About
About Kaizen
A Pomodoro timer with camera-free Focus Rooms, built and run by one person in the Netherlands. Where it came from, what it stands for, and how to reach me.
What it is
A focus timer that puts other people in the room
Kaizen is a Pomodoro timer with Focus Rooms: quiet rooms where you run your own timer next to other people who are also working, no video, no microphone. One app for iPhone, Android, the web, and Windows, and the whole timer is free.
Where it came from
The idea had been brewing for years
Studying alone is the hard part, not the timer. I learned that from a community long before I wrote a line of the app.
2022
A study community
I started helping run the Discord community of Cajun Koi Academy, the study channel by Mike and Matty: tens of thousands of students keeping each other company while they worked.
2023
Cody, the first prototype
I built Cody for that community, a bot with a Pomodoro timer, study-time tracking, and leaderboards. Watching people focus better just because someone else was there is where Focus Rooms come from.
2025
The community becomes Kaizen
When the founders moved on, they handed the community to me and I renamed it Kaizen. In September I started building the app it had been asking for, entirely my own project. A hackathon during my degree was the final push.
2026
Launch, then four platforms
Kaizen launched on Google Play in January and the web later that month, then iOS in May and a native Windows app at the end of that month. About 350 people signed up on day one.
Today
4,000 people and counting
More than 4,000 people have signed up for Kaizen, averaging 4.4 stars on the App Store and Google Play. Together they have logged over 16,500 hours of focus, 2,500 of them in a room with someone else.
What it stands for
Four things that decide what gets built
No cameras
Body doubling works because someone is there, not because someone is watching. Rooms show who is focusing and who is on a break. That is all.
The core stays free
The full timer, every still background, joining rooms, 7 tasks, and 5 habits cost nothing. Premium pays for the rest, so there are no ads and nothing is held hostage.
Honest streaks
A skipped day is not a failure. Streaks follow your schedule and never guilt you back into the app.
One person answers
Support emails and feature requests land with me, not a queue, and they shape what gets built next.
About me
The person behind it
I'm Max Kruiswegt, a 20-year-old developer from Haarlem, in the Netherlands. I studied Information Technology at Hogeschool Inholland, graduated in July 2026, and built Kaizen through my final year, before that as a frontend developer at DTT. I write the code, answer the support email, and read every piece of feedback that comes in.
Kaizen is one app for iPhone, Android, the web, and Windows, built and maintained by one person. I'm also open to frontend and React Native roles around Haarlem and Amsterdam.
Contact
Reach a person, not a form
Email
[email protected] lands in my inbox. Bugs, ideas, or just to say hi.
Try Kaizen
Free on every platform. Open it in your browser and start a session in about a minute.