How much is your MVP, really?Get an estimate
2MUCHCOFFEEGet a quote

An AI that runs
your mental diet

  • Case study

Menty was a mental-health app for men built on a single idea: your mind runs on what you feed it. We built the AI end to end. It read what you consumed, curated a healthier feed, and coached the mix, so the app was the opposite of a doomscroll instead of a nicer version of one.

Want something like this built?

Book a 30-min review
Category
AI mental-health app for men, a curated content diet
Our role
End-to-end product build: the AI, the feed, and the app
The idea
Your mental health is the content you consume
Onboarding
Amazon Cognito for quick, private sign-in
Platforms
iOS and Android

Inside Menty

  • Menty feed screen with a mental-diet nutrition bar and AI-curated content cards with reasons
    The feed the AI curated for you, and why it picked each thing
  • Menty diet screen with nourishing-versus-reactive bars over four weeks and a lifted-versus-dragged breakdown
    Your mental diet: what lifted you, what dragged you
  • Menty talk screen with a conversation where the AI coaches and offers content to consume
    A coach that reframed and curated in the moment

Want one built like this? Book a 30-min review

The hard part was an algorithm that heals, not hooks

Any feed can hold attention. Building one that leaves a man better than it found him, and that reads his diet honestly, was the real work.

  1. Reading the diet, not just the mood

    The AI ranked the content a man actually consumed by its effect on his state, reactive versus nourishing, not just what he tapped. That grading was the core intelligence.

  2. A feed that heals, not hooks

    Every other feed optimizes for time-on-app. We tuned curation for wellbeing and made it finite, so Menty was the opposite of the doomscroll rather than a prettier version of it.

  3. Coaching that stays in its lane

    A conversational AI reframed and curated in the moment, so we grounded it and kept it inside what was genuinely supportable, with a real specialist one tap away.

What we built

AI that read your mental diet

It ranked the content you consumed by its real effect on your state, reactive versus nourishing, and showed what lifted you and what dragged you.

A feed that heals, not hooks

Curation tuned to your wellbeing instead of time-on-app, a finite feed that was the opposite of the doomscroll.

A coach in your pocket

A conversational AI that reframed, calmed, and curated in the moment, with a real specialist one tap away.

Private, low-friction onboarding

Amazon Cognito so signing in was quick and private, the difference between trying it and closing it.

Building an AI product that has to earn trust? Let us scope it.

Book a 30-min review

How we built it

  1. Ingest what he actually consumes

    The pipeline captured the content in a man's day and normalized it, so the AI graded his real diet instead of a self-reported mood.

  2. Grade reactive versus nourishing

    Each item was scored by its effect on his state: reactive content spiked attention and dragged him down, nourishing content steadied him. That grading model was the core of the product.

  3. Curate a finite feed

    Ranking was tuned for wellbeing, not time-on-app, and the feed ended by design. Every pick carried the reason the AI chose it.

  4. Coach inside the chat

    A grounded conversational agent reframed in the moment and prescribed content instead of endless talk, with a real specialist one tap away.

Shipped end to end on the stack below, with Amazon Cognito keeping sign-in quick and private.

The stack

  • React
  • TypeScript
  • Zustand
  • React Router
  • React Hook Form
  • Amazon Cognito

Where it landed

The first mental-health app for men

End to end: the AI, the feed, and the app

Anti-scroll: a finite feed, tuned to help not hook

Questions about this build

How much does it cost to build an app like Menty?

The budget drivers are compliance scope, integrations, and how much AI ships in v1. The AI content pipeline is where a mental-health app differs most from a standard app build, and our estimator scopes yours in minutes.

How long does an app like Menty take to build?

A production MVP typically takes 12 to 20 weeks. The core app and sign-in move fast; the AI pipeline, the content grading, and store review set the pace. Menty shipped end to end, the AI, the feed, and the app, as one build.

How did Menty’s AI grade content?

By its effect on your state, not its topic. The model separated reactive content, which spiked attention and dragged you down, from nourishing content that steadied you, then rebalanced the feed against what you actually consumed.

Does an app like Menty need to be HIPAA compliant?

Not automatically. HIPAA applies when you are handling protected health information on behalf of a covered entity, which many direct-to-consumer wellness apps are not. The moment practitioners, insurers or health systems are involved, it usually does apply, and other regimes such as GDPR may apply regardless. We treat it as a positioning question answered in discovery rather than a checkbox, and our healthcare app development page covers the compliant-build side in more detail.

Let's build yours

You just saw what we shipped for Menty. Tell us what you're building, and we'll show you what production-grade looks like for it.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>