My team is pursuing an app around habit and goal tracking using a piece of art/media that represents and documents growth and repeated behavior. This app may use music or imagery to do so, and the revenue is accrued through micro-transactions such as turning your image into a sticker, or subscription-based features. There will be a social aspect that allows users to share progress with friends and loved ones.
TAM – Total Available Market (How many people would want/need product?…)
$143.6 million = Total U.S. population * percentage of individuals with smartphones in the US * percentage of mobile app users that conduct micro-transactions (in-app purchases) * per unit microtransaction
- Total U.S. population in 2022 (according to U.S. Department of Commerce) = 332,403,650
- Roughly 90 percent of the country’s population has access to a smartphone
- Around 5 percent of users make in-app purchases
- Average of $9.60 per app in-app purchases (per month, but ignoring that and treating it as a one-time transaction)
SAM – Served Available Market (How many people need or can use product?…)
$29.4 million = Total Generation Z population * percentage of individuals with smartphones in the US * percentage of mobile app users that conduct micro-transactions (in-app purchases) * per unit microtransaction
- Total Generation Z (aged 10-25) population in 2022 = 68 million
- Roughly 90 percent of the country’s population has access to a smartphone
- Around 5 percent of users make in-app purchases
- Average of $9.60 per app in-app purchases (per month, but ignoring that and treating it as a one-time transaction)
SOM – Serviceable Obtainable Market (Where you begin – should be comfortable reaching these people)
11,645 people
- Stanford undergraduate students and new grads (in the past two years)
- 7,645 total undergraduate students
- new grads = 2 * ~2,000 (Class of 2025 size)
In selecting interview participants, I wanted to ensure that they were from vastly different backgrounds (I especially wanted to include someone who does/did not attend college). Rather than directly asking whether they would want an app to help with habits and goal-building, I used more open-ended, unbiased questions about motivation, habits, and lifestyle. The interviews were semi-structured, so they often expanded into areas less directly related to habits but still informative.
The first interview was with Alex, a 22-year-old hair stylist in southern California who did not attend college, but did finish cosmetology school. When asked about what motivates him, Alex was open in sharing his life experiences. When his older brother passed away at 21, Alex was 14, and the loss of his brother changed how he thought about life. For him, losing his brother was “an eye-opener. Seeing life being ended so young was extremely motivating. It’s kind of like youth won’t be wasted on me.”
While his primary motivation in life is guided by a traumatic event, when it comes to his habits, he had more to share around documentation. Since he was 17, Alex has gone to the gym in the morning. It started out with sports and wanting to do well in CIF, but it became a fun pass time where he could listen to music and connect with himself. For him, what drove that habit was the “the results [he] was seeing, the feeling after work.” He would wonder, “what made me so good today.” He journaled his workouts and noticed the quantitative changes in how much he was able to lift between points in time. Going to the gym was a “way of connecting mind and body together.”
Looking forward, the habits he wants to build are social. He wants to maintain friendships: “I divulge myself into certain people for a while, then don’t check in as much as I should. I’m good about telling people how I feel about them but not as good about showing it.” Alex represents an opportunity for habit tracking that tracks progress as well as more social features such as connecting with friends.
The second interview was with Marie, a 22-year-old new grad who is just starting her new job as a consultant. When asked about a habit she has kept for a long time, Marie described the minute long plank she has down every day since seventh grade. Body dysmorphia and the desire to be thin has ruled her thoughts for most of her life since then. To quell those thoughts during an always busy schedule, Marie started doing a plank a day. To her, it made her feel like she was still doing something. She only needed a little bit of space and it was only slightly hard, but she never broke a sweat and it made her feel better about herself.
Marie had many habits she wanted to break or add in her life. Her sleep schedule has been bad since high school (never having slept before 2am). The one time in her life where that improved was during study abroad in Maine, where she had no access to her phone and woke up at 5am every day. To her, that was an ideal schedule, but she has never gone back to it.
She wishes that she journaled more often because she has really appreciated looking back on journals and email correspondences from when she was young (and didn’t have a phone). She noted how self-critical she has always been.
Marie spoke about Lent as a time where habits matter, too. When she was younger, she would give up things like getting mad at her brothers. More recently, she gave up TikTok, but as soon as Lent ended, her new habit regressed: “I gave up TikTok and then I spent four hours on it on Easter Sunday. That 21 days thing isn’t true because I went right back after Lent was over.” To her, the missing religious aspect she used to have was to blame: “You’re supposed to become closer to God, but once I took out the religious aspect, there was no goal.”
Marie hopes that her new job will encourage new habits: “I’m in a materially good position where I can make smart decisions. My change in lifestyle, like a 9-5 job, will help me implement more habits: eat healthier, eat more regularly, sleep more regular hours. I’m forced to have more structure.” She also mentioned an exercise platform called ClassPass that will charge her $17 if she misses a fitness class and noted that it would help her go. It seems that Marie can build restrictive habits, but only in cases surrounding food and exercise. She represents an opportunity to build up and maintain healthy habits surrounding sleep, reflection, and screen time.
