BetterYou

I'm Sean, CEO of BetterYou. I have been creating technology that solves problems since 2012 when I founded ilos Videos a way to easily share and communicate knowledge (acquired by Paylocity).

I have scaled teams from 0-20, growing revenues from day one to Millions of top line while positively impacting hundreds of thousands of people. 

With BetterYou we are enabling people to make the most of their time. Today we work with 33 organizations and are helping 10,000+ take back their time every single day. 

In 2007 32% of free time in the US was on device, by 2017 that number was 90%. 

Today our time on device is optimized, not for what we want, but for what we'll watch, time on page. We're creating a world where your time isn't optimized by apps or advertisers, it's optimized for the things you care the most about.   

BetterYou is a digital coach that helps people make better decisions by logging how you actually spend your time and comparing it to your goals . We leverage the background data from our phones to log progress without any manual entry, and our AI-based coach uses this insight to nudge employees and students toward the outcomes they want to see.

In 2007, 32% of discretionary time in the US was spent on devices. 10 years later that number had nearly tripled to 90%. But as our time on device went up and up our satisfaction with how we spend that time has gone down.

Today we spend 3x the amount of time on device on things that make us feel less happy and less productive. It's not be accident, it's be behavioral design.

By putting the same tactics that keep people at the casino on the apps in our pocket, app developers have created a world where they can move our decisions, leading to more time on page, and more confusion around why we felt inclined to pick our phone up in the 1st place.

It's a race to the bottom, for our attention, for our time. 

Globally, the number of projected smartphone users this year is 3.5 billion or just under 50% of the world. We're working to unlock the time for each and every one of those people, by helping them make the most of their time, on device or not.

BetterYou is a mobile app that uses AI to learn your habits and compares that to your goals. You first set goals around how you'd like to spend your time (connecting with friends and family, getting exercise, getting sleep, learning something new, or maybe just taking time for yourself). 

We then automatically log how you spend your time using app usage data, location, and phone pedometer to give you credit for spending time in accordance with that person you want to be.

This enables us to provide redirection at the opportune moment. So the next time you're about to throw 20 minutes out the window on YouTube we can be there to help you get back on track.

Before we created the product we talked with 50 people for 20 minutes each. We asked them how they were solving this problem today (Had they googled for other solutions? What did they do today to spend more time on the things that matter). 

We learned that most people feel anxiety around their day. Whether you are a first generation student trying to manage your course load or an employee at a company looking to prioritize family, work, and health, it's hard to focus on the things that will move you forward. 

Today we work with over 10,000 people, helping students manage their time when they enter college, helping employees find time to unplug from work and be with families. 

Since launch we do 3 hours of user feedback every Friday to keep improving

To date: We've helped a mother find more time for her child, a sister find ways to stay connected with her family, and a first generation student do his parents proud.

We've also seen a lift of:

1.  40 minutes in nightly sleep improvement among college students 
2.  12 minutes per day of talk time with top people 
3.  2 extra workouts/month for those with physical goals

We face so many difficult problems in this world: hunger, clean energy, climate change. The one common denominator that all of the problems we face share, is that to solve them it will take our time.

We believe that helping people optimize their time will give us the resource that we need to be successful and to make a lasting positive impact on the planet and each other.

After selling my last company I found myself on my couch staring at my phone. The app that triggered this for me wasn't instagram, but my work email. I opened my phone, scrolled to gmail and refreshed, over and over again. 

In my head I knew I had no reason to be there, but there I was. This got me interested in how we spend our time. Are we intentional? Or do we end up down the rabbit hole more often than we care to admit? 

I found Dr. Tommy Khoo who had studied behavioral change and Edwin Melendez a technologist I knew in the community and we began our journey to help people make the most of their time.

As a tech founder devices are a huge part of your life. In my first company I created a video experience that enabled people to easily engage with content. We made it so seamless that people would spend hours consuming content. We had access to the data and digital systems to truly capture attention.

But as makers in this world is that what we should do? 

At BetterYou we are turning the same tools that are used to capture our attention, hijack our emotions, and bring us back to experiences without even thinking about it, to achieve that which you deem most important in your life. 

The future is not all screens. 

I have raised $5M in venture capital, personally scaled sales at startups from 0-1Million+ in annual recurring revenue, and have taken a company from idea to exit. But BetterYou is more than just me. Also on the team full time are: 

Tommy Khoo Ph.D has his doctorate in Applied Mathematics from Dartmouth College, has studied behavioral change, and has built the nudging AI and digital progress logging system at BetterYou

Edwin Melendez is a 3x startup developer, fluent in react native and mobile development. He brings the ideas behind the app to life. 

Risa Piper has a Master's degree in product design from the University of Minnesota, and she helps us build the elements of the product that add the most value to our users.

Jorge Lima is a medical doctor from rural Brazil with a master's degree in applied mathematics from Dartmouth. He adds a clinical and data perspective to our product work

In my first company, we were about to close a 750k round of financing, our first real round, when I got a phone call from an investor. He told me that he didn't meet the criteria of an accredited investor from our questionnaire. He was 200k of our round. We couldn't work with him.

Not 30 minutes later I received another call. This time from one of our friends and family investors, saying that they weren't going to approve the round unless they received a 10k payment from the company (they had a right of approval on rounds under 1M). He had previously said he would voluntarily approve. 

Suddenly the plane that we rode up with our early customer, and fundraising commitments halts. You feel it, that falling sensation, the realization that yes you have lost cabin pressure. 

I doubled our efforts. I reached out to 50 investors (angels, funds). We found 200k. I kept going and reached out to another 50. It took me two months but when the dust settled, we had raised 1.2Million.

