Helio

Hey Product Hunt! I'm Dave, founder of Helio, and I'm excited to share what I've been building for the past 6 months. What inspired me to build this: In late 2024, I was diagnosed with a serious medical condition that required intensive treatment. As a founder running multiple projects, I suddenly couldn't micromanage everything like I used to. I needed a project management tool that would work autonomously—monitoring projects, catching issues early, and alerting me only when something truly needed my attention. I looked at Asana, Monday.com, Jira, ClickUp—they're all great at tracking what's happening, but none of them predict what's about to happen or take proactive action. They require constant attention. I needed something that would manage projects for me, not just display them. So I decided to build it. The problem I'm solving: Traditional PM tools are reactive. They tell you deadlines were missed after they're missed. They show you budgets were exceeded after they're exceeded. They require you to constantly check dashboards, manually balance workloads, and chase down blockers. Helio is proactive. It predicts timeline slips 2-3 weeks before they happen. It detects when team members are overloaded and suggests reassignments. It extracts tasks from Slack conversations automatically. It monitors project health hourly and alerts you exactly when and why problems are emerging—before they derail your timeline. The goal: project management that works for you instead of requiring you to work for it. How the approach evolved: I started as a non-technical founder who barely knew what TypeScript was. Built everything with heavy AI assistance (Claude became my coding mentor). Made every beginner mistake in the book—database security issues, architecture problems, deployment headaches. But here's what changed my approach: I realized "AI-powered" means nothing if it doesn't solve real problems. Early versions had AI summaries and suggestions that looked cool but added no value. So I stripped everything back to one question: "What would prevent me from missing this deadline if I wasn't checking in every day?" That led to: Autonomous monitoring that runs hourly, not on-demand Predictive alerts that catch problems 2-3 weeks early Workload balancing that happens automatically Cross-platform intelligence that pulls from Slack, not just the tool itself AI that creates follow-up tasks and takes actions, not just makes suggestions The product evolved from "AI features" to "AI that actually manages projects." What I learned: Building with AI as a non-technical founder is possible but humbling. AI can write code, but it can't tell you if you're solving the wrong problem. I spent months building features I thought PMs needed, then rebuilt them based on what actually prevents project failures. The breakthrough: Stop trying to build a better Asana. Build the tool that does what a dedicated project manager would do if they were monitoring your projects 24/7. Where we are now: Helio is launching in beta today with: Autonomous project monitoring Predictive risk alerts Slack task detection Intelligent task routing Real-time workload balancing Budget forecasting Timeline predictions It's not perfect. There are rough edges. But it's solving real problems for real teams. I'd love your feedback! Try it out, break it, tell me what doesn't make sense, and share what problems you face with current PM tools. This is day one of making project management actually intelligent. Thanks for checking out Helio!