High quality coaching is normally fairly expensive (I make a joke out of it in my pricing page) so I wanted to give a similar level of coaching for a far more accessible price. My background includes working as both as an executive coach and a product manager, so I also thought this would a fun project to see where it could go.
FYI, this is a solo project and I know that many consumers use the default chat LLMs and wrapper apps (such as the journaling ones) as pseudo therapy. I'm also aware of enterprise level solutions that are similar to this (albeit not completely the same).
Despite all that, I felt like these apps didn't go deep enough and were often too prescriptive. What I wanted to replicate was the lightbulb experience that I could usually help my clients get to when I was coaching them. Something that made them go "Oh, I never realized this could have been a problem" or "Wow, I didn't know that would make such a difference" about the way they show up as leaders or to their business. This was harder to do with just a system prompt.
This really made for long periods of testing as I built this MVP since I knew what my evals were from personal experience. I broke down my skillset into various components and gave them as tools to my LLM coach. I had to experiment with context windows and how to keep the high level goal consistent over a long conversation. I haven't done any actual fine tuning yet. I don't think this is highly polished by any means but would love feedback to see if this is of interest to anyone and if it's worth continuing to build on.
Additional Context:
- There are both text and voice coaching options. The latter is more limited to users since voice APIs aren't cheap...but the coaching engine behind the two are the same.
- Coaching is not therapy, consulting or mentoring. The principle behind coaching is that no one can make you change your mind. You need to realize it yourself to come up with a solution that resonates with you. Coaching guides you towards that. For example, giving you 3 options to fix your problem is not coaching.
- There is a free trial but I can extend your testing indefinitely with a code, please contact me if you want this.
- Happy to chat if you'd like to give me a brain dump over a call or such. I'm especially interested in what use cases resonate with you or others that you can relate with.
- Also happy to do an actual coaching session with me if you'd like to A/B test coaching with me vs the AI based one.
- If you happen to work at a company that has bought/integrated with AI coaching, I'd super appreciate a high level comparison. I know about Pinnacle since that came across my desk as an angel investment.
If you need to contact me for anything - my email is michaelhhuang@gmail.com