I built the tracker
I kept not opening.

The Story

I started building in August 2025 and launched a web app in January 2026 — it failed. People needed an app that could send notifications, not a website they had to remember to open every day. Half a year later, on June 8th 2026, I launched on Google Play.

The idea came from a personal need: I wanted to track my reading habit. I'd developed a bad habit of buying books and never reading them, so I needed something to keep me accountable and let me look back at my progress. That became Zhelf Life — lame name, if I'm being honest. It had streaks, but I quickly realized streaks alone don't keep a habit alive. Around then I read Atomic Habits and got introduced to the idea of building systems instead of chasing goals. I needed a tool to help me create those systems, and that idea slowly shaped into what Systivia is today, after a lot of feature-cutting and iteration.

It started as a gamified tracker where your progress would grow a garden — and a long list of features that sounded cool on paper. But once I actually started building, the complexity compounded fast, and I realized I'd stay stuck building forever if I kept adding more. The core idea was simple: focus on identity and systems, not streaks and goals. So I stripped the app down to that core, cut everything that didn't align with it, and focused on building something simple, clean, and effective.

I originally planned to build it for web, so I built the backend and the web app first — only to learn that no one wants to open a website every day to track their habits without a notification nudging them. That's when I realized I needed a mobile app, so I learned how to build one and did it. I eventually removed the web app entirely to focus fully on mobile. Today, it's available to billions of people on the Play Store. One person, from idea to launch.

The reason this exists.

Most habit apps optimize for the metric that's easiest to display: a streak. Open it, tap a box, watch the number tick up. That's a great loop — for nine days. On day ten, life happens and you miss one. The number resets. The app you used to feel proud of now looks like an accusation. And somewhere in there, a thing that was supposed to help you becomes one more thing you're failing at.

James Clear's actual insight in Atomic Habits isn't about consistency. It's about identity: every action is a vote for the kind of person you want to be. A reader doesn't finish 50 books. A reader reads tonight. A skipped Tuesday workout doesn't make you not-an-athlete; it makes you an athlete with a sore back. The story keeps going — it always does, if you let it.

Systivia is that idea, made real. You pick 3–5 identities at onboarding — the people you're becoming, not just the boxes you're ticking. Every habit ties to one of them. Every completion is a small vote of confidence in that person. I celebrate the identity instead of guarding the streak, because the identity is the part that actually matters and the part most apps forget to look after.

I built every other piece of the app around that same belief — flexible scheduling, judgment-free catch-ups, quiet-hours-aware reminders — because life doesn't pause for your habit tracker, and it shouldn't have to. Don't punish people for living a life. That's the whole rule.

Why I’m Still Running It

Building Systivia was the easy part, in a way. Keeping it running — that's the part nobody tells you about.

I do it because somewhere out there is a version of me who hasn't found this yet. Someone who's tired of feeling like they're failing at their own life every time they miss a day. Someone who wants to grow, to change, to become someone a little more free than they were yesterday — and just needs a tool that believes in them instead of keeping score against them. If I can build that for even a handful of people, it feels worth the late nights.

I'm also building a community alongside the app — a place where people can share the habits they're working on, the small wins and the messy setbacks, and talk to others who are trying to grow in the same quiet, deliberate way. Not for likes. Just for the relief of knowing you're not the only one starting over on a Wednesday.

Honestly, it gives back to me too. Every conversation, every idea someone shares, every "here's what I wish it did" — it teaches me something I couldn't have figured out alone. I get to keep learning, keep improving the app, and keep improving myself in the process. That's the real reason I haven't stopped. It doesn't feel like running a product anymore. It feels like building something alongside the people it's for.

What’s Next

Community features are next — a space where people building their identities can share, support, and hold each other accountable. I’m also investing in blogs and short-form content to reach more people who might benefit from this approach.

How I Operate

I don't sell your data — not to advertisers, not to anyone. Everything is hosted on a private VPS that I manage myself. If you ever want to leave, you can request your account be deleted, and it happens instantly and permanently: your account, your habits, your progress, every occurrence and completion — gone, completely, no copies sitting around somewhere.

Systivia is free right now. At some point I'll add a paid plan, mostly so this can sustain itself long-term — but the free version will always exist and always be enough to actually use the app properly.

I'm a solo builder. I decide what gets built and I'm the one who builds it. I take feedback and suggestions seriously — a lot of what exists today started as someone's idea — but the final call is mine. No committee, no investor, no one to convince but myself and the people actually using it.

I’m one person. For press, partnerships, feedback or just to say hi, the right place is systivia@gmail.com or Discord— both real human, fast.