83: The ADHD Founder-Parent Reality

In this episode, Sharon and Jesse discuss the realities of being parents with ADHD raising kids with ADHD. They explore navigating their children's complex relationships with AI (from building apps to rejecting it entirely) as well as how Sharon leverages AI as the foundation for her company, Shelpful. They give company updates, discuss bespoke tools they use and the temptation to put everything on the app store, then give some amazing picks at the end of the episode. Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/adhd_foundersFollow us on social media:• This podcast: @adhd_founders• Jesse – @adhdjesse• Marie – @llamalifeco• Sharon – @shelpfulCheck out Wavepal: wavepal.appCheck out Flux: fluxapp.blueCheck out Llama Life: llamalife.coCheck out Shelpful: shelpful.com ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Is a startup just a small business with ambition, or is there a real structural difference? The main conversation this week is about what actually separates a startup from a small business — and after working through Paul Graham, WeWork, creator economics, and the indie vs. VC divide, the answer turns out to be less about structure and more about who you are. Jesse, Marie, and Sharon have all been somewhere different on that spectrum, which makes it a better conversation than a pure definitional debate would be. Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/adhd_foundersFollow us on social media:• This podcast: @adhd_founders• Jesse – @adhdjesse• Marie – @llamalifeco• Sharon – @shelpfulCheck out Wavepal: wavepal.appCheck out Flux: fluxapp.blueCheck out Llama Life: llamalife.coCheck out Shelpful: shelpful.com ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The ADHD brain doesn't tolerate annoying repetitive work. It either avoids it until everything breaks or engineers the problem out of existence. This week Marie, Jesse, and Sharon are firmly in the second camp: Marie turned her most dreaded support task into a script that genuinely gives her dopamine, Jesse built a custom climate control app in an afternoon because the existing ones were ugly, and the whole thing spirals into a real debate about whether AI just made the SaaS moat a very small puddle. Jesse uses his thermostat app three times mid-episode. It works perfectly.--Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/adhd_foundersFollow us on social media:• This podcast: @adhd_founders• Jesse – @adhdjesse• Marie – @llamalife.co• Sharon – @shelpfulCheck out Wavepal: wavepal.appCheck out Flux: fluxapp.blueCheck out Llama Life: llamalife.coCheck out Shelpful: shelpful.com ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

A reminder that fires at the wrong moment isn't a reminder, it's noise. Sharon's deep in launch mode on Shelpful's automation features, and Jesse's side hustlin' a macOS sports tracker just because he can. The episode goes hard on AI and product development: the death of precious code, why Claude Code gives developers superpowers while designers are still waiting for theirs (even with Figma and Claude Design), and what happens when prototyping gets democratized. Plus some amazing picks from both at the end of the episode.--Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/adhd_foundersFollow us on social media:• This podcast: @adhd_founders• Jesse – @adhdjesse• Marie – @llamalife.co• Sharon – @shelpfulCheck out Wavepal: wavepal.appCheck out Flux: fluxapp.blueCheck out Llama Life: llamalife.coCheck out Shelpful: shelpful.com ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

After a month off the mic, Jesse, Marie, and Sharon are back!. The episode starts with a long-overdue conference debrief and a pitch competition outcome nobody saw coming, then slides into a genuinely good argument about why the most powerful thing a product can do is refuse to do more. They talk founder identity crises, the weird psychology of products that just stay in their lane, and why sometimes the best business move is to stop adding features. Stick around for picks that include a Canadian candy bar and a timer shaped like a hex bolt. --Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/adhd_foundersFollow us on social media:• This podcast: @adhd_founders• Jesse – @adhdjesse• Marie – @llamalife.co• Sharon – @shelpfulCheck out Wavepal: wavepal.appCheck out Flux: fluxapp.blueCheck out Llama Life: llamalife.coCheck out Shelpful: shelpful.com ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Running a business with ADHD means living with a head full of ideas and a calendar full of self-imposed deadlines you'll absolutely move to next Tuesday. This week Sharon, Marie, and Jesse get into what actually works. They share product updates that came out of pure gut instinct, talk about the kind of pressure that genuinely lights the ADHD brain on fire, and unpack why following an idea might be the most underrated founder skill there is. Stick around to the end for a freemium strategy so diabolically clever it should probably be illegal.--Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/adhd_foundersFollow us on social media:• This podcast: @adhd_founders• Jesse – @adhdjesse• Marie – @llamalife.co• Sharon – @shelpfulCheck out Wavepal: wavepal.appCheck out Flux: fluxapp.blueCheck out Llama Life: llamalife.coCheck out Shelpful: shelpful.com ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

In this episode, Jesse, Marie, and Sharon kick off 2026 by setting actual intentions. Each host shares a theme for their year, and the accountability that follows is equal parts insightful and chaotic. The conversation winds through the graveyard of good ideas that never got built, the difference between chasing what excites you versus what you think you should do, and why shipping something imperfect beats polishing something imaginary. Expect a detour into ADHD life hacks that may or may not involve accidental vitamin overdoses, and stick around for picks and plugs that you'll love. --Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/adhd_foundersFollow us on social media:• This podcast: @adhd_founders• Jesse – @adhdjesse• Marie – @llamalife.co• Sharon – @shelpfulCheck out Wavepal: wavepal.appCheck out Flux: fluxapp.blueCheck out Llama Life: llamalife.coCheck out Shelpful: shelpful.com ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Jesse and Marie get deep in the developer weeds this week, walking through the entire journey of shipping a first app to the App Store—from initial launch of Flux (Jesse's new Blue Sky client) to navigating rejection and iteration. They wrestle with the messy realities of responsive design across different phone models, talk about building for older hardware, and why supporting every device gets exponentially harder. The conversation zooms out into broader design philosophy, dev tools they're obsessed with, and why sometimes you just have to draw a line on what you'll support.--Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/adhd_foundersFollow us on social media:• This podcast: @adhd_founders• Jesse – @adhdjesse• Marie – @llamalife.co• Sharon – @shelpfulCheck out Wavepal: wavepal.appCheck out Flux: fluxapp.blueCheck out Llama Life: llamalife.coCheck out Shelpful: shelpful.comThe Founders Picks:https://www.therooststand.com/https://linear.app/ ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

In this episode, Jesse, Marie, and Sharon are back after a month-long unplanned hiatus—mostly because they kept forgetting what day they were supposed to record. They kick things off by handing out some awards, then they dive into a proper 2025 retrospective, talking through the big wins across our businesses. They wrap up with their favorite product picks from the year. Next episode they'll look forward to what's coming in 2026.--Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/adhd_foundersFollow us on social media:• This podcast: @adhd_founders• Jesse – @adhdjesse• Marie – @llamalife.co• Sharon – @shelpfulCheck out Wavepal: wavepal.appCheck out Llama Life: llamalife.coCheck out Shelpful: shelpful.com ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Here's a challenge: keep momentum through the holiday blur and actually ship those January updates. Marie, Sharon, and Jesse tackle the brutal reality of the "holiday fog," explain what ADHD January is, and how founders navigate the gap between their grand Black Friday/Cyber Monday plans and how to keep from slowing down. They also break down Sharon's "pay what you want" pricing data, the counterintuitive psychology of why people overpay for community, and why structure feels like a personal attack—all while trying to stay sane through the chaos friends and family and working through the holidays.--Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/adhd_foundersFollow us on social media:• This podcast: @adhd_founders• Jesse – @adhdjesse• Marie – @llamalife.co• Sharon – @shelpfulCheck out Wavepal: wavepal.appCheck out Llama Life: llamalife.coCheck out Shelpful: shelpful.com ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★