like anything with startups, it's hard to predict what was going to happen, and it still is, but it just there were a lot of signals that then you know it was it was really we weren't getting much like from a revenue perspective, we were really thin already. So with the lack of predictability and the ebbing and flowing would kind of really dip into our our margins.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, definitely. So take me through. I wanna, I wanna go back a little bit because you obviously have a lot of access, I would say. You know, you've worked with a lot of cool companies, you've done, you know, you've been an advisor at Y Combinator. For those people who are listening who for whom this is just sort of like these are names they recognize, but they haven't really done anything. How did you even go about getting a co-founder? What did that relationship look like?
SPEAKER_01I I I think I should first say that I wasn't like planning on starting a startup. I was really happy to be working at startups and you know, I was the CMO and head of product and all that, and I just I think that I had never been hit with a need so hard that I felt like it had to exist. And I, if it if no one else was gonna make it, I was I had to do it. But coming from Y Combinator and working there for multiple years, and which is, I mean, such a huge was a huge advantage to me because, you know, I'm sitting in the same room as all these founders that got into these, and I'm I'm teaching them about marketing and product, but I also get to hear from the founders of Airbnb and Dropbox, you know, every single twice a year, every single year from when I was there. And so the, you know, why combinator, they say this all the time. Companies with a co-founder are more likely to succeed because you because you're sharing the load. You you literally have more people to do work. So it's genuinely more division of labor, but also the emotional tax of starting a company is huge. And so you just are more likely to succeed generally. Like their data shows that. And so they they they do accept solo founders, but they're honest and that that's maybe a slight mark against you because they just know the path of a founder and the plight of a founder that it's easier when you're not alone. So I knew that just kind of in my DNA at that point. It'd just been so ingrained into me to me that it wasn't as much of a checklist item as it was like a okay, I think I this needs to exist. So let me go talk, let me just go see who wants to build this with me. Like it was just an immediate thing for me. How did you do that? Like, how did you go find someone? Yeah, I mean, I call like I have a friend, my friend Lydia, who's my my was my first count co-founder. I have two co-founders, and she and I talked every day. And so I literally was like, Yes, this idea that I had last night. And then I was like, look at the site that I just put up. And so she was walking along with me and she was just so, she so got it. You know, she really was just echoing back to me and refining the idea back to me in a way that that made me feel like, you know, she gets it. And I feel like this is kind of a weird little idea. So if someone really gets it, and so I was like, Hey, do you want to build this with me? She's like, sure, sure, I'll help, I'll help. And I'm like, no, no, no, like not help, like 50-50. Like, are you in or out? And so we like to say that she that she was like, you have to build this. She pushed me off the cliff and I pulled her with me. So I think her push definitely, I don't know that I would have I it would have been harder for me to continue alone. I don't know that I would have, and I don't know what that would have looked like. And then I, from a technical perspective, brought in, you know, I reached out to people that I used to work with. And I because I'd work in startups and tech, you know, I have friends that I used to work with. And so a friend of mine that I worked with in Seattle at a startup, a Y Combinator Back startup, he thought it was really interesting. And his wife specifically was just so like, this, I need this, I need this product. I think that helped him really believe. And we worked really well together for the brief time that we worked together. So we kind of did a trial, like we just did like a little side project for a couple months together, and we just worked great together, and so we went for it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I have a co-founder, my husband. I can't imagine having built the businesses we've built without each other. It was like it, I wouldn't say it was a yin and yang because we have a lot in common, but there was definitely, I think everybody has different elements they bring to the table. What were the elements that you felt these co-founders were bringing to the table for you?