Every day the clock resets, your wins don't matter, your loses don't matter. Fight for the future, don't dwell on the past

In my first company we needed someone who could help us navigate customer success. Someone personable who had a process oriented mind. We interviewed a couple dozen candidates and I made the controversial decision to hire Andrew.

At that time Andrew had no experience with startups, he was a shift lead a local pizza restaurant. At startups we need to evaluate future potential not just the current state. Andrew checked all of the boxes, he was hungry to build something that mattered, he had experience empathizing with confused customers, and he had a background of caring for others with his volunteer work. 

Andrew would go on to become a staple at that company and eventually go on to become COO at another Venture backed startup after the acquisition. 

Leadership isn't about making all the decisions yourself, it's about finding talent in places where people can't see it, and getting talented people the chance to do something special.

No Manual Entry: Unlike traditional apps around bettering the lives of others BetterYou doesn't create an extra thing for you to do each day. We work in the background, passively logging progress of how you spent your time. We look at things like app usage data (did you talk to a friend or spend 10 minutes on a podcast), location data (did you visit a place in nature, or a gym/rec center), and phone sensors (sleep and movement detection) to map how you spend your day.

Real time redirection: Because we work passively our AI can send nudges in real time. Are you on Youtube and heading to another video instead of calling a loved one this week? BetterYou can intercept this behavior and help you find time for the things that really matter.

A 1% improvement each day creates a 37x improvement after a year's time. BetterYou enables people to live their lives in accordance with their values each day, finding additional ways to improve. 

By helping people optimize their time they have more time to solve problems in their lives and lives of others. We have already seen improvements in quality of life among low income students, busy employees, and everyone in between, adding in some cases up to 4 hours of productive time.

These hours only compound among the 3.5 billion people with devices in the world. 

We currently serve a group of over 12,000 people who have access to the BetterYou Product and actively use it.

In one Year we see that number eclipsing 327,000 active users, and in 5 years we see that number breaking 7.5Million lives positively impacted.

We are engaging 327,000 users in the next year, taking the result we've seen (40+ min in sleep improvement, 2+ workouts per month, extra talk time each day) and amplifying it across a larger base. 

In the next year we will build out an additional module in the product that shows the direct impact your time savings had on your life. Were you able to volunteer in the community more with your extra time? Were you able to support a family, friend, or community member? 

We will achieve them using the same method of going to market strategy (inside sales with organizations), and product roadmapping (The Mom Test Framework) that we have used to make the product available to date.

We work with the University of Montana, Michigan State University, Florida International University, Allina Health and 25+ other organizations that make our product available to their communities and team members. 

We work directly with organizations because we believe that this product should be free for the end user and we don't want to alienate their experience with ads or data sharing.

These customers pay us a monthly subscription fee, starting at $500/month and scaling up based on size

We have a monthly subscription that starts at $500/month and scales up based on your population size. We acquire customers today with our inside sales model.

Today, a single Business Development Rep can source 20 meetings in a month. These opportunities are 75% qualified, and we are closing 15% of them within 60 days. This means that a single rep sources $12000 (min) in annual deal value per month all while costing the company only $4,800. With an acquisition cost of $2400 per deal (the rep’s time fully loaded onto each deal they bring in). Our Year 1 revenue to CaC (customer acquisition cost is ($6,000/$2400) or 2.5 times and our Lifetime Value to CAC is (18,000/2400) or 7.5 times

We anticipate raising another round of capital when our monthly recurring revenue breaks 65k in monthly recurring revenue. With that Series A level of funding we see ourselves able to go cash flow positive with the amount of customer demand that we are currently seeing in the market. 

Ultimately it will be the subscription revenues generated that enable us to sustain ourselves. Note that while revenues are recognized monthly we receive cash commitments upfront for the work we do.

BetterYou has raised 1.8M in Venture Capital from Geekdom Fund, Red Cedar Ventures, and Bootstrappers.mn. We used this initial capital to build our team to 10, including our development and product team .

We started generating revenue just about a year ago and have grown from $2250 in monthly recurring revenue to over $17,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR) in the last year (shown below).

N/A not raising at the moment

We estimate to spend $625,000 in 2020. The main driver of this number is our fully loaded people costs, with minimal spending on server infrastructure through Google Cloud Platform, rent, and software subscriptions.

With my first company, we succeeded. We created a product that impacted hundreds of thousands of lives, and was eventually acquired. But we didn't do it alone. We had a network of mentors, advisors, and team members pushing us forward every single day. 

We see The Elevate Prize as an opportunity to broaden that network to achieve social impact on a truly global scale, an opportunity to level up our team through coaching and development, and an opportunity to connect with global heroes and partners who share a common vision.

90% of our time last year was spent on devices, that's really scary. But we believe it's an opportunity. What better way to help someone be that person they want to see in the mirror tomorrow, than by helping them make better use of their time today?

Mentors are the magic in most businesses. We are looking to connect with mentors that have experience scaling products globally for maximum impact. Mentors with experience in behavioral design are also a huge asset. We have studied in great detail the reason why we so easily lose our time on devices. Let's just say it isn't an accident.

Board Members provide governance and add accountability. As we scale we are looking to add a formal board that can help us steer the company. Evaluate large company decisions and help us stay the course or shift paths when needed.

Marketing to help spread the word. The work that we're doing has the potential to positively impact billions of people. One determining facot of it does or not is how we can make them aware of how we can help.

Twilio- The project work they have helped lead around mapping minds and social health is an area that we can build upon. How does getting an extra 12 minutes of talk time per day help support people's overall health?

Strada Education Network- They have focused efforts on preparing under resourced kids for technology careers. We work with 1st generation students to help them optimize their time and improve their student success. We could be a natural extension of the efforts they started in 2019.

United Health Group- Leveraging an insurer network can help us get our solution to the most at risk individuals from a health risk perspective.