Document Metadata

• title: Product
• brief: Maintain
• description: One-page summary of the user, problem, MVP, and risks
• status: evolving
• lastUpdated: "2026-04-04 10:48 ET (America/New_York)"
• owner: Product/Engineering

Product brief: Maintain ## 1) Problem **Who is the user? ** - A person trying to maintain weight after loss, often after a major life or body transition s

Document Metadata

• title: Product brief: Maintain
• description: One-page summary of the user, problem, MVP, and risks
• status: evolving
• lastUpdated: "2026-04-04 10:48 ET (America/New_York)"
• owner: Product/Engineering

Product brief: Maintain

1) Problem

Who is the user?

• A person trying to maintain weight after loss, often after a major life or body transition such as pregnancy, menopause, weight-loss surgery, or years of dramatic fluctuation.
• They may be using GLP-1 medication as part of long-term maintenance and want support for staying steady, not pressure to keep shrinking.

What pain are we solving?

• Existing weight apps over-index on loss, streaks, and pressure.
• Maintenance users need a calmer product that answers three questions fast:
  • Am I still inside my range?
  • How much is my weight fluctuating over the short and long term?
  • What medication and routine context seems to line up with steadier maintenance for me?
• Most products also ignore the user's story, even though maintenance decisions make more sense when grounded in life stage, prior treatment history, and personal context.

2) Why now

• GLP-1 and post-loss maintenance are creating a large audience that needs support after the "weight loss" phase, not another app that treats maintenance like failure or drift like panic.
• The category still lacks a strong product centered on stability, medication-aware context, and long-horizon maintenance instead of achievement loops built for active loss.

3) Solution (MVP)

One-sentence pitch: Maintain is a private, premium iPhone app that helps people stay inside a chosen maintenance range, reduce weight volatility over time, and understand the medication-and-routine context associated with steadier maintenance.

Core product pillars

• Range confidence: the user sets a target range, with a default 5 lb maintenance band that can be customized.
• Fluctuation awareness: the app makes short-term and long-term weight volatility easy to see at a glance, starting with a 30-day view and month-over-month comparison.
• Medication context: the app helps the user understand maintenance in the context of GLP-1 dosing, with strong guardrails against pretending to be a prescriptive medical tool.
• Personal context: the app preserves the user's maintenance story so trends and choices are interpreted in the context of their real history.

MVP scope (in)

• Set a maintenance range during onboarding, defaulting to a 5 lb band but allowing custom range width.
• Log weigh-ins, GLP-1 dose events, and basic routine context.
• See a calm home experience that answers current range status, 30-day fluctuation, and month-over-month change.
• Maintain a lightweight personal profile with narrative and structured context such as life stage, prior surgery, major fluctuation history, and expected long-term medication use.
• Support eventual sync, exports, and clinician or coach sharing through a backend scaffold.

Out of scope (v1)

• Full telehealth or clinician collaboration workflows.
• Android, web, or broad social/community features.
• Automated medication recommendations or unsupported clinical guidance.

4) Success metrics

• Activation: user completes onboarding and creates a maintenance range.
• Retention: active users continue logging weigh-ins, dose events, and maintenance context over multiple weeks.
• Product comprehension: users can explain their current range status and recent fluctuation trend after a quick glance at Home.
• Revenue (if applicable): premium conversion from users who want a focused maintenance product.

5) Assumptions and risks

Assumption	Risk if false	Validation plan
Users want a maintenance-specific product rather than a general weight app	Positioning may be too narrow to sustain premium demand	Test messaging, conversion, and retention with early cohorts
Calm, non-punitive framing increases trust and retention	Users may still want more aggressive intervention or coaching	Interview users and compare engagement across dashboard/recommendation patterns
Users care about fluctuation minimization, not just absolute weight	Volatility views may feel too abstract or secondary	Test whether fluctuation summaries improve repeat home-view engagement and interpretation
Users want medication context without the app acting like a clinician	Dose features may feel either too shallow or too medically risky	Keep the app descriptive first, validate language carefully, and add clinician-review feedback before stronger decision support

6) Open questions

• What is the best simple fluctuation metric for the first release: range spread, average deviation from target, or a custom volatility score?
• How should the app phrase medication-related maintenance context so it feels useful without sounding prescriptive?
• Which parts of the journey profile should be structured fields versus open narrative?
• How much recommendation logic should live on-device versus in backend workflows?

Provenance

• Source file: DOCS/product/product-brief.md
• Source URL: https://github.com/maggielerman/maintain-ios/blob/main/DOCS/product/product-brief.md