SPEAKER_01I think that this is something I identified, I guess, just flipping to my startup advisor previous role. I I hear this a lot from people who are starting businesses of like, what do you look for when you're like shopping for a co-founder? I know that's not the words you use, but that is kind of the idea. And I think that I kind of want to question the premise there because I think that it's not, you don't know what path your startup is going to take. Like if you're listening to your customers, you could end up with a completely different business in two years than you started with. So really shopping for like a set of skills, I think is not a great way. I think it's more of do I work well with this person? Do they have a high aptitude? Do they like in terms of can they figure stuff out if they don't know how to do it? Because I mean, I'm not a developer. I'm not a software developer, but I built our first prototype. And I that's kind of how I am, I've always been. I'm kind of this scrappy little product person. And so putting too much weight into someone's like set list of skills on their resume wouldn't actually work with like how I see myself, and that I wouldn't want someone to just see me as a set of skills of things I've done before because I think I could probably do anything if I tried hard enough.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's an interesting question, and you're totally right. I think I think hiring for a set of skills is almost always a failure at so many on so many levels and so many spaces, but it is this idea, and you know, I I know that when they are looking for funding, because I had somebody on a couple of weeks ago to talk about this, it is very much about the person, co-founder or not, it's about the person. And so what you're saying is the same thing that people are looking for in whether they want to fund your business is the same thing as you want to look for in a co-founder, which is like, do they have the intelligence and the personality and the the connection and the response, like all of that more personal stuff?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, I think it depends. I mean, if it's a hard tech, like if you're building hardware, you probably need someone who knows how to build hardware. I wanted this to be a tech company. I didn't want it to just be the service business where you're connecting people. So I knew we needed a technical person and I wanted it to be a co-founder. So, like when I was talking with Chris, our CTO and co-founder about coming on, I told him in advance this would be a co-founder role if it's a fit and it would be equal equity to me. And we were we were actually already a year into the business when he joined. And so, because for me, I knew that I needed someone, the person who was building the tech to have equal stakes in the business is I did. And so I'm you know, on that note, obviously resume does matter in terms of if you don't know how to code or you haven't self-taught how to code, then you're not gonna be great at building a software business. And I think outsourcing that type of thing is not usually a good idea. So that I did recruit specifically for that, but my co-founder Lydia, there wasn't anything on paper that made her more qualified, other than I knew that she cared that she would work hard. She was she and I probably have more similar resumes than maybe you'd want. Like she's an operator, she worked in at a PR agency for years, worked for Microsoft, but she knew tech, she knew, and she knows people. And so she was kind of the person she recruited all of our shelters and managed them, and she was really great at that. And I don't like that kind of thing. So I think in that way it just ended up balancing out. But we didn't know that when we started. We just knew that we both thought it was a good idea and we should just go.
SPEAKER_00It's interesting you said just go. You know, one of the things that you hear around is this idea of like money, love, speed. And I'm curious if you could describe to me a time where that it felt like that was true, and maybe a time where it felt like that was less true.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I think that it's always true at a startup. I think if you're sitting around getting too in love with your idea, then you'll never launch anything. And so I think that I mean, that's that's kind of what I would directly equate with this, not having, I'm not on the other side of like, you know, having some big exit, right? Or having gone public. So I'm not done with my specific journey. But I know that any time that we kind of twirled around an idea over and over and over again and spent too much time making it like perfect for in our minds, it ended up feeling like time wasted. Cause no, you know, throwing around more sayings, no idea survives contact with the enemy or whatever the whatever the saying is, no plan. And so I I think that just if something is pulling you, just getting it out and live and then learning. And I think that aligns with what you're saying is speed loves money. Like just if you have an idea, just get it out. Like that to me, it's like speed to launch and speed to learn. And that is tied with revenue because if you're listening to your customers and you're making the product better based on what what's resonating with them and what they're buying, then you're, you know, that road leads to more money.
SPEAKER_00How is what you have built helping you with the executive functioning struggles that you have? And how have you worked with them as you've gotten funding and continue to grow?
