AiTuki –
Turning Cortisol Data Into Just‑In‑Time Actions
From Perimenopause Niche to Cortisol‑Smart Stress Partner
Project Overview
When I joined AiTuki, the idea was heartfelt but narrow: help women in perimenopause navigate hormone chaos with an app. It was clear there was pain, hot flashes, broken sleep, and brain fog, but as we listened to more people, a bigger pattern emerged. Men, younger women, and high‑performing professionals were describing the same exhaustion, the same “wired‑but‑tired” feeling. The common thread wasn’t a life stage. It was chronic metabolic stress driven by cortisol.
Problem
Existing wellness apps flood knowledge workers (30–55, 60% women) with raw wearable data, cortisol spikes, sleep scores, and energy crashes, but provide no actionable next steps.
Users said, "I want something that tells me when to stop and what small thing to do now."
Market: 40M insomnia, 80M chronic stress, and millions stalled by hormone/metabolic issues.
Problem and market gap
Existing wellness apps flood knowledge workers (30–55, 60% women) with raw wearable data, cortisol spikes, sleep scores, and energy crashes, but provide no actionable next steps.
Users said, "I want something that tells me when to stop and what small thing to do now."
Market: 40M insomnia, 80M chronic stress, and millions stalled by hormone/metabolic issues.
User research and the pivot
To move from intuition to evidence, I led a focus group and a survey study with 40 knowledge workers aged roughly 30–55, most of whom were already using wearables or health apps. We explored how they currently manage stress, their feelings about hormones, and what they would actually pay for.
The numbers and quotes told a clear story:
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83% were comfortable paying 5–10 per month if the app helped in the moment, not just tracked.
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58% said they’d prepay 6 months to avoid “yet another tracking app.”
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37.5% (15 people) immediately volunteered to join our Cohort‑1 cortisol case study, with 24 more on the waitlist.
Language testing was even more revealing. The “Perimenopause app” made some women feel seen, but it also made others feel boxed in, and it completely shut out men and younger users. “Metabolic stress” and “cortisol” landed better; people recognized themselves in symptoms like burnout, insomnia, and stubborn weight, even if they hadn’t used the terms before.
That’s where the pivot happened. Perimenopause moved from being the market to being one powerful use case inside a broader metabolic‑stress platform.
Why is cortisol the first hormone
Cortisol became the backbone of the MVP for both human and business reasons. Biologically, it sits upstream of many complaints users shared, including racing thoughts at night, energy crashes, stubborn fat, and mood swings. Strategically, it gave us a simple story:
“If we help you understand and nudge your cortisol patterns, we can improve sleep, energy, and focus, not just one symptom.”
Instead of building a huge hormone dashboard, we focused the MVP on:
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Linking wearable data and self‑reports to cortisol‑related patterns.
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Delivering 1–2 Just‑In‑Time Adaptive Interventions (JITAI) per day, micro‑walks, bedtime shifts, hydration prompts, and “time to pause,” each with a short “why this now” explanation.
Choosing cortisol made the product easier to explain to users and investors, while still leaving room to expand into other hormones later.
Solution design: from dashboards to decisions
Our breakthrough concept became the “Smart Mentor,” a friendly, adaptive guide that learns your stress rhythms and suggests 1–2 personalised actions daily. No dashboards. No guilt notifications. Just meaningful, just‑in‑time micro‑interventions.
As the lead product designer, I defined:
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The core product strategy and MVP roadmap.
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Research synthesis and persona storytelling.
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End‑to‑end UX flows, from onboarding to adaptive daily actions.
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Motion design system and narrative product video for fundraising.
And I worked alongside Manasa, our UI designer, who translated those flows into beautifully calm, inclusive visuals. Together, we created an interface that feels like a breath of air. Simple gradients, soft motion cues, and typography that communicates rest rather than rush.
Planning and execution
Theme of the project
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Created AiTuki's calm, mentor-like design system with soft teal gradients, accessible Inter typography, and subtle state-based colors to evoke stress relief rather than clinical tracking.
Wireframes
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Impact and outcomes
(business + user)
Business impact
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Expanded TAM from a perimenopause‑only niche to a broad metabolic stress market (tens of millions with chronic stress and insomnia), improving long‑term revenue and partnership potential.
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Generated strong early demand signals: 37.5% cohort conversion, high willingness to pay, and a clear, defensible positioning vs. single‑symptom apps.
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Gave founders a crisp investor narrative: AiTuki as the decision layer on top of wearables, not another data tracker.
User impact
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Users reported feeling “guided, not judged” by the 1–2 daily actions and appreciated the short explanations tied to their own patterns.
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Perimenopause remained meaningfully supported but no longer defined or limited the product, users could see themselves in the story regardless of gender or life stage.