Everyone dreams of having a startup. And if you have an idea for an interesting meditation app, start by researching potential users.
Good audience research has two parts: 1) quantitative research (that is mass surveys to probe demand); 2) qualitative research that uses in-depth interviews to understand the issues and motivations of the target audience.
The Situation In The Meditation App Market
Over the past few years, hundreds of apps have emerged to help users become more productive, manage stress, and sleep better. They are actively attracting investment. What is the rise in popularity and why are startups keen on the idea of meditation app development?
Most of the apps started making money from subscriptions, funneling revenue into marketing and gradually getting the audience used to meditating. This has served as a market growth driver.
In 2015, according to U.S. magazine Fortune, there were already about 1,000 meditation apps worldwide and the industry had an annual turnover of nearly $1 billion. The next few years saw a lively battle for leadership in this market. The biggest investment deals in that struggle were Headspace and Calm.
In February 2019, the latter raised $88 million and became the first “unicorn” (a company that reached a $1 billion capitalization) in its niche. In all, key meditation apps earned $195 million in 2019 — double as much as they did in 2018, according to analytics platform Sensor Tower.
Calm doubled its billion-dollar valuation in 2020, but in August 2021, Headspace took the lead in capitalization. The British company made a merger deal with Ginger, a U.S. therapist matching service. Because of the partnership, the valuation of the merged companies reached $3 billion.
Another niche in the market for meditation app development are projects offering meditations specifically for falling asleep. Surveys among potential users show that people most often use meditation apps to switch off and fall asleep.
Features Of Ux/Ui For Fitness Apps
Most meditation apps are a collection of audio instructions for a specific situation and time. Some services can create recommendations based on the user’s emotions and well-being.
Therefore, the main monetization model for meditation apps is premium subscriptions. This works because users are willing to pay for:
- content selection for specific needs;
- a convenient service that doesn’t require them to search for audio on their own.
Successful meditation apps are all about habit-building for users, and it’s important for developers to pay special attention to the performance metrics that affect this.
Retention
Retention rates matter regardless of the purpose of the app, whether it’s to meditate or prepare for a marathon. Pay particular attention to how often users return to the app, what features and messages they like best, and keep them coming back again and again.
Churn Rate
User churn is the flip side of retention. How many of your users are you losing in a given period? The churn rate can vary at different times of the year. Knowing this metric will help you put your app’s performance into perspective.
Session Length
The fact that users stay engaged for a long time is also important for apps in this vertical. If your users are tracking in the app, the longer they stay in the app, the more satisfied users you are likely to have.
When designing apps and creating interfaces, you need to pay attention to the following:
- be familiar with app user interfaces on the chosen platform (iOs, Android);
- maximum simplicity in beginning, pausing, and ending meditation (e.g. there should be large, noticeable buttons);
- maximum useful information on a single screen;
- basic screens and the most important features. Keep all essential functions as accessible as possible. Shift the screens left and right with the movement of your finger. Menus include settings, communication, history, analysis of achievements, and other features that apply outside of training in a quiet environment.
Design And Engineering
Without experience in mobile design, you won’t come up with anything good the first time, which will have to be redesigned many times. To avoid having to draw a layout for every screen, describe the universal rules of adaptability. Take a consultation with the designer and the developer. It will definitely save you time.
Meditation App Development
We do not recommend you contact freelancers. Look for a studio for meditation app development. As the people who could organize the work of the team, they would always be more responsible for the work and reputation.
At the start of meditation app development, it’s important to think through a list of features that should be included in the first release. In the process, you will be throwing out some features and adding others, redrawing screens and changing the logic. This affects the budget and timeline.
Only experienced developers will be able to write quality program code and diligently come up with ways to implement any idea. But think through and fix a list of features and functions before you give the project to meditation app development. Sift your fantasies mercilessly through the Eisenhower matrix.
App Content For Meditation
A quality product is not just an app with “click to start” mechanics. A meditation app is all about content: audio lessons and video tutorials that help people learn meditation techniques. And producing content is a long and arduous process.
You have to work with the methodology, write the texts of the courses, and voice them in the studio with a professional speaker. It is difficult to concentrate on meditation with an unpleasant voice, with cluttered intonation and the accompaniment of random sounds in the background.
Content is the most time-consuming part of the app. Keep in mind that content production should start at least in parallel with meditation app development.
The Legal Side Of Things
If you need investments, you should have a legal confirmation of all the actions, expenses, and intentions. This means that it is better to act within the legal framework from the very beginning: register a company and conclude contracts for each action.
The company covers the cost of registration, accounting, and legal services. Bookkeeping and legal services should be outsourced so as not to waste your time. Even before you start, sign a memorandum in which you fix the rights and shares of the founders. This will help to avoid misunderstandings in business relations.
Contracts should also be signed with all the contractors, so that you are not cheated, and you can include all the payments in the company’s expenses.
A word of advice to young funders: if there is a hope that your future product will be more than just a hobby, make sure it is clean and transparent to the investor. If there are several people involved in the project, fix the shares, rights, obligations, and how to act in extreme situations. The memorandum is your talisman.
Miscellaneous Nuances
A few more things to keep in mind if you are developing an app.
- A developer account (in the Apple ecosystem) must be registered in advance. The procedure may take several weeks due to internal bureaucracy or occasional mistakes in app forms. An Apple Developer account costs $100 per year.
- Marketing budget. “What’s the need for it? A cool product sells itself!” No, it doesn’t. Without marketing, you end up with a quality piece of junk that nobody wants. We predict that marketing will cost the same amount of money that was invested in meditation app development.
- ASO. This is like SEO, only for the app store. There is nothing complicated about it, but you should not put out a release with random text and crummy screenshots. This will definitely not benefit indexing and conversion in installations.
- Tracking and analytics. To track user activity in the app, draw conclusions, and build hypotheses for meditation app development.
- No one likes modeling and planning. You want to get down to business at once, but it is better to cool down the ardor and spend a couple of evenings on the business model, drawing up a roadmap and planning tasks.
- Monetized from the first release. This is not an attempt to make a quick buck. Sooner or later, the app has to make a profit. And it’s better to test the product as early as possible (unless you’re sitting on endless venture capital).
- Advise people on anything. Feel free to ask questions of people who have relevant experience in meditation app development, investing, product launches, design. It will save a lot of time and money.
More and more people are starting to take care of their health, which has provoked an increase in the popularity of apps in the wellness niche. A meditation app falls into this category.
If you have an interesting idea and the resources for its realization, now is the ideal time to bring the concept to life. Everything is in your hands!
