[desmondl]

This new product might be better, but Shimmer was publicly criticized exploitative when it launched. I saw those criticisms at the time, gave the product a fair chance anyway, and unfortunately found them to be accurate.

I used Shimmer in 2022. The app had poor UX and frequent bugs, and the core offering (weekly Google Meet sessions with a “coach”) felt like generic self-help and not personalized coaching. The promised between-session support mostly consisted of DM'd article links, even after I raised that concern directly.

The sessions themselves often felt unprofessional, with background noise, unstable connections, and poor audio quality. The coach WFM'd on their couch during call. Given the price (hundreds of dollars per month at the time), the gap between what was marketed and what was delivered was significant.

Hopefully the new product addresses these issues, but I’d encourage people evaluating it to look at Shimmer’s prior execution and customer feedback, not just the announcement.

[christalwang]

I'm sorry you had a poor experience! 2022 was the year I got diagnosed and the app definitely wasn't nearly as good as it is now, and I'm sorry you went through those bugs. But more importantly, I'm sorry about the experience you had with your coach. We take these flags really seriously and since then, we've put in several rounds of guardrails in the hiring process, with ongoing contract renewals with our coaches, and general culture & training. Now, we only take <3.5% of qualified coaches and have far more processes in place to make sure these things don't happen and catch them if they slip through. Because we don't record the sessions or supervise them because of privacy, there definitely has been a few situations like yours and again, we do take them really seriously! We do have hundreds if not thousands of really impactful stories and progress (I've personally cried in multiple feedback calls) so if anyone is reading this, I highly recommend checking out this page too! https://testimonial.to/shimmer-care/all

[mikestorrent]

Thanks for giving a pretty solid real answer here.

While I have you: any advice for how to suggest to someone else that they consider your app? I'm met with defensiveness at every suggestion I make; the app seems compelling enough to me as a neurotypical person though, and I'd love to see them try something like this.