Hank Green — the beloved YouTuber, author, educator, and TikTok personality — is no stranger to a side quest.
The multi-hyphenate Internet-tainer and entrepreneur is a sock salesman, word game investor, and cancer survivor-turned stand-up comic who is often found creating new things for the good of humanity.
His latest endeavor is a productivity app called “Focus Friend.”
It is advertised as an “ADHD-friendly focus timer” in the App Store, where it has skyrocketed to popularity in recent days, currently sitting at #4 on the “free apps” chart, just ahead of Google.
“I think I forgot to tell TikTok about the best idea I’ve ever had,” Green started a new video.
“It’s an app that installs a bean on your phone. And the bean really wants to spend more time knitting,” he explained.
“You can focus for an amount of time, and that will allow the bean to make socks or scarves. And then you can trade those socks or scarves in for more furniture in the bean’s room.”
It’s a quintessential cozy game — “obviously, you want this,” Green ended his TikTok — but with the intention to “give people their time back.”
The app itself is free, but it does offer some in-app purchases. Those, Green said, are there for good reason.
In a follow-up video, he explained that the developer of the app, Bria, told him to consider advertisements in the app to offset the cost of creating it.
“And I didn’t really want to do that,” Green said. “The app is about giving people their time back. It’s about letting people be in control of their attention, not selling their attention to someone else.”
So, he and Bria decided to make a free app with no ads, leaving the choice up to the user whether they want to make purchases for their own beans.
“That doesn’t break the app. It’s not like it closes down if you don’t pay for it,” Green added. “But the people who do pay make it so that we can continue developing the app. And we have a bunch of ideas now that we have some income.”
Green himself has not publicly disclosed a diagnosis of ADHD, though two years ago, he did tweet: “People often ask if I have ADHD and, look, I don’t know what I have but, honestly, whatever it is…I think it’s great.”
Therefore, the app is for anyone — ADHD diagnosis or not.
“Perfect for anyone who struggles with long sessions of concentration,” the app’s description reads. “Focus Friend is for students and beyond."
The app also discloses that it does not collect or share any user data, to which Green said: “What would we need your data for?!”
Inside Focus Friend, users can find a live activity timer to see their progress when their phone is locked, activate a Deep Focus Mode that locks distracting apps during focus sessions, and break timers that are designed around the Pomodoro Method of productivity.
There are also hundreds of decorations to unlock and decorate the bean’s room, as well as skins to customize the user’s Focus Friend.
Hank said his is a cat-bean named “Gummybean,” since his real-life cat is named Gummybear.
Those interested in downloading the app can do so via the App Store or Google Play.
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Header images courtesy of Hank Green/Bluesky and B-Tech Consulting Group LLC
