Most fitness and wellness apps treat accessibility as an afterthought—something to bolt on after the product is already built. Lift Eachother Empowerment, a new nonprofit founded by Nick Justice and Zach VanStory, is taking the opposite approach: building from the ground up for disabled and neurodivergent people, then opening the door to everyone else.
The organization’s flagship product, AdaptivLyfe, is a wellness platform that combines adaptive fitness routines, AI-supported workouts, and six gamified sensory tools designed to help users regulate, focus, and move in ways that actually work for their bodies and brains. The app includes features like Cosmic Nebula, Slime Game, Bubble Wrap, and Leaf Crunching—digital stimming tools that serve a real purpose for autistic and ADHD users who need sensory input to stay regulated throughout the day.
“We’re designing support I wish existed years ago,” VanStory explains in the organization’s mission statement. As a late-diagnosed autistic founder, he’s building the inclusive wellness platform with lived experience at the center of every decision, not as a marketing angle but as core design philosophy.
Accessibility as Default, Not Add-On
AdaptivLyfe is structured as a Progressive Web App, easily functional on both IOS or Android, designed toward WCAG 2.1 AA compliance so it is based on four principles: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. Featuring systems like screen readers and enhanced color contrast. It includes all success criteria from WCAG 2.0, plus 12 additional criteria of assistive technologies. That level of accessibility is still uncommon in the wellness tech space, where many popular apps remain difficult or impossible to use for people with motor disabilities, visual impairments, or cognitive differences.
The platform also integrates executive function support and trauma-aware education—features that acknowledge the reality that many disabled and neurodivergent people struggle with traditional wellness advice that assumes consistent energy, predictable schedules, and bodies that respond in standard ways. The adaptive fitness and sensory regulation tools are meant to meet people where they are, not where a fitness influencer thinks they should be.
Nonprofit Model Prioritizes Impact Over Growth
Because Lift Eachother Empowerment operates as a nonprofit—with 501(c)(3) status currently pending—the focus is on sustainable access rather than maximum revenue. AdaptivLyfe uses a freemium model with low-cost premium options and scholarship-style support to reduce financial barriers for the people who need it most.
The organization’s near-term goals reflect that ethos. Over the next year, the team aims to build a core user base of a few thousand people and establish partnerships with disability organizations, clinics, and peer-support groups. By year two, they want to publish impact metrics on retention and self-reported improvements in regulation and movement. By year three, the vision includes a small network of partner organizations using the app in group settings and clinical programs.
For disabled and neurodivergent people tired of opening wellness apps that clearly weren’t built with them in mind, AdaptivLyfe’s community-centered approach offers something genuinely different: a platform where accessibility isn’t a checkbox, but the entire point.