How I'm going to compete with Calm and Headspace • Hacker News Board

Re: How I'm going to compete with Calm and Headspace

#11

Post by bryans » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 10:09 PM UTC

jstx1 wrote: post #6

Attempting to hijack your brain's reward centers as a way to succeed with a meditation app is kind of tone-deaf. At the same time I don't think it would be successful either - does anyone really care about building a fictional garden? The whole things strikes me as doing the wrong thing and probably failing at it too. They should have leaned more into the journaling / gratitude /overall mental health aspect - at leas…

> does anyone really care about building a fictional garden?

I think the market already answered your question, given that some of the most popular video games from the past few years have been based around gardening and farming.

Re: How I'm going to compete with Calm and Headspace

#12

Post by herval » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 11:34 PM UTC

jstx1 wrote: post #6

Attempting to hijack your brain's reward centers as a way to succeed with a meditation app is kind of tone-deaf. At the same time I don't think it would be successful either - does anyone really care about building a fictional garden? The whole things strikes me as doing the wrong thing and probably failing at it too. They should have leaned more into the journaling / gratitude /overall mental health aspect - at leas…

To be fair, at least it’s an attempt to do it for something good. Humans are driven by feedback loops, and some habits, such as meditation, are good for you, so if they can find a way to make the brain stick to it, I’m totally onboard!

Re: How I'm going to compete with Calm and Headspace

#13

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 11:36 PM UTC

bryans wrote: post #11

jstx1 wrote: post #6

Attempting to hijack your brain's reward centers as a way to succeed with a meditation app is kind of tone-deaf. At the same time I don't think it would be successful either - does anyone really care about building a fictional garden? The whole things strikes me as doing the wrong thing and probably failing at it too. They should have leaned more into the journaling / gratitude /overall mental health aspect - at leas…

> does anyone really care about building a fictional garden? I think the market already answered your question, given that some of the most popular video games from the past few years have been based around gardening and farming.

[deleted]

Re: How I'm going to compete with Calm and Headspace

#14

Post by GoodD0ctor » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 12:49 AM UTC

bryans wrote: post #10

I think you need to reframe your pitch. Your messaging is heavily focused on "not being just another app with points and badges." Yet, the primary mechanism of your app is receiving coins (points) to buy plants (badges), which all gets put on a rated monthly calendar (points) representative of your mood (badge). And then in your roadmap you even mention wanting a leaderboard (points and badges). Your entire concept i…

Appreciate the feedback and will definitely keep these in mind.

Content such as blog posts take months to years for anything to come into fruition. A single 15 second tik tok talking about the app can get millions of hits within a 24 hour window. Not saying this will happen, but it has the highest risk/reward ratio and bang for buck. Almost sounds like I'm playing at a casino, but will keep you updated on this

I also have an instagram and pinterest which are doing pretty well, so it's not like I'm making no content. But I don't want to be posting crappy articles I spent a couple of hours writing, good articles they a lot of effort and the meditation space is very competitive on google. I've dabbled with SEO but am no expert by any means.

I'm also on a time constraint, have to get traction before and hit certain MMR before I graduate which is in a couple of months. But will definitely dig more into it.

Re: How I'm going to compete with Calm and Headspace

#15

Post by GoodD0ctor » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 12:51 AM UTC

smoldesu wrote: post #2

I don't know why people insist on building the same product when they're going to make the same mistake vis-a-vis monetization. You'll lose to Calm and Headspace on principal alone.

Lol not sure if you read the article, but retention numbers for the app are extremely good and I constantly get feedback that the app is super unique and not just "another meditation app".

Re: How I'm going to compete with Calm and Headspace

#16

Post by GoodD0ctor » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 12:51 AM UTC

FPGAhacker wrote: post #9

toomim wrote: post #3

Problem 1: We're too distracted by modern technology and its games for our attention. Solution 1: Try meditation! Problem 2: My friends and family aren't following through with their meditation. Solution 2: Let's gameify meditation! GOTO Problem 1.

What an uplifting, encouraging comment.

Tell me about it.

Re: How I'm going to compete with Calm and Headspace

#17

Post by GoodD0ctor » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 12:59 AM UTC

manachar wrote: post #4

When I think of where we are as a civilization and a culture, few things are more perfect an example than the idea of competing to profit off of making meditation "sticky". It's a weird ball of everything you need to know about us as a species right now.

If you could explain to me how you would make a instant gratified, phone addicted population on board with the idea of sitting down and doing absolutely nothing for 10 minutes every single day, while also simultaneously making it a non profit Im all ears.

Re: How I'm going to compete with Calm and Headspace

#18

Post by GoodD0ctor » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 1:05 AM UTC

jstx1 wrote: post #6

Attempting to hijack your brain's reward centers as a way to succeed with a meditation app is kind of tone-deaf. At the same time I don't think it would be successful either - does anyone really care about building a fictional garden? The whole things strikes me as doing the wrong thing and probably failing at it too. They should have leaned more into the journaling / gratitude /overall mental health aspect - at leas…

Not sure if your familiar with gamification, but pretty much takes boring tasks and makes them fun. It’s on pace to be a $30 billion industry by 2025, simply trying to adapt to the psychology of the population. Not making a data mining social media app, simply an app that encourages people to stick with meditation. I’m not brain washing users either literally giving them the equivalent of a digital sticker which acts as a virtual pat on the back and keep it up.

Re: How I'm going to compete with Calm and Headspace

#19

Post by mohanmcgeek » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 4:55 AM UTC

GoodD0ctor wrote: post #17

manachar wrote: post #4

When I think of where we are as a civilization and a culture, few things are more perfect an example than the idea of competing to profit off of making meditation "sticky". It's a weird ball of everything you need to know about us as a species right now.

If you could explain to me how you would make a instant gratified, phone addicted population on board with the idea of sitting down and doing absolutely nothing for 10 minutes every single day, while also simultaneously making it a non profit Im all ears.

Let's start with respecting your potential users and not fitting them into some phone junkies stereotype.

And as others have pointed out, Meditating should be rewarding in and of itself, if done right.

Re: How I'm going to compete with Calm and Headspace

#20

Post by bryans » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 6:56 AM UTC

GoodD0ctor wrote: post #14

bryans wrote: post #10

I think you need to reframe your pitch. Your messaging is heavily focused on "not being just another app with points and badges." Yet, the primary mechanism of your app is receiving coins (points) to buy plants (badges), which all gets put on a rated monthly calendar (points) representative of your mood (badge). And then in your roadmap you even mention wanting a leaderboard (points and badges). Your entire concept i…

Appreciate the feedback and will definitely keep these in mind. Content such as blog posts take months to years for anything to come into fruition. A single 15 second tik tok talking about the app can get millions of hits within a 24 hour window. Not saying this will happen, but it has the highest risk/reward ratio and bang for buck. Almost sounds like I'm playing at a casino, but will keep you updated on this I also…

You seem to be very focused on blog posts both in your post in and your reply, as if the only options are blogging and paying TikTok influencers, and there's nothing in between -- but there are tons of options for content that aren't blogging. Blogging was never a very good marketing strategy, even back when blogs were still popular and the SEO was still easy.

And I still think you're putting way too much emphasis on virality as a marketing strategy. Product placements are almost universally NOT the Toks that go massively viral, and even when they do, it's not as big of a payoff as you're hoping. One million views will result in 100-300 people actually trying the app, and at least half of those users will drop off within a matter of days. So, your entire strategy is to pay other people lots of money in hopes of an extremely rare event that gives a marginal bump in users (if you're lucky).

Even traditional paid advertising is far, far more effective than that, and you'd only be paying ~$2 per customer acquisition.