Helping a non-technical founder bring MYNDY to life

MYNDY is a research-backed mental fitness platform that helps people train their mindset with daily exercise routines. At first, MYNDY’s founder, Lissy Alden, thought she’d design more of a coaching program, teaching individuals and groups mental fitness routines – and then leave them to implement those frameworks into their day-to-day.

But the more she began teaching and speaking with students, the more she saw an overwhelming preference for an accountability partner. An app that would remind people to exercise their brains and walk them through evidence-based training could help them feel good and become more productive wherever they were, fast.

Though Lissy knew this was the path forward, it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park: she wasn’t a technical founder. And the first dev shop she worked with built an app that was barely functional and delivered months past the agreed-upon deadline. To get the app ready for release, she needed immediate help – and landed on Lemon.

In a scramble to get her app up and running, Lissy needed help she could trust, and of all the firms she met with, Lemon stood out.

Clear communication

Unlike other engineering talent platforms, Lemon ran a really tight ship. Right away, they asked a series of questions around:

• What skills Lissy needed (both hard and soft)
• Whether this would be a part-time or full-time gig
• How long the project might last
• Ideal start date

Top-tier talent

Lissy was nervous about hiring just one person. And given the delays with the dev shop, she had to get it right.

Lemon put her at ease. “Their process was tight. I told them what I wanted: someone with experience in React, Node.js, PostgreSQL, AWS RDS, and Twilio. I got a bunch of great profiles via the portal and set up interviews within days,” Lissy shares.

Other companies were courting Adriano, but he showed interest in the MYNDY mission and what Lissy was trying to build. He even took the time to look at MYNDY’s code base and dove right in.

Flexible pricing

For Lissy, hiring a full-time staff member wasn’t a necessity. She just needed to get the MYNDY app built – and built properly.

Since Adriano had the exact background and experience Lissy was looking for, she only needed to hire him on a month-to-month basis to work on the app.

Once Adriano started his contract, it was clear he was the perfect fit for the MYNDY project – a huge relief for Lissy. Besides having the technical know-how to fix the current issues with the app, Adriano is a great communicator and offered excellent advice for how to move forward.

Though the app isn’t finished yet, it’s nearly there. And compared to Lissy’s first attempt, this build has been smooth, fast, and collaborative. A few key reasons why the process is so much more seamless than the first go-round:

Quick onboarding

Because Adriano had already seen the codebase, it didn’t take long for Adriano to get into the rhythm of things.

Proactive communication

Adriano completes work when he says he will. Whenever he hasn’t, he’s told Lissy well in advance, explained why, and told her when she can expect to see something.

A dev that’s a joy to work with

If you’re working with someone day in and day out, it matters that they bring a positive attitude to their work. Adriano has this in spades. Lissy points out:

Simple billing

Lemon bills hourly, pays Adriano, and takes a cut for bringing Lissy the talent.

After nearly a year working together, Adriano doesn’t feel like a freelancer. He’s part of the team.

That kind of consistency is hard to find, as Lissy discovered firsthand. But it’s baked into Lemon’s approach: surface the most rigorously vetted developers to the people who need experienced talent, and stick with them through every step.

Beyond introducing the perfect engineer right when she needed him, another Lemon team member, Olga, rolled up her sleeves to solve a problem outside of her scope simply because she cared.

It’s that kind of support that makes the biggest difference for a non-technical founder. Per Lissy:

If the right use case comes up again, she wouldn’t think twice about working with Lemon.

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