Show HN: Foorr – A minimal to-do app with social accountability | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Foorr – A minimal to-do app with social accountability

foorr.com

29 points21oq25 comments

I've created Foorr, a minimal to-do list app that focuses on short-term getting-things-done and the option to do this with friends by holding each other accountable and helping each other grow together. Main goal is to fuel your progress whatever needs to be done and hold yourself accountable for your own progress (with some external motivation).

Here's what it does: - Create tasks for today and tomorrow only (real hyperfocus on short term GTD). - Invite friends to cheer each other moving forward. - Building up a daily streak as you finish all tasks daily. All tasks completed before midnight which were planned for that day, earns you a level up. Rewarding that sense of completion.

Why I built it: I used physical post-it notes and was a bit done with it. I really wanted something minimal focusing only on my to-do's for today and tomorrow.

No bloated features, nothing to fancy/polished, just something no-nonsense I wanted to use myself. It might be useful for others who struggle with procrastination and keeping op progress getting things actually done. Feedback is definitely welcome and nice to hear if this resonates with anyone else.

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I took the plunge and made an account to try it out. Here's my feedback:

1.Don't require an account, period. There's no reason to require it. If someone wants to sync their data, let them opt-in.

2.I sent a friend invite to an alternate email of mine. After creating another account, I hade to verify my email. This shouldn't be necessary, since the invite was sent to my email in the first place.

3.I got the two accounts to be friends, but there wasn't much benefit to it IMO. All it tells you is their streak, not the specific tasks they want to complete. I think there's a lot of room for improvement here. A. Let people see other's tasks. B. Let people add little emoji reactions. I think that would be fun.

4.When you check off a task, it takes somewhere between 230-342ms to show that it's visually checked off, since it waits for the network request to complete. I would recommend updating the UI beforehand.

5.I spent the time to write all this out because I think the principle of the idea is really cool. I have a rudimentary version of this with my siblings using a google sheet. We check the sheet once in a while to see how we're all doing with our stress-inducing tasks. Having a more polished and social version of this could be a lot of fun.

Keep up the good work :)

Requiring account creation to view the program, even see any screenshots or view a description of how it works, will stop most people from proceeding. It immediately triggered my "user-hostile" alarm.

This is also generally frowned up on for a "Show HN" post. HNers are supposed to be able to go and look at something and provide feedback — without paying or handing over an email address.

Some posters solve this by creating a generic HN account or workaround, so that people can tour the system with less friction.

Also without a demo the TOS has lots of words such as: “You must not access or use for any commercial purposes any part of the website or any services or materials available through the Website.”

Fairly sure my work todos could be considered commercial purposes, so I don’t even want to risk trying it.

I was going to try it but when presented with no explanation and an account sign up, clicked out.

Great idea, could benefit from more upfront info.

I feel like I’ve been seeing more and more of this lately.

Most recently somebody talked to me about a genAI video firm, which doesn’t need to be mentioned by name but which had an elaborately produced brochureware kind of landing page—aspirational quotes, scroll-hijacking, the whole shebang. Now mind you, when I went to check it out I was motivated, since it was prompted by an IRL relationship.

Not only did they require a signup to view anything about the product, but they required that you upgrade and pay before you were allowed go view any examples of what they have generated for themselves or other users. I still don’t know if the product is any good or not, and I probably never will.

Is this a generational thing? Or is it some kind of wisdom getting passed around the “growth hacking” kinds of circles?

I'm guessing it's "growth-hacking" wisdumb. Presumably the logic is that it means that you have the emails of people who are interested in your product, both for metrics reasons and to be able to send them emails to keep them engaged. Maybe also with a dash of "if a user has created an account, they're more likely to feel invested and use the product"?

I could be mistaken. Heck, it's even possible that it's good advice, but I doubt it. I'm guessing that this kind of thing prevents more new users than it hooks.

Same here. As soon as I clicked "Yes, let's get stuff done" then saw the sign up page I immediately closed it.

Simply because Foorr doesn't show me how it differs from every other to-do app out there, there's nothing trying to convince me to sign up. I'm not handing over my personal information just to find out.

First impression: utter fail.

Your app will be held back by requiring to create an account with email and password.

Most of the users just use "Login with Google" or other well known OAuth providers and also want to try the product before creating an account.

When I switched from user / password to OAuth I couldn't believe how many users choose it. I could deactivate traditional user & password login and nobody would notice it.

That's fascinating! I mostly don't use "sign in with X" anymore since my password manager flow is pretty fluid at this point (so making a password is easy and secure). I guess for the many people who are less comfortable with password managers, a 1-click sign up/in is very useful.

Thanks for sharing!

I'll add my 2c, and say that even with a really fluid password manager flow, "signin with X" is usually a 1-click entry (possibly 2 for scope authorization), rather than a signup form + leaving the site to click through an email verification.

I'd much prefer 1password to do it's "you last signed in with github here" popup, than just have easy new passwords created.

Having a password manager plug-in thing installed on every web browser that I might use seems pretty arduous to me (not to mention I also then have to trust the plug-in). The fact that LastPass for example had a major breach doesn't help either.

To each their own I guess… I find it insanely easy to install the bitwarden plugin. All the plugins sync through my Mozilla account anyway. Definitely do not use Lastpass.

Why do you say "most users just use google" to login? What is this based on?

My own experience, but also what I heard from others.

Here is e.g. a poll where the majority also voted for Google Login: https://twitter.com/Hi_Fabienne/status/1790393552268132742

So it seems to be based on their own experience. The parent comment says this:

"When I switched from user / password to OAuth I couldn't believe how many users choose it. I could deactivate traditional user & password login and nobody would notice it."

Based on the paragraph following the part you quote, it sounds like it's based on what they've seen in their own app.

I deal with ADHD and procrastination and to-do lists are already pretty psychologically rough. Sure, it feels good to complete things, especially if I remember to mark them complete, but when I have a lot of tasks I don't want to start, they all look gigantic and I start ignoring it.

I can't imagine how awful that would be for social connections to be watching, maybe commenting on it. "Hey buddy, aren't you going to fix the scanner? It's been weeks".

Gamification makes things worse for me. Maybe it feels good to have a streak and level up. But then something comes up and you lose your streak and that's like 10x worse. The app is basically saying you suck. That was my Duolingo experience, which is probably why they now make it very hard to lose a streak, but then it just feels dumb.

I stopped playing Wordle after missing a couple days, losing the streak.

Other ADHD/executive function disorder people might have another opinion. We're all wired differently.

I say all this without trying it out because the pitch turns me off. If there's something unique that makes it better than social accountability and gamification, maybe put that in the pitch.

I recent saw a video that aims to take on procrastination, including for those with ADHD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xcJGEeX9gM

Do you think his system is helpful?

Yes, these things are good pointers. After all, the cure for procrastination is to just get started. "just" is doing a lot of heavy lifting, but reducing the size of the task and reducing the stakes are good ways to get rid of barriers to getting started.

I haven't had time to watch the rest of the videos in this group about his systems to help himself with ADHD and procrastination.

- No screenshot - No how it works - Says Get things actually done. (but how???) - Requires an account to see the product; no brainer.

I have no idea what this app does why would I sign up...

+1 for spelling "to-do" correctly.

typography is important and your logo isn't nailed it. Please, give it to designer to redo it

Yeah sorry, lost me at register…

But it sounds like a cool idea!

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