SPEAKER_01It's it's such a fun thing, right? When you're like building the thing that you need to maybe be successful. I would say so. Shopful, my sort of app, the AI task manager that we use, it makes me better at taking care of myself. And then I and I do put work tasks in there as well, but I would say the highest value reward I get from using my own product is like remembering to take my medicine, take a walk, book my Pilates classes, like things like that. And and I think, and I mean that's that's a baseline of I think making me better if I'm getting if I'm getting sleep and getting exercise and drinking water, I'm gonna show it better for work and actually getting stuff done. But I do I put in tasks for work too, especially. So we we have this feature called mega remind. And so when you're chatting with AI task manager, they're adding things to your list, but you can say, Hey, mega remind me to to respond to that tax email. And this is like the executive function point. I will always struggle with the administrative parts of my business. And unfortunately, as CEO, they are my responsibility. And so, you know, this is actually something that happened this week because I did have to reply to a tax email. And so it pinged me, it pings you every nine minutes for three hours until you say that you got it done. Like those little things where I can kind of just lean and I don't trust my brain to remember to do this. I don't trust my brain to actually decide to show up and get this done and fill out this form and pay this bill. So, like that's where I can lean on, you know, some of the tools that I've built. And that's where our, you know, the my ideas for the product come from is like, like, how can I make myself do this thing? I'm I am our customer still. Yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_00So, where does that lead you to then in in terms of time blindness? So we know with ADHD, like time blindness is a massive struggle. And one of the things that I find working with clients is that sometimes they've got to do the thing and sometimes they've got to acknowledge that there's too many things to do. So, how do you navigate that with shelfful? It's so hard all the time.
SPEAKER_01You know, I think that I I I would love to just I come off as like the person who has all together. Time blindness is I definitely struggle. Yeah, I'm like writing notes. I'm like, right, yeah. She solved time blindness, everyone. No, I think that so I do things like I yeah, I do I have my my things stalk me when there's something that's super important that I feel like I'll forget. I don't have a lot of meetings, so I think that allows for me to have kind of creative time to think and work. So, I mean, a couple of things I do, like the things that are distractions are social media, because I do create content to help people know about my business. And it can be, I'm actually like, I silence them before right when we start this call because there's a post that's doing well, and I'm just getting like bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, like so many comments. And then if you have questions, my natural people-pleasing self wants to go over there and help them. So I have to kind of like turn off email. I have I made a special focus mode on my iPhone that specifically silences all the social media alert pain, like the comments and stuff. And so that I can like, and I have that on a timer because I'm not gonna just turn it on because I just that's not something I do. I don't, I'm not good at sh deciding to shut things out. I have to have that happen for me. And then I have an app blocker thing that I do at night too to try to like just unplug from that. But so useful. Right. I mean, and it's very and like there are some forcing functions that are really helpful for AHDers who don't want to let people down, like having that, like I'm pushing our product team, I'm pushing the developers that I want this, you know, we want it launch by this date. So if they're gonna be able to do their part, I have to wireframe the product. I have to, so it does. I mean, having a team, another reason why, you know, being solo isn't always that easy is that when you have, I don't have a boss, like I could after this podcast, go sit on my couch and stare at the wall and no one would yell at me. But I do have loyalty and accountability to my my coworkers. And so that that helps me a lot. So I think I try to like, I think on all our all our calls, I'll try to give them a deadline, which forces me to give myself a deadline, like on that, on that planning Monday call, which will help me because then they're asking for me, they're waiting around for it, and I'm not gonna get my launch date if I don't give them my thing. So that's I feel like that's my biggest time blindness hack. Just this just creating pressure and stress on myself. But in general, I do I really do struggle with time blindness. And I think I always will. Like I can't, I can't see a way that that's just gets solved for me.
SPEAKER_00The research backs that up. I'm sorry to say, like they've done the you know, it's like, you know, obviously it's always more new research to be done, but even when you take medication, people still struggle with time blindness, even when they're like not at the when they're subclinical for ADHD symptoms, they still struggle with time blindness. Like it's a big cognitive shift in how our brains work. And so yeah, it is so important to have those systems to support it throughout your life. And it's it's funny you mentioned the white space or the make a time. I've heard that from a lot of a lot of ADHD entrepreneurs, the importance of having that space to play and having things to do, but then having that space as well as a founder who's building.
