Week 1: Waitlist Launch & Foundation Setup

What Got Done

Complete website rebuild across six pages. Not cosmetic changes — fundamental mission alignment.

Updated from "future planning" to "evidence building phase" narrative. Rewrote every page to embody "Financial Tools Built for Brains Like Ours — Not Theirs."

Waitlist operational with Google Form collecting structured data: name, email, ADHD diagnosis status, monthly late fees, research participation interest, biggest financial frustrations. This is not market research. This is understanding what gets built first.

Email automation configured through Google Apps Script. New signups receive immediate welcome message with timeline expectations: Q1 2026 co-design invitations, Q2 2026 beta testing launch, Q3 2026 clinical validation research.

Blog infrastructure established for weekly public building updates. First post (this one) sets baseline for progress tracking.

The Strategic Decision

Building in public serves multiple purposes beyond transparency.

Weekly updates create accountability forcing systematic progress. Public documentation of technical decisions and regulatory navigation builds trust with future users and research partners.

More importantly, it creates search engine visibility for "ADHD financial management" and related queries. People searching for solutions to preventable late fees need to discover this exists.

The transition from planning to building evidence fundamentally changed the narrative. Previous positioning emphasized what was missing. Current positioning emphasizes what exists and needs validation.

Design Philosophy Implementation

Created comprehensive FLI Style Guide v1.0 establishing visual, verbal, and experiential standards.

Every design decision must answer: Does this reduce executive function load? Does this prevent shame spiraling? Does this work for ADHD brains specifically?

ADHD-friendly typography (17px minimum, 1.7 line height, no italics). Generous white space (48 to 64px section margins). Single-action patterns (one recommendation, wait for confirmation, proceed). Evening-optimized communication timing.

Component library includes: Momentum Progress Bar (chunky 8px height proves movement), Hyperfocus Alert (orange not red, quantifies consequence), Dopamine Hit Success Badge (gamifies prevention into achievement), Single-Task Form Field (one question visible), Object Permanence Return Card (forgives distraction gaps).

The four-voice integration: Defiance ("tools for our brains, not theirs"), Vulnerability ("I need it to exist"), Community truth ("450,000+ paying ADHD Tax"), Engineering rigor (evidence-based claims).

Success Metric for This Phase

1000 waitlist signups to join me live testing in the FCA sandbox and part of clinical trials to make this available on the NHS.

Current count: 0 (waitlist just launched).

Not measuring "interest" or "traffic." Measuring people willing to provide email and answer eight questions about their ADHD Tax losses. That is signal, not noise.

What's Next

Week 2 focus: Drive initial waitlist signups through ADHD community channels. Target 10 to 15 signups to validate baseline interest before paid acquisition.

Continue manual execution cycles documenting how I'm getting on. System operational with live transaction monitoring. AI generates payday instructions. Need 4 to 6 weeks documented with specific counterfactual analysis (fees that would have occurred without intervention).

Finalize FCA Innovation Pathways application for Q1 2026 submission. Technical Concept Document complete. Need to complete consumer testing approach and vulnerable customer safeguards documentation.

One Learning

Mission integrity matters more than business optimization.

When Google Forms feel clinical, copy does the heavy lifting. When default email templates lack personality, manual welcome message creates handshake moment. When infrastructure threatens brand soul, every detail gets intentional design.

The website is not a marketing funnel. It is the first touchpoint for my mission of "Building Financial Tools for Brains Like Ours — Not Theirs." Every dotted i and crossed t must speak that story.

No room for error. No generic defaults. No corporate distance. Just mission, expressed consistently across every element.