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

news.ycombinator.com

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

#81

Post by tb303 »

richard___ wrote: post #37

Charging people as a subscription service for meditation help feels a little queasy. Also I think it's a Silicon Valley neurosis that you need an app or technology to address problems like depression and low self-esteem (which meditation in the traditional sense addresses).

+1000

kabat-zinn guided meditations with lots of silence, free

body scan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8oKWQiEWYs

10 min: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HYLyuJZKno

40 min: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQkzhyXEc-0

(many others, search kabat-zinn on yt)

you don't need an app.

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

#82

Post by grzm »

tb303 wrote: post #80
yunhakim wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great question! It’s true that hardcore meditators often prefer to meditate for longer than five minutes, so we do have meditations up to 30 minutes in length to cater to that. What’s interesting, though, is that even experienced meditators can see the value of a quick meditation in the middle of their day, like during their lunch break or right before an important phone call. We like to think of meditation…

there is something very weird to me about calling someone a "hardcore meditator" for meditating >5 minutes. It takes me 5 minutes just to get my brain to shut up. Listening to someone else put words in my brain for five minutes isn't meditation. It's not mindfulness. It's training towards the two, but it's not a substitute for either.

Your parent isn't defining a hardcore meditator as anyone who meditates for longer than 5 minutes. As for the rest, I suspect your parent would largely agree with you, though guided meditation can be useful as part of mindfulness practice. Depending on your level of practice and what's going on, five minutes could be a great break or just barely enough to quiet yourself for a bit.

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

#83

Post by tb303 »

philipkuklis wrote: post #4

Hi Yunha, are there any tangible (e.g. psychological) differences between guided/unguided meditation? What do you prefer more?

I'm not yunha but i'll reply and hope it helps.

Guided meditations are substitutes for traditional group practice. Distributed group practice, if you will. The goal is to think of them as training and lessons for your own excursions into non-guided practice, just like taking swim lessons or spanish lessons may help you improve your practice on your own.

And like both of those examples, the real work is in the solo practice, venturing into your own struggle with your noisy brain, instead of relying on the soothing, centering, encouraging words of others, relying on yourself and training your own abilities.

and i have so far to go myself, but even then, i can tell you, guided is just a reminder of what i'm really supposed to be working on.

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

#84

Post by tb303 »

grzm wrote: post #82
tb303 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is something very weird to me about calling someone a "hardcore meditator" for meditating >5 minutes. It takes me 5 minutes just to get my brain to shut up. Listening to someone else put words in my brain for five minutes isn't meditation. It's not mindfulness. It's training towards the two, but it's not a substitute for either.

Your parent isn't defining a hardcore meditator as anyone who meditates for longer than 5 minutes. As for the rest, I suspect your parent would largely agree with you, though guided meditation can be useful as part of mindfulness practice. Depending on your level of practice and what's going on, five minutes could be a great break or just barely enough to quiet yourself for a bit.

I hear you and appreciate the reply. I do agree, in that one minute of meditation is better than 0 minutes of meditation, just like 7 minute workouts are better than 0 minute workouts. So any effort to encourage folks to pause during their day, no matter what their motivation (even "hey, a new app!"), is net positive.

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

#85

Post by kriro »

bradytp wrote: post #6

Hi, I’m Tim Brady, one of the partners at YC that works closely with Simple Habit. We funded Simple Habit because Yunha is a great founder. She is resourceful, energetic and has created a product that solves a problem she understands well. Happy to answer any questions as well.

How does this turn into a unicorn? I have trouble envisioning the scale tbh (and it seems fairly easy to imitate). I like the general idea but it doesn't strike me as something a VC would find attractive.

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

#86

Post by bbcbasic »

kriro wrote: post #85
bradytp wrote: post #6

Hi, I’m Tim Brady, one of the partners at YC that works closely with Simple Habit. We funded Simple Habit because Yunha is a great founder. She is resourceful, energetic and has created a product that solves a problem she understands well. Happy to answer any questions as well.

How does this turn into a unicorn? I have trouble envisioning the scale tbh (and it seems fairly easy to imitate). I like the general idea but it doesn't strike me as something a VC would find attractive.

Moreover I can just go on YouTube and listen to meditation for free. How to compete with that?

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

#87

Post by grzm »

bbcbasic wrote: post #86
kriro wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this turn into a unicorn? I have trouble envisioning the scale tbh (and it seems fairly easy to imitate). I like the general idea but it doesn't strike me as something a VC would find attractive.

Moreover I can just go on YouTube and listen to meditation for free. How to compete with that?

That can be said of a lot of things. Convenience of aggregation? Lots of podcast material is on YouTube or can be downloaded from a website, and people still buy podcast apps. Execution? I personally don't care for YouTube's interface on either the web or their iOS apps. People have shown time and again they're willing to pay for convenience and execution even when free or cheaper alternatives are available.

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

#88

Post by [deleted] »

yunhakim wrote: post #65
ploggingdev wrote: post #56

This post should be titled as a "Show HN", not "Launch HN". The rules are here https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html A demo page on your website would be helpful for people to get a feel for what the service is about. Currently there is a lot of friction to even understand the service : download the app, signup. My guess is that a lot of people (atleast here on HN) were turned away by the friction involved to unde…

Thanks for the feedback! The new, updated web landing page coming soon :)

[deleted]

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

#90

Post by mmikeff »

I've also recently launched a meditation app (iOS only for now), I'm taking a slightly different tack in that I'm not planning to deliver multitudes of teachers and am going for longer duration meditations. The first version only went live in the App Store yesterday and provides a breathing and bodyscan meditation if approx 10min, each time it is played the content is slightly different so as to avoid becoming repetitive. Something like Pzizz for meditation.

The reason I've taken that approach is that when listening to pre-recorded guided meditation from a book that I found myself getting so familiar with the guidance that I knew what was coming up next, and this was quite distracting. In subsequent releases I aim to introduce options to configure the duration and to dial up or down the guidance to silence ratio.

If anyone is interested it's called Alive Meditation in the App Store, and I'd be more than happy to hear any criticism or suggestions.

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