SPEAKER_01I think that's where I come up with my best stuff. Like I think that having that, and so as a small company, that's an advantage. As we got, you know, as we get potentially bigger, that'll be I, you know, founders need to would need to work harder. This is the scaling problem, right? Work harder to make those, make that time for themselves because things start getting put on your calendar and you're toast. So I think that that and I have the the I think alongside time blindness, a lot of people with ADHD also have the like I have this meeting or I have this appointment at three o'clock. So it it it like impacts what you can get done before that. Sometimes positively, like sometimes negatively in in terms of well, I can't start that because I won't be able to finish it before this thing. But like the hour before a call that I have is like maybe my most most productive time that I could ever describe because I have this like hard, hard deadline and I want to finish it before the thing. So it kind of can work against you and for you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's so interesting. And I think I think it's so important. So how where are you now with you know Shelful? Like you you've kind of come from this place, you've built up with AI, you got you know backed by Apollo projects. So how did that you know, describe how that felt getting told that your startup was gonna get backed?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, um, amazing, uh surprising. I had a really unique fundraising story, which I I want to make sure to be clear that it's unique because women specifically have a harder time fundraising, statistically, I should say. And so I had an easier go of it, but I I had launched this earlier version that I talked about, and I was telling friends, like I was telling people, like, hey, what do you think? Or hey, if you want to try it out, or if you know someone who could use this. And so it's kind of in that two weeks following it, and we like we had launched it, we had got we got people signing up and we weren't ready for them really. So we had to flip to a wait list. We had our first paying customers after this like three-day trial. So we were kind of just on this high of like, oh my gosh, this is this is a thing, this is working. And a friend, a a mutual friend of mine and Sam Altman's told him that I had started this. And so he actually texted texted me and said, Hey, I heard you started something. Do you want to talk? And I was like, Yeah. I had been and I had worked I could be free. Right. Um, yeah, but I mean, he obviously was on in the back of my mind, but I kind of wanted more progress before reaching out to him. Context, I worked at his startup. So he had a startup called Looped that was sold, but I worked there with him, and then I worked at the acquiring company with him, and then I worked at Y Combinator with him. So I I have, you know, you you talked about in the beginning how people invest in like investors invest in people, and especially for seed stage, and they're kind of investing in people that they think can get it done more so than the idea, because the idea changes. And so I think that, you know, is an example of of that to a T where he he his words to me, which I which were shocking to me, which were, I'm so glad you finally started something. And I was like, Finally, did you know something I didn't know? Because I wasn't planning on starting anything ever. Um, but it was, you know, he clearly saw that in me. And so I obviously am trying to trying now to, I mean, I so we we got seed funding from them, it was three million, and have we haven't raised again. We're still, we're still on that round and have changed the products has changed a lot. You know, it was humans and now it's AI, and it was on WhatsApp, and now it's a a mobile app for you know, iPhone and Android, and we're releasing features every like two to three weeks, kind of on a good trajectory. And so I kind of feel and we l the app, the mobile app we launched just last September. So we're not even six months into it yet. I guess just about six months. And so it that kind of felt like just hitting the reset button and beginning again to me to have a chance to bring this to more people and to do more cool and integrated things on the phone and um and just really just try to help people feel more support. Like in that that's and so we get birtheds, yeah, we're getting births to that. We have users who who really say that this has helped them and and changed things for them. And so we're just kind of trying to follow that lead and and to find a big base of people who who love it and you know continue to grow.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, I mean, you're essentially doing working memory support, which is amazing because it's so important and so tricky to do. And, you know, people want to get an EA that does that, it's not even always possible. You know, people are not always good at remembering things. And so having the AI help with that, that's a big deal.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I do. I feel it feels like you kind of, yeah, working memory support is not a word I've ever used to describe it. So thanks for that. Write that down. But it's it is like I I always say, like, I word vomit everything that is on my mind that I have to do, and it collects it in a nice list and then follows up with me, which is key. And then we've the other thing that I have discovered just through this community's. I mean, I've skipped the part where I was diagnosed with ADHD, but that happened at some point. And, you know, digging into this community and realizing what who this product was actually for. Once I realized that it was for me and I had AHD, so it was for people with ADHD. I had, I think, have had the advantage of getting a lot more insight into just how remarkable it is when things can just happen on their own. We've incorporated a lot of automation stuff into like what I talk about online, but also directly connected to our product. So you can have things happen with when you arrive at a location, your AI task manager can get a ping and say, like, hey, I just got home. Will you make a remind me to take my medicine until I'd let you know I did it? So like just like those context clues, because with people with AHD who aren't good at following a routine or a schedule, that like an 8 a.m. reminder to do something isn't that effective because that could come at a time that I'm not available to take this. So, like that's the my kind of my latest obsession is how to connect the dots between the helpful reminders and follow-up and the actual stuff I'm doing so that I can get that, I can get that push and that accountability at at a time I'm actually able to do the thing.
