Meet Steev Hodgson, Founder of DOSE: Building the Portable Command Center for Adults with ADHD

This is our very first founder interview on Neurodivergent Tech — and we couldn't be more excited to kick things off with Steev Hodgson, Founder and CEO of DOSE.

DOSE is an app built specifically for the way ADHD brains actually work — combining coaching methodology with AI to support focus, emotional regulation, and task initiation. There's also DOSE Academy, a version of the platform designed for kids and teens.

We asked Steev five questions about why he built DOSE, what's inside it, and what he hopes people feel after they use it. His answers are below, in his own words.

1. Tell us a bit about yourself and what inspired you to create DOSE?

I'm Steev Hodgson, Founder and CEO of DOSE. After 20+ years in enterprise technology sales and coming to terms with my own ADHD (undiagnosed until age 48), I became an ICF-credentialed ADHD coach. I worked with hundreds of clients and kept seeing the same gap: Clients asked me for an app because people with ADHD need support between coaching calls, not just during them. They wanted to know what apps I would recommend. So as a self-taught developer, I built the first version of DOSE because I genuinely could not find a tool that met us where we actually are. DOSE is the platform I wish had existed for me.

2. What is DOSE, and what features does the app offer?

DOSE is designed to be the Portable Command Center for adults with ADHD. It combines evidence informed tools based on my coaching methodology to support focus, emotional regulation, and task initiation. The platform at its core includes four tools (SPARK, WAVE, POPCORN, and RSD Meter). A CBT-based thought reframing tool designed to SPARK intentional thinking; a regulation tool to help you ride that emotional WAVE; a quick idea capturing tool for brains like mine that act like a POPCORN machine, popping with ideas by the minute; the RSD Meter, an emotional check-in to combat Rejection Sensitivity and save us from those long spirals; and BARKLEY, our conversational AI layer designed to guide you within DOSE to where you get the most help, learning your patterns over time.

3. There is also DOSE Academy. What features and resources are included?

DOSE Academy (academy.getdose.app) is our platform for kids and teens ages 10 to 17. The interface is slightly different and we include many of the same tools such as SPARK, WAVE and our RSD Meter, plus a new feature called Squad Focus available for peer style body doubling in a safe, moderated environment. We also include a chatbot named Slick, a character designed and inspired by my six-year-old daughter.

4. How can DOSE make a difference in people's lives?

ADHD is not a motivation problem. It is a neurological difference in how the brain regulates attention, emotion, and executive function. Most existing tools were not built with that reality in mind. DOSE meets users in the actual hard moments: the task they cannot start, the emotion they cannot name, the focus session that keeps falling apart. By combining coaching methodology with AI personalization, DOSE gives people with ADHD practical, dignified support that fits into their real lives. For adolescents using Academy, we have the opportunity to intervene early, before years of shame and struggle accumulate.

5. What do you hope people feel after using DOSE?

Two feelings: Acceptance of themselves and the feeling that I am Capable. Not fixed, not managed, not optimized. Capable. People with ADHD spend so much of their lives being told they are broken, lazy, or in my case that I am an underachiever who is not trying hard enough. I want someone to open DOSE in a hard moment and come out the other side feeling like they have something working for them, not against them. And If a student/teen using DOSE Academy finishes a homework session and feels proud instead of defeated, we have done something meaningful. At the end of the day that makes me happy!

Learn more

• DOSE: getdose.app
• DOSE Academy: academy.getdose.app

👉 Browse more ADHD tools in the directory.