I'm Josh Jorgenson, and I build Norvayo on my own. No company, no team, no investors.
The loop I couldn't see my way out of
I'd quit nicotine pouches "for good" more times than I could count. I use On!, around 20 a day, and have for about six years. I started actively trying to quit in June 2024, tapering, and Norvayo exists somewhere around attempt number four.
The moment that actually stuck with me was realising I wasn't even enjoying it anymore. It was just a loop I couldn't see my way out of, and what I kept coming back to was that I needed accountability — one person who'd notice if I stopped trying.
Every app I found was built for cigarettes
So I did what everyone does and looked for help. The apps asked how many packs a day I smoked and talked about tar and secondhand smoke. None of it fit. Pouches are their own thing — no smoke, no smell, easy to hide, easy to use all day without anyone noticing, including yourself. I ended up tracking my usage in my phone's notes app and doing the craving maths by hand.
The thing most people get wrong is assuming quitting pouches is basically quitting smoking. It isn't. There's no ashtray, no "I need to step outside" moment that forces you to notice the dependency. The habit hides, even from you. And a lot of pouch users started because they were quitting cigarettes or vaping — they already see themselves as someone who quit. You can't tell them they have a problem again. You have to meet them as someone finishing a job they started.
So I built the tool I couldn't find
Norvayo is built only for pouches — the tracking, the taper, and the language all assume that's what you're using. A few decisions came straight out of my own experience:
- A slip is data, not a verdict. Most apps stop at a day counter, which is great until day three when you're about to cave and the app has nothing for you. The effort went into the moment of the craving.
- A real taper mode. Most apps assume you quit all at once. Most people don't succeed with pouches that way.
- Circles, for group accountability. Quitting something invisible is isolating — nobody around you even knows you're doing it. That's the whole reason it started.
I'm not a developer
Close to none, on paper. I'd never written a line of code before this — my background is property tax consulting, nothing to do with health tech or software. What I had was the problem itself: years of trying to quit, and a clear picture of the product I wanted because I'd spent so long piecing it together for myself.
So I taught myself to build it — VS Code with Claude, React Native and Expo, and a lot of trial and error to get from zero to a shipped app. It took longer than it would have for someone experienced, but every decision came from having lived the problem rather than from a spec someone handed me.
The biggest mistake I made
I built the entire first version as a web app before realising that a real app in the Play Store — notifications, offline access, something people keep on their phone — had to be built natively. I rebuilt it in React Native and Expo more or less from scratch. Painful, but it forced me to redo a lot of the decisions I'd rushed, and the second version is genuinely better for it. The lesson: when you're learning as you go, spend a day up front understanding what the finish line actually requires.
Where it is right now
Norvayo is live on the Play Store, and I've done no outreach yet — no Reddit, no socials, no ads, no press. For a few weeks I just want to watch how the people who find it by searching the store actually use the app: where they drop off, and what helps in the moment a craving hits. The next 6–12 months are about tightening the core around that — smarter craving support that responds to your real patterns, Circles that are easier to stay engaged with, and taper logic that adapts when you slip instead of restarting. If it gets real traction on Android, iOS is the next big step.
I'm deliberately keeping it small. The point of Norvayo is that it does one thing well — help you stop using nicotine pouches. Anything that doesn't serve that isn't going in.
What I'm not
I'm not a doctor, a therapist, or a counselor, and I don't have any medical training. Nothing on this site is clinical advice, and I try to write from experience rather than authority. Where I state facts about nicotine or withdrawal, I link to sources that do have the expertise — mainly the CDC, the NIH, the FDA, and Truth Initiative.
If you want support from someone qualified, your doctor or pharmacist is a better starting point than me, and most countries run a free quitline staffed by trained counselors.
How the app makes money, plainly
Norvayo is free to use, and the parts that help you get through a craving are free permanently — logging, the coping tools, streaks and badges, a full taper plan, one accountability partner, and exporting your own data. A paid tier adds pattern analysis, paced daily windows, longer trend charts, and small group Circles.
There are no ads and no analytics SDKs in the app, and your data is never sold or shared with third parties. That's not a positioning statement — it's in the privacy policy and the Play Store data safety declarations, and you can hold me to it.
Getting in touch
If something here is wrong, or the app did something confusing, I'd genuinely like to know: support@norvayo.com. It goes to me.