SPEAKER_00I love that because you know, I mean, the amount of times uh me and my husband have said to each other, hey, when I we get home, can you remind me to do this? And the other person's gone, nope. Like just realistically, that's not gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01Sure, sure. I'm on it. Yeah, it's that like that that prospective memory too, like remembering to remember something. And it's I mean, it's such a like pit of despair. Like it just doesn't, that just doesn't work. And we still try, like, remind me to remind me to do this. And so, yeah, I mean the AI helps with that, but it it it's much better if you have it clue in based on arriving somewhere or you know, like I we also sell these smart stickers that you can tap with your phone to also clue things in. So I'm just trying to kind of get more into like that, like how the physical world can inform how AI might support you.
SPEAKER_00That's so cool. Yeah. Well, I guess, you know, I want to ask you what is the coolest thing that your app is doing right now that you're just super excited about? What a fun question.
SPEAKER_01So next week, we're launching our own automate tab within our mobile app so that you can like right now, you can work with outside automation apps like the shortcuts app on iPhone and to to push messages to your AI task manager and shelfful. But now we're we're we've made our own automate system. So within the shelf app, you can set up those location triggers and stuff that I mentioned and scanning smart stickers to to make things happen, like scanning a smart sticker to to set a reminder to change the laundry for an hour from now and for tonight and that kind of thing. So just those, like those automation triggers coming closer to home and make being easier to set up because it works really well for my brain. I've been automating stuff since like 2010 in lots of different ways, but it's new for a lot of people. And it's kind of this road to a gentic AI that we're seeing with like Claude and all those things that are further off. But I really feel like there's kind of a place where just to make things a little bit easy for people to just get a little bit more support and like that, those just kind of micro steps toward help and support that these simple automations of just saving myself a couple clicks from asking for something and saving myself from forgetting this medicine or the water or the bananas from the store or whatever it is. So bringing that stuff into the actual app is something that we're launching soon. And there's a couple more things in that vein that like the that are gonna automatically create accountability and try to help force you in some ways to get to get the little things done. Falcing is good. I know I like I hesitate. Well, we all have rejection sensitive, like we're like, don't tell me what to do as ADHDers. Criticism for me, but don't tell me to do anything, please. And thank you. So yeah, that striking that balance of like really kind of helping create accountability that's difficult. It's really difficult to be accountable to a robot. I mean, I know that the human business we had for a while, that was the amazing thing about it was you really you kind of felt guilty if you didn't respond to them because it was a real person. You don't really feel guilty for like ghosting an AI. And so trying to just create more opportunities for like accountability or follow-through with just that recognition and not, you know, not just ignoring that that in this world we need more, more than just a ping. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00No, I love that. I love that. Well, tell me, I feel like we already know the answers. Tell me the professional achievement that you're the most proud of.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I mean, I guess it could be raising three million dollars. Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_00I know. Okay. Like, do we even need this question? I feel like this is. I know.
