I built Linden because I lost a year of my life to my phone. Four hours a day, gone. This is the app I wish had existed when I tried everything else and nothing stuck.
The reason Linden exists
I tried every screen-time app I could find on Android. Forest, ScreenZen, Stay Focused, Digital Wellbeing, Cold Turkey Blocker, Refocus, Brick (the hardware one), Freedom. Each worked for about two weeks. Then my brain learned the disable path — three taps, eight seconds, half-asleep — and the apps became suggestions instead of locks.
The pattern was always the same. Block it. Disable it. Reinstall. Repeat. The thing I needed wasn't another wall; the wall was the thing my brain was best at climbing. What I needed was a moving wall — something that asked questions back and didn't accept the same answer twice. So I built Linden.
What Linden actually is
An Android app blocker with an AI gatekeeper named Lumi. To open TikTok, Instagram Reels, or YouTube Shorts, you have to talk to her. She negotiates. Most reasons don't survive. The bypass costs you about 90 seconds and your dignity, which turns out to be enough.
Why I'm building this solo
I'm not raising. I'm not hiring yet. The product needs one obsessive person who will agonize over whether Lumi's "Buddhist" personality is too soft on Tuesdays. That's the job for now. If it works at scale, the team will come. If it doesn't work, I'd rather know that having spent a year of my life than five years of someone else's.
If you decide to try Linden, you're trusting one person's product taste. I take that seriously.
How to reach me
- Email: hello@lindenapp.tech — read by me, not a queue.
- TikTok: @yervand_linden — build-in-public, in English.
Other things I've made
- A small inventory system I wrote for myself because the off-the-shelf stuff kept billing me $400/mo for features I'd never use.
- Several abandoned half-products. Ask me about them only if you want to laugh.
What I won't do
- Add ads to Linden. Ever.
- Sell Lumi conversation data. The conversations live on your device.
- Ship a half-broken iOS port to claim "iPhone supported". iOS will exist when Family Controls entitlement is approved and the experience is honest.
- Use dark patterns to keep you subscribed. Cancellation is one screen in Google Play.