Frame Coach

An AI coaching app where you choose (or build) focused coaches to help you take action, stay accountable, and make progress - one concrete step at a time.

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Inspiration

TL;DR: Frame Coach is a minimalist AI productivity coaching app for Simon’s audience — designed to turn intent into action without overwhelm, dashboards, or habit gamification.

Simon’s audience values clarity, systems, and momentum but most productivity tools are either overwhelming or impersonal.

Frame Coach was built to deliver lightweight, focused AI coaching that meets users exactly where they are, without dashboards, setup friction, or cognitive overload.

I always had a modular product in mind, a product that was easy to work with when evolving it and adding new features, with its "North Star" focus in mind, a goal to accomplish.

I already have so many ideas for this product, to keep it low-cost enough while it finds its footing in the market, and a product with a clear identity not to be compromised.

What it does

Frame Coach lets users:

  • Browse and chat with purpose-built AI coaches
  • Add personal context, values, and constraints
  • Receive clear, actionable guidance in real time
  • Commit to next actions using Action Lock
  • Upgrade to unlock advanced coaching modes

The experience is designed to feel calm, intentional, and immediately useful.

How we built it

The MVP was designed and built within the Shipyard timeframe as a mobile-first product, with a strong focus on UX polish and monetization readiness.

RevenueCat powers subscriptions and upgrade flows, allowing users to unlock premium coaching features while keeping the free experience valuable.

While generative AI was certainly used in parts of its development knowing and understanding the architecture and design was really important for me, so instead of "prompting" the app into existence AI was used more as a tool or an aid, in the end crafting a product that I am deeply familiar with how it works, and what its direction will be.

Challenges we ran into

The main challenge was balancing depth vs simplicity, delivering meaningful coaching without turning the app into a complex productivity system. This led to a strong emphasis on minimal UI, constrained inputs, and focused responses.

Overbuilding was also a challenge, so many ideas came to mind each time I added a screen or a feature that being able to know what is essential to ship for this MVP and what can wait as to not risk breaking the app before the deadline also proved challenging.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I really like the overall design of the app, from the beginning I had in mind a minimalistic product with a design what was intuitive and inviting to users.

I was really happy also with the approach to this project, I didn't and still don't intend to turn this into an "addictive" app or one where it aims to capture its users via gamification, attaching them to "characters" or other "LARPing" approaches which, if poorly handled can be detrimental to its users, this is not about increasing screen time and have its users glued to its flow, this is a tool. I believe I was able to convey the intention of this product with this first iteration of it and that is of paramount importance for me when it comes to this particular project.

What we learned

  • Simplicity is harder than feature richness, constraints improve clarity.
  • Users respond better to focused guidance than open-ended chat.
  • Monetization works best when it unlocks depth, not basic functionality.
  • Designing for calm and intention requires actively resisting gamification.
  • Design and approach the product to have its own identity, even if it goes against conventional approaches.

What's next for Frame Coach

The current immediate roadmap I am already taking steps to incorporate are:

  • Expand shareable coaches and presets, polish it and make it easier to do so.
  • Option to Sign-in/Create account but as an option, privacy is important and the default option.
  • Enable the "Store" functionality.
  • Add lightweight progress tracking.
  • Introduce creator-led coach packs.
  • Continue refining monetization and retention.
  • Add support for voice interaction. -Add "Groups" of up to 6 coaches, each a category which will house "specialists" in that domain
  • Further capabilities for the coaches to "do stuff" rather than just chatting with them.
  • Re-evaluate monetization, what goes within the paywall and future tiers consideration.

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