Context & Details

Date

2020-2021

About the company

Based in San Francisco and Tokyo, HoloAsh is an early-stage startup that developed a mental health AI assistant mobile app. I joined them in ideation stage and helped grow from 0 to 20,000 Gen Z users in North America and Europe. Its AI assistant chatted with users and provided tailored mental health resources such as, meditation, grounding exercises, breathing techniques, affirmations, ASMR or calming music. After focus interviews with power users demonstrated their interest in a community, we added group chat and community features which struck a chord with communities such as LGBTQ+, ADHD and anxiety, etc.

Responsibilities

Marketing: Developed product messaging and positioning, gathered competitive and market intelligence to build product strategy
Marketing: Developed GTM, built and tested various marketing channels
Marketing: Drove 90% organic growth and average $1 CAC in NorAm
Product: Wrote user stories for engineers and built new product features
Product: Collaborated with UX designer and engineers to plan and review sprints working in agile as Scrum Master/PO
UX & User Research: Collected user feedback to validate feature set and positioning, conducted funnel analysis, user feedback, built and analysed key product usage metrics on Firebase, built onboarding flows and in-app education modals
Managed partnerships and relationships with press and investors

Challenges

Developing positioning and product-market fit for a mobile app in an oversaturated App Store
It takes validated testing and reiterating to find what sticks and stand out
Building awareness and organic growth with a limited marketing budget

Highlights

Over 60 minute average daily engagement
Downloaded 50,000 times since launch and grew MoM 59%
Over 20% DAU/MAU and WAU/MAU
Received mentorship from advisors with previous executive or investment experience at TikTok, Discord and Apple
Featured on TechCrunch, Startups Magazine, TheBridge; Awarded “Best International Startup Award” by Plug & Play and part of 500 Startups Accelerator
Helped fundraise a pre-seed round of $670K and gained valuable product building experience from ideation to traction
Achieved below industry-level CAC while having above industry-level daily engagement and growing over 90% organically