SPEAKER_01I was thinking of like different, I was thinking of like promo like big promotions and stuff like that. But yeah, that actually was. It is, it's weird as a founder and someone with ADHD too that you do you find this that it's hard to give yourself credit for things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's very like, oh, and then on to the next one.
SPEAKER_01And I I think that I I really do attribute it to luck more than anything else. But then I have been able to at least acknowledge that there was something about me specifically that is investable. So after multiple people have reminded me of that, I've been able to admit that. So yes, I'll consider that achievement.
SPEAKER_00You also followed the playbook. I mean, when you listen to people like Cody Chanche is, you know, talking about things, it's like if you want to be a stuff, if you want to be a business owner and you haven't already started a business, you should probably go work for people who do that. And you know, that is a great, that is a that is a great advice and a great pipeline as well.
SPEAKER_01Oh, and that's yeah, that's the advice I'd give anyone who wants to start a startup is it not even I think go work at a if you're interested in starting a venture, like making company that's really big that's venture-backed, go make sure to go work at a venture-backed startup because it's also just there's there's different, I mean sampling both would be great too, but like there's a different, there's a vibe and a a drive that is unique to that space. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And on the other side, what is a professional embarrassment or failure you've had and and how did you handle that?
SPEAKER_01I think that I would the things that I've regretted most have been taking too long to make to make a move or a decision that needed to be made. So I think people management can have can fall into that. Like if when there's not a fit with a team and there's not and it's clear trying too hard to make it work at a start, like at a big company, sure. At a big company, maybe that works, or you can find a different spot for a person if it's not a perfect fit. But there's nothing wrong with a person just because they don't fit with your company and trying to too hard for too long to just like workshop it and massage it and try to make it work and and try to teach them skills that maybe they're not, that they're just not likely to excel at, I think is the biggest lesson that I have learned and the biggest mistake I've made because I think that you don't learn that until you actually are the be all end all CEO. I I at least like I, you know, I because and especially when you work at a company, you're not gonna just end something right away. You're gonna have like a maybe a conversation with HR, maybe a plan. Like there's this, like corporate America wants us to make that very slow. But at a startup, it really like my learning is that it should be honestly the second time something happens, it should be like, well, let's start, let's stay in contact and maybe see if we both think this is a fit still. Like just being like super transparent about it because there's nothing wrong with them or you if it's not a fit. But if you wait too long and draw it out, it only causes harm to both of you. And it's so much easier to stand here and say that than to actually do it. If I had to do it, if I had to do it tomorrow, it would be really hard for me still. But in, you know, there's something magical about having a great team working together. And when you have limited resources like a startup, you also waste a lot of money if you take if you take long to make a decision like that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's that's really, really good advice. I'm really glad you said that. And if you were to have a quote, something that you say often, something you remind yourself of that kind of summates, you know, supports you in life, what would that quote be?
SPEAKER_01Well, it's a little bit crass, but it's not a swear word. Um we say this, we say this uh like my co-founder and I, my Lydia, my initial co-founder, we say just burp it out is our kind of mantra, which is it's not gonna be cute. It's not gonna be perfect, but get it out somehow somehow, which means like make a video about like just say, hey, here's an idea. Do you guys think this is cool? Or um make like the tiny, tiny version of it, just anything. Put it in an email, get people's idea, like just get somebody thinking about it, reacting to it in a non-glamorous, non-ladylike or whatever way. And yeah, and I think that's we we say that all the time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's amazing. Well, it's really great to chat with you, Sarah, Sharon. Tell everybody where you're at, where they can find Shelpful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So you can find Shelfful at shelpful.com. It's spelled S-H-E-L-P-F-U-L. Like super helpful. And also I share a lot of these tips. Like, not just I don't just talk about my business, I talk about it and other things at Instagram at Shelfful. I run that account. And then I also have a TikTok that's called at automatically adh, where I just can't shut up about AI and automations.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the ADHD Skills Lab. If you liked it, leave us a five star review. It helps other people learn more about us. And thank you so much to our wonderful team for making us sound good, look good. We couldn't do it without you.