Mateo Szymkowicz

Design partner for founders with underperforming products

$50k+: Earned

7x: Hired

5.00: Rating

212: Followers

Rzeszow, Poland

Work Posts Reviews Services About

Rzeszow, Poland

TikTok gives you dopamine in under a second. That's your competition. I'm building a product with a friend for the moments when you're low on energy and about to default to mindless scrolling. Dead time between tasks, on the couch, waiting for something. Most apps try to compete with guilt. Streaks that start as motivation and turn into something you dread missing. Push notifications that feel like a disappointed parent. App blockers that treat you like a child. People don't quit because they lost interest. They quit because the app made them feel bad about themselves. Nobody picks up their phone feeling tired and thinks "let me go feel guilty for a bit." So we flipped the question. The moment you tap the icon, something satisfying happens. Haptics, motion, a splash screen that feels like the app is greeting you. Before any content loads. Before any decision gets made. Match the speed of the dopamine, and you don't need the guilt. Still rough. Here's where it's at.

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Cover image for Designing an App to Rival TikTok's Instant Gratification

Every time someone picks up their phone with nothing specific to do, TikTok wins. The dopamine is instant. No thinking, no effort, no decision. Just reward. That's the moment we're designing for. I'm building a product with a friend for exactly those low-energy gaps. And early on we realized the competition isn't other wellness or focus apps. It's the scroll. So we looked at how most apps try to fight that. Streaks you end up completing at 11:58pm just to keep a number alive. Notifications guilt-tripping you for not showing up. Badges that nobody asked for. All of those reward consistency. None of them reward showing up right now. And right now is the only moment that matters when someone is deciding between your app and Instagram. That's what pushed us toward a different idea. What if the reward was the open itself? What if tapping the icon felt so good that it competed with the first second of TikTok? We're prototyping it now. Haptics on tap. A splash screen with motion. A transition that lands before you've had time to think. The whole thing takes about a second and the goal is to make that second feel like a small win. No guilt. No streaks. Just a reason to reach for this instead of the usual.

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