ADHDump

Case study

The idea for ADHDump began in the car, with a thought Byron Peel did not want to lose.

Byron, a La Trobe Bachelor of Business student and tradesperson, was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. He would often remember something important at exactly the wrong time: while driving, away from a notebook, or unable to stop and type a reminder into his phone.

One day, he said what became the starting point for the business: “I wish I could just dump everything I’m thinking right now into my phone.”

His wife, Christina Forster, a La Trobe alumna and registered nurse, saw the potential immediately. “I was like, well, let’s do it. Let’s make that,” she says.

Together, they co-founded Executive Function Technologies, the company behind ADHDump, a voice-first app designed to act as an “external brain” for adults with ADHD. Users can capture thoughts by voice, then return to them later when they have more capacity. The couple then brought the idea into La Trobe’s LaunchPad start-up program, connecting ADHDump to university support as it developed from a family idea into a growing business.

The app draws on the proven phenomenon of cognitive offloading: using an external action or tool to reduce the mental load of holding everything in working memory. Christina says early research supports the value of speaking aloud for memory and self-regulation, but more work is needed to understand how spoken brain dumping could support adults with ADHD.

“That’s where we’d love to keep working with universities like La Trobe,” she says, “to validate and build on the approach.”

For many people with ADHD, the problem is not only forgetting, but also the overwhelm that follows. For Byron, Christina says a small disruption, such as misplacing car keys, can derail the whole day. One frustration builds into another until the original task is still undone.

ADHDump is designed to reduce that friction. Users can say, “Hey Siri, brain dump,” speak freely, and let the app capture the thought. It can then help break the dump into next steps, add tasks to a calendar, or prompt users to review what they have captured.

Other features respond to common sources of overwhelm. For example, users can scan a document to generate a shorter summary, photograph a room or desk to receive small next steps, or share selected dumps with a therapist to bring dated, time-stamped context into appointments.

Launching with La Trobe

Christina brings nursing and disability-support experience to the product, while Byron brings lived ADHD experience and a direct test for whether it works in real life.

“If he can’t use it, no one can use it,” Christina says.

But turning that insight into a usable app required a broader team. From Bendigo, the couple added technical, product, brand, and marketing expertise, then tested the app through pilot programs with people with ADHD and the coaches, psychologists, and psychiatrists who support them. That feedback helped refine the product, from simplifying an early layout that users found overwhelming to developing the therapy support feature so clinicians can see patterns in a client’s thoughts between sessions.

LaunchPad helped the founders build the business around that product. Christina says the program gave them connections they would not otherwise have had, along with ongoing support from mentor Jeff Jones, Manager of La Trobe’s Digital Innovation Hub and Director of Cisco Innovation Central Melbourne.

The founders recently won Lift Off, La Trobe LaunchPad’s pitch night, but, Christina says, they did not arrive at the final feeling like polished pitch-night contenders. Their first pitch ran over time, and they only made it through as a wildcard.

For the final, Christina and Byron decided to stop trying to deliver the perfect script and simply speak as themselves: two passionate people who know exactly why the app matters.

“We know the app,” Christina remembers telling Byron. “We’re just going to be us and speak from the heart.”

To their amazement, ADHDump was named the winning pitch of the night.

“We were in disbelief because there were so many people there with so many great ideas,” she says. “We were over the moon.”

Now, ADHDump is preparing for its next stage.

The team has built interest through LinkedIn and ADHD communities in Australia and overseas. Christina says the goal is to channel that early interest into a smaller group of engaged users as the app launches.

For Christina, the main feature remains that initial idea: voice-first brain dump. “Saying something out loud is different to holding it in your head or writing it down,” she says. “This is going to help so many people.”

Find out more about  ADHDump — ADHD Management Tools for Mental Clarity.

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