Problem
Students across the board experience immense stress and anxiety during college despite whether they are studying full time or juggling work, kids and school. Mental health resources are often expensive, hard to find, and it’s difficult to even figure out where to start. Many students may not know when you should reach out and find help. If they had the tools necessary to work through different mental health obstacles, they can be more successful students, professionals and emerging adults.
Solution
The solution Whoosah offers a product that allows for students to access guided meditations, 6 week, 12 week and 15 week timelines to work towards mental health goals. Meditations will offer lessons on mindfulness and encourage students to realign with their inner peace in stressful situations. Timelines will allow for students to create a goal, for example a student with an immense fear of public speaking needs to do a public speaking presentation at the end of the semester. Whoosah will provide them mini weekly goals to build their ability to conquer the obstacle of public speaking with preparation and mindfulness.
Customer Segments
Whoosah’s customers are people of any age furthering their education at an undergraduate level. Whether they are now finding independence, finding new mental health struggles in college, or finally sees the need to find help.
Early Adopters
The early adopters will be students who are emotionally aware or curious about developing into more emotionally aware and intelligent people. GenZ has largely lifted the stigma around openly speaking about one’s mental health, I assume that they would be the early adopters.
Unique Value Proposition
Whoosah will be affordable enough for students, available in app form so you can always input your thoughts on the go, and desktop form to be able to get a better view of your overall activity on the product. The product will have specifically altered interactive content to relate to students struggles such as test anxiety, imposter syndrome, fear of public speaking or managing your semester with depression.
Channels
I will reach the customer through campus outreach, both through in person outreach or through email blasts to students from specific schools if colleges are interested in partnering with us.
Social media will also be an important channel for outreach through apps like TikTok or Instagram, and college related public forums on sites like Reddit. Tiktok will allow for rapid outreach to large amounts of people, whereas, Reddit will allow for me to refine outreach to the demographic as subreddits are very specific.
Key Metrics
Key metrics to track success for my product will be user return rate and user satisfaction. User return rate will analyse the rate at which students return to the app and actively use the features on a regular basis. In order for students to gain the benefits from the app, one must continue to check in to the app and use the provided resources. User satisfaction will analyse the users happiness with the experience, content and resources offered, as well as, if they will refer a friend as they find it a useful tool.
Unfair Advantage
The unfair advantage I see in Whoosah is that it is specifically altered to students. Through research we will find the biggest mental health obstacles faced by those pursuing their undergraduate degree. Mental health apps like Sanvello and 10% Happier do not have very niche content for students, there may be some relevant meditations or blog posts, however, there is not a specific app that is made for this very common yet difficult pursuit that many people go through.
Existing Alternatives
Sanvello provides a mood tracker, anonymous forums, coaching sessions and even therapy. There’s a free version and premium version, however, they have the option of having sponsored premium versions where a company or institute can provide premium for free to their members by purchasing a corporate bundle.
Worrywatch is an anxiety tracker that offers a tool for users to record and reflect on their anxiety through a journalling app.
Assumptions
Students need a tool to manage stress, anxiety and other mental health obstacles during the semester.
Students find the current options of mental health resources unaffordable and hard to find.
Definitely a cool idea and a very critical issue. Competitive analysis should show you a lot and try to figure out what white space apps like “Headspace” give you to target students. Are student needs different in some ways?
Hey Sunrise! This is definitely a crucial problem that a lot of us face during this time, and I think the way you’re approaching it is a great idea. Meditation does not work for everyone, but also not a lot of people do meditation either, so it can be something new for your users to try, and who knows, it may end up working well for them!
I agree! I think this solution is important because many people see meditation as something that doesn’t work for them but they have either never committed to seeing how it positively affects them or have a difficult time practising mindfulness. Lots of research will be necessary to learn what’s stopping students and what they feel would encourage them to try meditation.
the fact that you align yourself with students is an advantage. students these days are very skeptical about where to put their money and really want to know where their money is going when spending. knowing that there is a company that is literally made for them would help them implement their lives with your idea and allow them to form habits that can help them in the long term.