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Launch HN: Simple Habit (YC W17) – Spotify for Meditation

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Re: Launch HN: Simple Habit (YC W17) – Spotify for Meditation

#21

Post by thecupisblue »

yunhakim wrote: post #17
thecupisblue wrote: post #10

Looks simple, great, like something I'd wanna use and later on when I fall into the habit possibly subscribe to. Buuuut, not available in my country. How come it isn't worldwide? Now, I got a bunch of questions: Why don't you link your instagram/twitter from the site? Had to google it which was "ugh" already. How do you pick your teachers? Why do you think you can take the piece of the big player's pie in this market…

Thanks for some great questions :) 1. Thanks for pointing that out! We’re going to link our Instagram/Twitter accounts on our site right away :) 2. We vet top meditation teachers from around the world — most if not all of our teachers have been trained through reputable programs (e.g. Google’s Search Inside Yourself), and teach at top universities and institutes, like the University of Pennsylvania or Columbia Univer…

Thanks for answering Yunha! This is the second time I've heard about Google's "Search Inside Yourself" today, guess I should start meditating. Also, my last question! Why don't you post a 60 second meditation as an instagram video? That would be so awesome and I know I'd love it, think that as a sponsored post would be a pretty interesting marketing tactic.

Re: Launch HN: Simple Habit (YC W17) – Spotify for Meditation

#22

Post by yunhakim »

_m8fo wrote: post #5

1. Is there any evidence that multiple teachers are better? If so, I'd love citations. 2. Is there evidence that situation-specific meditations are useful? 3. How much are the teachers paid, if at all? 4. What's the criteria for one being a "top mindfulness teacher"?

Thanks for these great questions!

1. Before Simple Habit, I was actually a power user of some of other meditation apps so the benefit of a multi-teacher platform is something I stumbled upon personally. Being able to explore different voices, styles, and techniques helps users experiment with what really resonates with them. We’ve found that our users like the diversity and will often (if not always) engage with content from different teachers on the app.

2. Situation-specific meditations make it easy for users to integrate mindful moments all throughout their day. At Simple Habit, we believe that meditation helps people do more throughout their day, be more resilient, and engage more with life. Situation-specific, meditations make the benefits directly applicable to whatever they might be doing, whether they’re heading into a meeting, about to give a presentation, or going through a conflict.

3. Yes! Part of our mission is to help meditation teachers monetize on their impact and hard work.

4. We primarily vet teachers based on reputable training/credentials (many of our teachers were trained through Google’s Search Inside Yourself program and/or top universities), and the quality of their teaching experience. We’re aiming to create a high quality platform comprised of the most respected teachers in the space.

Re: Launch HN: Simple Habit (YC W17) – Spotify for Meditation

#24

Post by mrsheen »

yunhakim wrote: post #20
OrBaruk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about having them in my native language, it's about having them on my phone as an app instead of a website. At least the website seems to work well on mobile.

Awesome! Just curious, which country are you based in? We can look into enabling it. The only concern for enabling in non-English speaking countries is that often users give 1 stars for not having meditations translated in their languages, and that's challenging to do so quickly for a small startup, as you might understand :)

Please enable it for Poland! We usually speak English pretty well :)

Re: Launch HN: Simple Habit (YC W17) – Spotify for Meditation

#27

Post by wrd »

Cool app! Thanks for sharing. I think this is great for an introduction to meditation and to help build a habit.

One difficulty I have with apps like this is that they're not necessarily incentivized to produce good meditation habits. If a user builds a real meditation practice then they're likely not going to want to use an app like this -- they'll probably want to meditate in silence and for much longer than 5 minutes. I'm curious how you think about what the ideal end-game is for each user and if you're concerned about churn? How do you plan to serve users who grow beyond 5 minute meditation?

Re: Launch HN: Simple Habit (YC W17) – Spotify for Meditation

#28

Post by akprasad »

benevol wrote: post #26

John Kabat-Zinn masters the link between science and meditation and has published very valuable books (including progressing guided/audio meditation exercises, each 5-10 minutes), such as https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4180277/Mindful_Way_Through...

Another great book is The Mind Illuminated, which IMO is as comprehensive and detailed a meditation book as you're likely to find. Plus it's written for a pragmatic Western audience and doesn't feature the sorts of spiritual trappings that tend to turn people off.

Re: Launch HN: Simple Habit (YC W17) – Spotify for Meditation

#29

Post by mlitwiniuk »

mrsheen wrote: post #24
yunhakim wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Awesome! Just curious, which country are you based in? We can look into enabling it. The only concern for enabling in non-English speaking countries is that often users give 1 stars for not having meditations translated in their languages, and that's challenging to do so quickly for a small startup, as you might understand :)

Please enable it for Poland! We usually speak English pretty well :)

Oh yeah, that would be nice.

Re: Launch HN: Simple Habit (YC W17) – Spotify for Meditation

#30

Post by sebleon »

Interesting, your app store description mentions previous launches from before June 2016. Seems like you got some solid attention on previous launch(es), what kind of traction are you looking for on your definitive launch?

Big fan of the Airbnb approach of launching until someone notices!

http://www.businessinsider.com/top-17-startups-launched-in-2...

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