WWU Entrepreneurship & Innovation student fellow launches app designed to address a major ADHD challenge

After experiencing challenges that come alongside having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the workplace, WWU undergraduate Alex Hines, originally from a town outside Raleigh, North Carolina, set out to research and find a solution to one of the biggest hurdles: task initiation.  

“It’s that ADHD paralysis moment of sitting on the couch for two hours, knowing you need to brush your teeth before bed and just not being able to get up to do it,” said Hines, who is a student fellow in the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program (E&I).  

Over the last two years, he’s interviewed enough people to know he’s not alone in his experience. This research led to VibeCheckList, an app Hines launched last fall.  

“VibeCheckList is a mood-based, context aware to-do list designed to help individuals with ADHD get things done more easily by overcoming difficulties with task initiation, which is one of their biggest challenges,” Hines said. “It’s designed to be an affordable solution that replicates one of the most successful ADHD management tools, a personal assistant. Even if it just reduces five minutes of friction a day by helping figure out what to do first, it can really help people feel more confident and move forward faster.”

Now that the app has been out for a few months, Hines has received feedback that the tool’s usefulness might extend beyond his initial audience to anyone with a daunting to-do list and limited time.  

“No matter if you have ADHD, or not, or maybe think you do,” he said, “It’s just difficult to look at a long list of things to do and go, what am I going to do?!”  

Since VibeCheckList launched last fall, Hines has been collecting user feedback. Version two, with a new interface and an improved market-tested experience, is out now.

Hines plans to graduate from WWU’s Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies in December with a concentration in software development and ethical entrepreneurship, blending computer science, entrepreneurship, business, psychology, and human behavior.  

Hines was first introduced to entrepreneurship in high school. It was a summer program at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, B.C., called Future Global Leaders that sparked an interest in entrepreneurship and in living in the Pacific Northwest.

“I took a small business entrepreneurship class at UBC, and that taught me the perspective that I have on life now — looking at the world and its problems and trying to find that spark of solution that you can then build into something bigger,” he said. 

In his early teens, Hines got hooked on software development and machine learning after he and a friend started building games with Unreal Engine, a 3D creation tool. He dove in, took classes, attended conferences and joined his high school’s robotics team.  

“I accidentally timed my entry into the software world perfectly. I have been super into machine learning since I was a kid,” he said.

He knew what he wanted to do and was motivated to go out into the world.

Hines graduated from high school at age 16 and started his college journey at UBC, where he studied computer engineering. He left UBC after a couple of years because he was having difficulties with ADHD that he didn’t know he had at the time.  

Also, he got hired by a high-frequency trading startup in Vancouver.

“A week after I turned 18, I randomly applied for a job as a software developer, and the interview turned into this incredible opportunity, so I ended up leaving school,” he said.

Working at the startup, he discovered he had a knack for leadership and strategy. He helped to build and lead the company’s dev team for a couple of years. The company started to falter once ChatGPT came out, but Hines was ready for something different anyway.  

“I left that job in part because I wanted to find a way to use my skills for good,” he said. “When I arrived at Western, I started doing research into ADHD because I realized that my experience was very different from my neurotypical peers. That research eventually led to the founding of my current business.” 

Hines started working on VibeCheckList alongside classes in the E&I Program, where he learned skills to help bring his product to market.  

The E&I Program within the College of Business and Economics offers a minor, two certificate programs, and individual classes open to all WWU students.

“We do a lot of presenting in this program,” Hines said. “I almost left in the first week because we were told, ‘Hey, you have five days to prepare a presentation on something that you care about. You’re presenting on Monday. Go!’”

Presenting and receiving feedback are a major part of the E&I Program.

“It was terrifying, but I did mine on presentation anxiety and managing that anxiety. It was almost a meta presentation,” he said. “That first laugh I got when I was talking to them about presentation anxiety in general, really made me realize that this is not impossible.”

The practice is used to build confidence for the program’s quarterly showcase, where students present their ideas. At the showcase, students have no idea who will visit their table and what they will ask. Though initially nerve-racking, Hines noted that nervousness usually fades quickly.

“I found the second showcase to be easier, and then the third even easier. And now I still get nervous, but I’m not nervous because I feel like I’m going to fail,” he explains. “I’m anxiously awaiting the conversations and the opportunity and the excitement that I get from that now, which is just a complete pivot from where I was before.” 

Hines was hired as an E&I Fellow in the spring of 2025, where he works with Lara Merriam-Smith, interim director of the E&I Program. As the student voice for the program’s design and planning, Hines runs the quarterly student showcases, mentors other E&I students, and more. 

“I’ve seen Alex’s journey from the beginning, from when his ideas sparked in our foundations class to what it is now, a real business growing,” said Merriam-Smith. “He’s also been one of our greatest assets over the past year as a steady and thoughtful student fellow who is genuinely committed to seeing this program continue to grow.”

Since VibeCheckList launched last fall, Hines has been collecting user feedback. Version two, with a new interface and an improved market-tested experience, will be released before the end of spring quarter.

Even as he continues to make improvements to VibeChecklist, Hines is working through new ideas.

“I have a passion for software development and assistive technology, so I’m finding other ways to support people with disabilities or other needs through software,” he said. “I’m working on another app right now to help people manage where they keep everything in their house, so they don’t forget where they leave things.”

Learning to see entrepreneurship as a means of problem-solving has given Hines a new way to view the world.

“I am not only a happier person now that I think about the world this way, but I also see ways to solve problems that previously felt insurmountable. I see ways to bring people together and create community around things I never thought would be possible,” he said. “I now have an idea of the impact that I can have as an individual. In our current world, especially for my generation, it’s kind of hard to feel like that sometimes.”

Learn more about the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program in the College of Business and Economics, follow E&I on Instagram, and explore interdisciplinary majors at Fairhaven College.

Jennifer Nerad covers Western's College of Business and Economics and College of the Environment for the Office of University Communications. Have a great story idea? Reach out to her at neradj@wwu.edu.