Voleri Blog
The Best 20% That 80% Actually Use: How We Designed Voleri’s Core Modules
Most productivity, wellness, nutrition, and finance apps try to be everything for everyone.
The result is predictable:
- Dozens of menus.
- Infinite configuration options.
- A lot of features you could use… but never actually do.
When I started building Voleri, I made myself a promise:
“Focus on the best 20% that 80% of people actually use.”
This post is about how that principle shaped Voleri’s four core modules — and how they fit together in this early alpha.
Why the “best 20%” matters
In almost every app I tried, the pattern was the same:
- I used a handful of simple features every day.
- The rest of the product existed to justify a higher price, not to make my life calmer.
- Every new screen added more cognitive load.
The more I talked to other “app refugees”, the clearer it became:
- People don’t want more features.
- They want the right few features that are always there, easy to find, and easy to trust.
So instead of asking “What else can I add?”, I started asking a different question:
“What can I remove, while still making this genuinely useful?”
That’s how the four modules of Voleri were born.
Module 1 – Planner: Simple, honest planning
The Planner is where most people’s day actually starts.
What I didn’t want:
- Infinite views, nested projects, complex workflows.
- A full project management system pretending to be a daily planner.
What made the cut:
- A clear Today / week view for tasks and plans.
- The ability to add, complete, and reprioritize quickly.
- Just enough structure to feel in control, but not trapped.
The Planner in Voleri is designed to answer a single question:
“What do I actually need to do today?”
No more, no less.
Module 2 – Wellness: Habits, mood, and sleep without guilt
Most wellness apps lean heavily on streaks, gamification, and notifications.
For some people, that works.
For many of us, it just adds guilt.
What I didn’t want:
- Streak shaming when you miss a day.
- Flashy animations and rewards for basic self‑care.
- A sense that you’re “failing” if you’re not perfect.
What made the cut in Voleri’s Wellness module:
- Habits with a gentle view of your week/month.
- Mood tracking that takes a few seconds, not minutes.
- Sleep tracking that lets you see patterns over time.
The goal isn’t to turn your life into a game.
The goal is simple awareness:
“How am I actually doing, and what might I want to adjust?”
In this alpha, Wellness lives alongside your planning, nutrition, and finance — everything in one calm place, without extra noise.
Module 3 – Nutrition: Awareness, not obsession
Nutrition tools often swing to extremes:
- Hyper‑detailed tracking that turns every meal into data entry.
- Or overly simplistic tools that don’t help you notice patterns at all.
I wanted something in between.
What I didn’t want:
- Pressure to hit perfect macros every day.
- Guilt‑driven design, especially around food.
What made the cut in Voleri’s Nutrition module:
- Basic meal logging so you can see your days at a glance.
- Hydration tracking that takes a couple of taps.
- Simple goals to create awareness, not anxiety.
The point isn’t “How do I optimize everything I eat?”
It’s closer to:
“Can I see, without judgment, how I’m actually eating over time?”
Again, in this alpha, Nutrition is one module in a single homebase — not an isolated app that demands its own rituals.
Module 4 – Finance: Calm money awareness
Money is one of the biggest invisible stressors in people’s lives.
The typical options:
- Complex budgeting software that feels like a part‑time job.
- Bank apps that show numbers but don’t help you feel in control.
With Voleri’s Finance module, I wanted something lighter:
What I didn’t want:
- Overwhelming categorization rules.
- A sense that you need to become a spreadsheet wizard to “do it right”.
What made the cut:
- Simple transactions logging (income and expenses).
- Budgets and savings goals that you can actually maintain.
- A basic view of where your money is going.
The question this module tries to answer is:
“Am I moving in the right direction with my money, or drifting?”
No advanced reports, no endless knobs — just the core 20% that most people need.
Where interconnection fits in (now vs. roadmap)
One of the most important beliefs behind Voleri is that life is interconnected:
- Sleep affects your mood.
- Mood affects your ability to follow your plan.
- Meals influence your energy.
- Money affects your stress levels.
The vision for Voleri is to reflect that interconnection more and more over time.
In this alpha:
- All four modules already live in one calm homebase.
- You don’t have to juggle separate apps for planning, wellness, nutrition, and finances.
- You can move between them quickly without changing context.
On the roadmap (next development steps):
- Surface more of these relationships in meaningful ways:
- Let your planning view be aware of your recent sleep.
- Help you notice patterns between spending and stress.
- Connect habits, mood, and daily plans more intelligently.
- Do this without turning Voleri into another overwhelming “super‑app”.
Interconnection is the direction, not a marketing trick — and it will always be implemented with the “best 20%” rule in mind.
Why this approach matters (especially for app refugees)
If you’re an “app refugee” — someone burned by bloat, paywalls, and noisy tools — this might sound familiar:
- You don’t want to manage a complex system.
- You just want a clear, honest view of your life in one place.
- You care about privacy, mission, and fair pricing.
Designing Voleri around the best 20% is my way of honoring that.
No feature exists just because it’s trendy.
Everything has to earn its place — by making your life calmer, not more complicated.
If this resonates with you
Right now, Voleri is in an early alpha with a small group of users I call Founders:
- The first 100 people who want to help shape this product.
- $2/month, locked in for life.
- Your main “job”: use Voleri in your real life and tell me the truth about what works and what doesn’t.
If you like the idea of a single, calmer homebase built on “the best 20% that 80% actually use”, I’d love to have you in that group.