Case study. Live
ADHD LifeSync: sell first, build later
Building everything before selling anything means finding out only at the end whether the product is wanted. Here we did the opposite: first digital guides and planners on sale in an online store, for years, then the platform built on what those sales had already taught us.
Written by Maximilian Giurastante. .
ADHD LifeSync is a MAXYMIZE project for the English speaking market, built around everyday organization tools for adults with attention deficit. Today it is an online store of digital guides, planners and workbooks; the platform that will replace it, with a profiling quiz, interactive planners and a resource catalog, is built and installed on its final infrastructure, not yet on the public domain.
Project summary
- What it is
- A MAXYMIZE project of our own for the English speaking market
- Audience
- Adults with attention deficit, looking for practical tools to organize their day
- Markets
- United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia; the product is entirely in English
- Online today
- A store of digital guides, planners and workbooks, with real orders since 2024
- Being built
- A platform with a quiz, interactive planners and a resource catalog, plus a phone application
- Platform status
- Built and installed on its final infrastructure, not on the public domain or in the app stores yet
- Use of AI
- One place only: breaking a task into a few steps, with generated content marked as such
- Work on the platform started
- April 2026
The context: an audience that general tools do not serve
Adults with attention deficit use the same calendars and the same to-do lists as everyone else, and nearly always give up on them. Not for lack of will, but because those tools take for granted exactly the abilities that cost them the most: estimating time, breaking a task into steps, starting again after an interruption.
That is where the project comes from: tools designed for that way of working, in a market where the subject is discussed and searched for, which is the English speaking one. The commercial question was not whether the problem existed, but whether anyone was willing to pay for a solution, and how much.
First phase: check that somebody pays
The first version of the project was not an application but an online store of digital products: yearly planners, workbooks on executive function, short guides on sleep and focus. Products you can make in days rather than months, and buy in one click.
How the project moved
Five step flow: idea, digital products on sale, feedback from the market with real orders in four countries, platform built on that feedback, phone application. From the feedback there is also a branch back to the products, because the catalog keeps selling while the platform is being built.
- 1. Idea: a precise audience
- 2. Products sold: guides and planners
- 3. Feedback: orders in 4 countries
- 4. Platform: built on that data
- 5. Phone app: under construction
- Feedback → Products sold (catalog keeps selling)
In a little under a year the store took a few dozen real orders, spread across the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and a few European countries, with a few refunds. Those are small numbers, and that is exactly why they are useful: they say the problem is real and the audience can be reached, but also that a catalog of files to download is not enough to build a business on. Both pieces of information were worth having.
What the sales taught
- Which products were chosen first, which became the order in which to build the features of the platform.
- That the audience is international and concentrated in a few countries, which settled the language, the currency and the payment method.
- That a file you download is bought once: to really exist, the product had to become something people use every day.
- That the customers of the digital products are the only list of people to start again from, and they have to be brought over to the platform without losing them.
Second phase: the platform built on that feedback
The platform is not the digital version of the store: it is what the store showed was needed. A path that starts with a profiling quiz, suggests tools that fit that profile and makes them usable every day, instead of handing over a file and leaving the person alone with it.
- A profiling quiz whose outcome is calculated by rules, not by a model: the same answers always give the same result, and the result can be explained.
- Interactive planners built on the templates the store sold as files, now fillable and kept in sync.
- A resource catalog with guides, workbooks and downloadable material, organized by need rather than by format.
- Fixed price bundles instead of a subscription: it is the way of buying that the audience had already shown it accepts.
- A phone application, under construction, because a tool for organizing your day that only lives on a computer gets used half the time.
Where AI comes in, and where it does not
In one place only: breaking a task written by the user into a few concrete steps, which is exactly the difficulty the product came from. The model receives the sentence describing the task and nothing else about the person, and the generated steps are marked as produced by an AI system, as article 50 of the AI Act requires. Everything else, from the quiz to the choice of material, is calculated by rules: in a product that helps people get organised we preferred repeatability to variety.
The real state of things, without announcing a launch
The store is online and selling. The platform is built, runs on its final infrastructure and has been tried with real payments, but the public domain still leads to the store and the phone application is not in the app stores. The switch is planned for the coming months.
- 4
- countries that real orders came from (English speaking market, product in English)
- 14
- resources in the catalog of the new platform (planners, workbooks, guides, material)
- 1
- place where a language model steps in (breaking down a task, marked as generated)
- 0
- personal data sent to the model (it only receives the sentence of the task)
What it teaches anyone with a product idea
This project is our own in-house example of something we often say to people who ask us for a quote: the hard question is not how to build it, it is whether anyone will buy it.
- If there is a way to sell a simple version of the value before building the product, that is the first thing to do.
- A few dozen real orders say more than hundreds of answers to a survey, because nobody pays to fill in a survey.
- The first customers are also the first list of people: treat them as such from the start.
- The simple product should not be switched off as soon as the complex one starts: it keeps bringing people in and paying for the work.
- Language, currency and payment method follow the market that answers, not the one you had in mind.
The technical note What an MVP is and what it costs explains the method in general, with the orders of magnitude. For a product to be sold online, the eCommerce page describes how we work, and how we work and what it costs gives the costs.
Technologies used
Choices made for an international product sold online, which has to cost little while the numbers are small and hold up if they grow.
Product
- Web application
- Phone application under construction
- Downloadable content
Sales
- Card payment
- Fixed price bundles
- Immediate delivery of the material
Data
- Managed relational database
- Store customers imported
Content
- English only
- Quiz and planners calculated by rules
- AI generated steps marked as such
Frequently asked questions
What is ADHD LifeSync today?
An online store of digital guides, planners and workbooks in English, for adults with attention deficit, with real orders since 2024. The platform that will replace it, with a quiz, interactive planners and a resource catalog, is built and in a production environment but is not on the public domain yet.
Why sell digital products before building the platform?
Because a file you put on sale takes days to make and answers the question that counts: does anyone pay? Building the platform first would have given the same answer a year later and at ten times the cost. The sales then settled the order of the features, the market to aim at and the way of charging for it.
How much did the store sell?
A few dozen orders in four countries between 2024 and 2025, with a few refunds. Those are small numbers and we state them as they are: enough to confirm that the problem is real and the audience reachable, not enough to declare a commercial success. The exact figures are project data and we do not publish them.
Does the product use artificial intelligence?
In one place only: breaking a task written by the user into a few steps. The model receives that sentence alone, no other data about the person, and the generated steps are marked as produced by an AI system. Quiz, planners and the choice of material are calculated by rules, so the same answers always give the same outcome.
Can you help me validate a product idea the same way?
Yes, and it is often the first thing we suggest. You pick the simplest version of the value that can go on sale right away, put it online and watch what happens for a few weeks. Only then do you decide whether and what to build, with a fact in hand instead of an opinion.
Written by Maximilian Giurastante
Founder and software developer, MAXYMIZE. Designs and builds SaaS platforms, custom business software and automations with language models. Over twenty years as a project leader in technology, audio and video systems integration.
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