# Marcus Delgado, Senior PM at Fieldstone Labs — read of GritPet, June 16 2026

> 8 years in product at a 60-person B2B SaaS company, been tracking habits since I read Atomic Habits in 2019 and still haven't fixed my sleep.

## How I got here

Someone dropped a link in a Slack group I'm in called "PM After Hours" with the caption "lol is this brilliant or cringe, can't decide." I clicked it on the Blue Line riding home, standing up, one hand on the pole. That's about as much attention as any cold product link gets from me.

## What I clicked first

"No cute animals, no gamification nonsense." That line landed because I tried Habitica three years ago and bailed in a week. The tone felt like it was talking to someone who's tired, not someone who needs a pep talk. I kept reading.

## Where I paused

The "Serious Interface for Serious Men" section. Not because it bothered me exactly, but because I stopped and reread it. "Built for men who find productivity apps patronizing." That's a real thing. I do find most of them patronizing. The Streaks app I use has this little animation when you complete a habit and I've wanted to turn it off for two years. So they're onto something real. I just wasn't sure yet whether they had actually built the thing or were just selling the vibe.

## What I distrusted

The contradiction is right there in the page and nobody seems to have caught it. "No cute animals, no gamification nonsense. Just accountability." And then: "Warrior Levels. Every completed habit builds your companion's strength and unlocks new warrior forms." A companion. That unlocks forms. That is gamification. That is literally a pet mechanic. They're calling it discipline and accountability while describing a tamagotchi that does pushups. I don't think that's fatal, honestly, but the page is trying to be two things at once and hoping you don't notice.

Also: no screenshots. Not one. The word "dark theme" appears but I have no idea what it looks like. "50+ custom warriors" is mentioned under the paid tier. Fifty custom what now? Are these sprites? 3D models? Pixel art? The product is a visual concept and the page has no visuals. That's a choice, but it's a weird one.

"Available Q3 2026" near the bottom. So I'm being asked to get early access for a thing that doesn't exist yet from a studio called Wishdeal that I've never heard of.

## What would convince me

One screenshot of the actual streak decay UI would do more than any copy on this page. Not a mock of the warrior character, the actual data layer, what does it look like when you miss a day and "vitality decays." That's the core mechanic and I can't picture it at all right now.

Also: who built this and why. Not founder voice marketing copy, just the real version. Did someone get fed up with Habitica and build this for themselves? I'd believe that. Right now "Built by Wishdeal Studio" tells me nothing and a quick Google search for Wishdeal tells me they make products, which is true of most studios. One sentence of actual origin story would help.

## What I'd ask in an email reply

1. The page says "no gamification" but also describes companion growth and warrior unlocks. How do you draw that line internally? What makes this different from Habitica's mechanic specifically?
2. Is there a working beta I can actually touch, or is this a landing page to validate interest before building?
3. The decay mechanic, what happens exactly? Does the warrior visually degrade, do you lose streaks, does data get deleted? "Feel weight accumulate" is evocative but I need to know the actual interaction.

## Verdict: on-the-fence

The positioning is sharper than 90% of habit apps I've seen and "no confetti, no mascots, no colors designed for toddlers" made me laugh out loud on the train. But I'm being asked to wait until Q3 for something I can't see, from a studio I don't know, that contradicts itself on its core premise. I'd reply to an email if the founder reached out with a demo video. I wouldn't fill out the waitlist form cold.

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*Memo by skeptic persona, generated 2026-06-16. Studio breaks own self-grading loop.*