Promethee is a focus-tracking desktop app for Mac and Windows that turns deep work sessions into a shared, scored activity. Users run timed focus blocks, earn XP, keep daily streaks, climb a weekly leaderboard, and post what they are building to a community feed of other operators. The pitch to founders and builders is simple accountability through visibility, pulling solo work out of isolation and giving it the social loop that running apps gave to training.
The app is being built by N. Lacombe, who first developed it as a side project that reached roughly 3,000 users, alongside co-founder Miron Puzanov, who won Russia's largest hackathon at 18. Their framing leans on the idea that competition and peers are what make effort sustainable, with the broader goal of building software for "augmented humans."
This launch matters because the product is now open to everyone after a more limited rollout, with shareable profile and guild links so teams, cohorts, and friend groups can plug in directly. For investors and operators watching the productivity space, it is a concrete bet that gamified, social accountability can do for knowledge work what Strava did for endurance sports.
Comments (15)
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Yuki Tanabe8d ago
the split screen in the launch video selling the loneliness before showing the app is actual craft. most launch videos just cut to the dashboard in 4 seconds.
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Sofia Marchetti8d ago
would love to chat about the origin story for a piece I'm working on. DMs open whenever.
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Jin-ae K.8d ago
the voiceover on the demo sounds like a nespresso ad and I mean that as a compliment. who edited this?
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Obafemi A.8d ago
work is addictive when you're not alone, also when your manager is watching. curious which one Promethee is leaning into.
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Priya Raghavan8d ago
multiplayer productivity has a graveyard behind it. what does retention look like past week 4 when the novelty of watching coworkers grind wears off? interesting though.
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Nabil R.8d ago
cool product but how are you actually getting it inside teams? bottoms-up for multiplayer is brutal because one person installing it alone defeats the whole pitch.
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lena8d ago
ok this is basically what I've been sketching for 3 weeks. guess I'm pivoting again by friday.
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Marcus O.8d ago
we shipped something like this inside Meta in 2019 called FocusRoom. killed by legal in six months. good luck, genuinely.
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Devika N.8d ago
the gamification literature on peer-visible task completion is pretty mixed (see Hamari et al. 2014). what's the behavioral model you're betting on here?
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Tomasz K.8d ago
building something adjacent in the async coworking space and honestly the Promethee framing is sharper than mine. back to the drawing board I guess.
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Haniya S.8d ago
if coworkers can see each other's task streams, where does that data live and who's processing it under GDPR? asking for every european team that will try this.
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Roman D.8d ago
that launch tweet is sitting on a weird like-to-view ratio. either the algo is throttling the video embed or the hook isn't landing in the first second.
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arjun8d ago
feels like the last productivity app built for humans sitting at keyboards. in 18 months the players will be agents and the humans will be spectators.
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Kweku B.8d ago
any design engineer roles opening up? I know a brilliant kid in Accra who redesigned a Linear clone over a weekend for fun.
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Ingrid H.8d ago
before our team touches this: SSO, SOC2, DPA? our procurement cycle eats fun startups for breakfast.
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Work is addictive when you’re not alone.
Work is addictive when you’re not alone.
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Promethee is a focus-tracking desktop app for Mac and Windows that turns deep work sessions into a shared, scored activity. Users run timed focus blocks, earn XP, keep daily streaks, climb a weekly leaderboard, and post what they are building to a community feed of other operators. The pitch to founders and builders is simple accountability through visibility, pulling solo work out of isolation and giving it the social loop that running apps gave to training. The app is being built by N. Lacombe, who first developed it as a side project that reached roughly 3,000 users, alongside co-founder Miron Puzanov, who won Russia's largest hackathon at 18. Their framing leans on the idea that competition and peers are what make effort sustainable, with the broader goal of building software for "augmented humans." This launch matters because the product is now open to everyone after a more limited rollout, with shareable profile and guild links so teams, cohorts, and friend groups can plug in directly. For investors and operators watching the productivity space, it is a concrete bet that gamified, social accountability can do for knowledge work what Strava did for endurance sports.
Comments (15)
the split screen in the launch video selling the loneliness before showing the app is actual craft. most launch videos just cut to the dashboard in 4 seconds.
would love to chat about the origin story for a piece I'm working on. DMs open whenever.
the voiceover on the demo sounds like a nespresso ad and I mean that as a compliment. who edited this?
work is addictive when you're not alone, also when your manager is watching. curious which one Promethee is leaning into.
multiplayer productivity has a graveyard behind it. what does retention look like past week 4 when the novelty of watching coworkers grind wears off? interesting though.
cool product but how are you actually getting it inside teams? bottoms-up for multiplayer is brutal because one person installing it alone defeats the whole pitch.
ok this is basically what I've been sketching for 3 weeks. guess I'm pivoting again by friday.
we shipped something like this inside Meta in 2019 called FocusRoom. killed by legal in six months. good luck, genuinely.
the gamification literature on peer-visible task completion is pretty mixed (see Hamari et al. 2014). what's the behavioral model you're betting on here?
building something adjacent in the async coworking space and honestly the Promethee framing is sharper than mine. back to the drawing board I guess.
if coworkers can see each other's task streams, where does that data live and who's processing it under GDPR? asking for every european team that will try this.
that launch tweet is sitting on a weird like-to-view ratio. either the algo is throttling the video embed or the hook isn't landing in the first second.
feels like the last productivity app built for humans sitting at keyboards. in 18 months the players will be agents and the humans will be spectators.
any design engineer roles opening up? I know a brilliant kid in Accra who redesigned a Linear clone over a weekend for fun.
before our team touches this: SSO, SOC2, DPA? our procurement cycle eats fun startups for breakfast.