How I Built AteIQ in a Week (and Why I’m Glad I Did)

Last month, I found myself in an unusual spot. I wasn’t working full-time. I wasn’t consulting. I wasn’t even really resting. I was floating — thinking, tinkering, and craving a small, focused creative challenge.

I kept coming back to the same thought every time I ate something: Why is food tracking still so broken?

I’ve used just about every app in the space. MyFitnessPal, Cronometer, macros-focused gym apps, AI-powered ones, spreadsheet-style ones. And yet… every time I tried to track a meal, I’d feel the friction. Searching, measuring, weighing, squinting at portion sizes, checking if a certain brand is even in the database. It made healthy habits feel harder, not easier.

So I thought: What if you could just tell your phone what you ate? Just describe it — like you would to a friend — and it figures out the rest.

That thought sparked something.

The Idea: Simpler Tracking Through Language

I didn’t want to build another food tracking app. I wanted to build a better way to reflect on what you eat — one that felt like journaling with an intelligent assistant.

No barcode scanners.
No dropdowns.
No calorie databases in your face.

Just write:

“Two eggs on toast with a bit of avocado, plus a black coffee.”

And get back something like:

285 kcal • 17g protein • 18g fat • 14g carbs

That was the seed. The name came quickly after: AteIQ. Smart, simple eating.

The Build: 7 Days from Idea to App Store

This wasn’t some long-in-the-works project. I built AteIQ in a sprint — about a week from the first line of Swift to App Store submission.

Every day I woke up, brewed some coffee, and asked myself: What’s the smallest set of things that would make this feel magical?

I scoped hard. I designed fast. I coded faster. I reused patterns I’d built before. I even built the landing page (ateiq.app) during lunch one day.

The core stack:

• SwiftUI & Swift Concurrency (async/await all the way)
• A simple backend using OpenAI for natural language interpretation
• SwiftData for offline local storage
• HealthKit for Pro users who want their calories synced
• RevenueCat for in-app purchases

The Launch: What’s in v1

The first version of AteIQ shipped with just the essentials:

• A meal input screen that lets you describe what you ate
• AI-powered nutrition estimation (with smart prompting)
• A history view to see your meals, summaries, and totals
• Free users can log up to 3 meals a day
• Pro users get unlimited logging, Health sync, and early access to new features

It’s clean. It’s fast. It feels good to use — and that was the whole point.

The Philosophy: Simple, Lovable, Complete

I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of SLC over MVP.

Most MVPs feel broken. You ship them knowing they’re missing something. But SLC says: Make it small, make it lovable, make it feel done.

That became the bar for AteIQ. Would I want to use this every day? Would I feel a little joy opening it up? Would it give me just enough insight to nudge healthier choices?

That mindset helped me say no to a bunch of features:

❌ Custom meal templates (for now)
❌ Barcode scanning
❌ Nutrient graphs and charts
❌ Complex goals and planning tools

And instead say yes to:

✅ Instant meal reflection
✅ Beautiful, clear summaries
✅ A calm, focused UI
✅ Just enough value in free, and a reason to go Pro

The Outcome: Something I'm Proud Of

AteIQ launched in May 2025. It’s out now, and already, people are using it to build better habits. That’s wild to me. In just a few days of focused effort, I shipped something that’s helping others (and myself!) reflect more intentionally on food choices.

I’m now slowly adding new features — saved meals, editing, smarter re-analysis, better history tools. But I’m also resisting the urge to rush. The foundation is solid. I want each new feature to be thoughtful, not just more.

If You’re Thinking of Building Something…

Do it.
Start small.
Scope like a maniac.
Ship what feels good.
And don’t wait for permission.

I built AteIQ because I wanted a better way to track what I ate. And it turns out — other people did too.

👉 Download AteIQ on the App Store
👉 Follow along on X (@ateiq_app)
👉 And Instagram (@ateiq.app)

Got thoughts? Ideas? Feedback? Just want to say hey? Drop me a message — I’d genuinely love to hear from you.