Apptisan #007 — Peaks
Peaks estimates your biorhythm to enhance your sleep, energy, and productivity.
Name: Peaks
Developer / Team: Vogelhaus Apps GmbH
Platforms: iOS, watchOS
Read this newsletter issue in Chinese (中文) .
Please describe your product.
Everyone operates on what is called the circadian rhythm. Simply put, it’s our internal clock that controls when we feel tired or energized. But it does so much more than that. Understanding your circadian rhythm can help you get the most out of your body so you can be more productive, feel more energized, and sleep better.
Our app, Peaks, can estimate this rhythm based on health data tracked by wearables like the Apple Watch and other sleep tracking apps. It combines sleep patterns, heart rate data, and more to estimate a person's unique circadian rhythm.
Based on your circadian rhythm, Peaks can also suggest when it’s best to focus, study, exercise, or take a nap.
Was there a pivotal moment that inspired your product’s creation?
Before we went indie with Peaks, we had already been building apps in our spare time for a while. We knew we wanted to try something different and kept a large document of all the ideas that had ever crossed our minds. From task tracking apps to social networks, the range of ideas was pretty wide. Coincidentally, we learned about circadian rhythms and how important they are to our daily lives.
Everyone knows that feeling of a drop in energy in the afternoon, and how it always takes a little bit of time in the morning to really wake up. We never questioned the why or the process behind it. But then we learned that it's all about the body's circadian rhythm.
We were fascinated by this rhythm and started reading medical papers. Our rabbit hole led us to our first prototype of Peaks. At that point, we just wanted to understand if we could use data from Apple Health to estimate a person’s circadian rhythm. In the early days, we shared our prototype with friends to get their thoughts on how it felt. People were curious and wanted to know more - something we didn't experience with our other apps. That's when we chose the idea of Peaks for our indie adventure.
What makes your product unique compared to others in the market?
There are many (great) health and fitness apps out there, but we would argue that Peaks is one of the few that offers a new metric. Circadian rhythms are well known in medical research and sleep studies, but somehow there aren’t many apps out there. With Peaks, we also wanted to create something that is easy to use and provides immediate value. There is no need to track anything, nor is there a lengthy setup process. Peaks just works with the sleep data you already have on your phone.
How have you marketed your product, and what key lessons have you learned?
From Day One of building Peaks, we’ve been using social media to share what we’re doing. You can find us on Threads, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and TikTok. We enjoy building in public and engaging others in our process. We also hope to reach new people through these channels.
As for typical marketing, we have experimented with social media ads through Meta, but have not been very successful. As an indie development studio, our budgets are small, which limits our options. Running ads through Meta was also very intimidating as the tools are complex, and linking an ad directly to the App Store seems to be no longer possible without integrating Meta’s API into your app. For us, privacy is paramount, so we didn’t want to do that. In the end, these factors led us to give up social media advertising for the time being.
Instead, we enjoy being part of great initiatives like this.
What has been some memorable feedback since your product’s release?
We try to do at least one user interview a week to learn more about how people use our app and to get their thoughts on ideas and designs for upcoming features. We would recommend this to anyone building a product, as we can sometimes forget about the people who use our apps.
One of our most memorable moments from these interviews was a conversation we had with a person who has ADHD. They told us that they use Peaks to plan their day according to their predicted energy, and that it was a game changer for them. We had not even considered the impact our app could have on people with ADHD, but through many interviews we learned a lot about how it can help.
Are there any products out there that you feel deserve more recognition?
One tool we use every day is Multi, a Mac application that brings multiplayer collaboration to any application. We use it for all our meetings and love using the multiplayer functionality for code reviews in Xcode.
Another product that we love is Arro. It’s a service that allows you to create AI-powered surveys. We run several research surveys with it and love the insights the AI allows us to gather. Instead of a static survey with predefined questions, Arro asks follow-up questions and has real conversations with research participants.
On mobile, we love the weather app Weather Strip for it’s simple yet information-rich graph. Designing information-rich interfaces can be difficult, and we appreciate the refreshing approach they took.
We also have to give a shout out to Sunlitt, which we admire for it’s immersive 3D view and interactive interactions. Both make for an absolutely delightful experience.
What does your daily workflow look like? How do you usually communicate and resolve differing ideas?
Since it’s just the two of us, communication is pretty easy. We check in every day for about 30 minutes to discuss current tasks. As for asynchronous communication, we recently switched from iMessage to Slack to have some separation between personal and work communication.
Our entire planning workflow and communication is very much inspired by the Scrum process we are used to from the organizations we have worked in. For planning, we use Linear to create project timelines, milestones, and individual tasks. We also set clear, measurable goals each quarter to guide our prioritization.
We both share responsibility for everything from design to code to marketing, but one person always takes the lead on a given project. We never make decisions based on gut feeling, but rather based on user feedback.
Tell us a bit about yourself and what you envision for the future.
We are Flo and Clemens and we actually met at a university in a super small village in the middle of Austria. Before we became indie developers, we worked as UI/UX designers in big organizations and small startups.
In our spare time, we started building apps together and taught ourselves how to develop for Apple platforms. Our first app was a simple budgeting app called Macaw. It taught us a lot about app development and got us selected for the App Store Developer Program in Europe. When we were laid off from our day jobs, we started building Peaks and founded a company on our own.
In the future, we want to be able to live off of Peaks and maybe have a small team to help us develop it further. Most importantly, we want to build something that really makes a difference in people's lives and helps them understand their bodies better.
About Apptisan
Apptisan is a portmanteau of “application” and “artisan”, signifying “a weekly exploration into the world of apps and the passionate artisans who create them.” Each issue is a conversation with global creators, aiming to uncover and present intriguing products to a wider audience.
For those who prefer Chinese, you can subscribe via Quail. Creators interested in featuring their products are encouraged to submit them through our form, and we’ll be in touch promptly.
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