Featured case study

Building the case for an overlooked ADHD opportunity

A self-led initiative to bring ADHD support into Flo. I delivered onboarding changes, a targeted paid campaign, user research, and in-app content, community and demand tests. The combined initiatives increased web onboarding ARPU by 10% and built the case for an ADHD product at Flo.

Flo had no ADHD product, roadmap or team. But with ADHD diagnoses among women growing and evidence suggesting menstrual cycles can affect symptoms, I saw an opportunity worth investigating.

The challenge was proving it without a mandate, dedicated team or budget. So I started small, using experiments, research and existing parts of Flo to build the evidence piece by piece.

Product vision

I wanted to help women understand how their ADHD symptoms changed across their cycle.

A Flo onboarding question asking “Do you consider yourself neurodivergent?”, with the options Yes, No, Not sure, and Prefer not to say.

Identify who could benefit through onboarding.

Flo’s daily tracker on cycle day 24, offering mood chips including brain fog, low energy, apathetic and very self-critical alongside the usual symptom chips.

Track ADHD symptoms alongside their cycle.

A phone lock screen showing a Flo Health Assistant notification: “Finding it harder to focus today? Your cycle may be affecting your focus.”

Turn patterns into personalized insights at the right moment.

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Building the case

I tested the ADHD opportunity one decision at a time.

The Flo web onboarding question “Do you have ADHD?”, with the options Yes, No, “I think so but I haven’t been diagnosed”, and “I don’t know”.

Decision 01

Start where I had influence by adding an ADHD question to web onboarding.

A grid of paid social ad creatives testing ADHD messaging, with headlines such as “Can your period affect ADHD symptoms?” and “Struggling to focus before your period?”.

Decision 02

Test demand beyond Flo with a targeted paid campaign.

Three research survey cards: whether people knew hormonal changes across the menstrual cycle can affect ADHD symptoms, how much the cycle impacts managing them, and how likely they would be to sign up to Flo for ADHD features.

Decision 03

Use research to understand why the campaign underperformed.

An in-app Flo article, “How to manage ADHD symptoms during peri”, beside two community posts inviting people to share their ADHD experiences, carrying 411 and 3.2K likes.

Decision 04

Explore demand within Flo through content and community experiments.

Two screens from the fake-door test: a promotion headed “Thriving with ADHD throughout the month” with a “Tell me more” button, and the follow-up screen explaining Flo’s ADHD features are not live yet.

Decision 05

Test interest in ADHD features before building them.

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Collaboration

I started the initiative. People across Flo helped move it forward.

A grid of portrait photographs of the colleagues across Research, User Acquisition, Community, Content and App Onboarding who helped move the initiative forward.

Reflection

I learned that proving an opportunity and creating the capacity to pursue it are two different challenges.