I left my tech job to build a meditation app
troyshu.com
troyshu.com
This stuck out to me:
> I decided to focus on building a meditation app as my main project. I came up with the idea because I saw others around me struggling to stick to meditation...
Do you expect another meditation app to help with this? I think many folks interested in mediation quickly find a good beginner/handhold-y app like Headspace. Yet, like language learning w/ Duolingo, few people actually stick to it. I think Duolingo and Headspace are awesome and to be honest, if I can't make something stick with these two I'm not sure how an app could be "better" at making me stick to something.
I'm not really a fan of cooking either but I still do it most days. It is possible to know something about a thing, have experience of a thing, have some useful insight into tools that are useful for it, all without enjoying said thing.
Are you doing so deliberately?
Do you not perceive the acute irony of what you've just said in the face of the fact that you have shown such a basic misunderstanding of the comments to which you've responded, whether deliberately or otherwise?
add ties to cloud , and wearables, and 24x7 tracking, and some motivational quote notifications to keep the user more connected. and then sell data to advertisers.
What your talking about is tech folks seeing the benefits of meditation and looking for shortcuts. If it works for you go for it.
[0]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nodoka-meditation-timer/id13...
So rather than a coaching model, think of a simple tool like a gong or a timer.
Much like the original "Sleep Cycle" app, only for mediation (combing a timer with the feedback you can collect via the sensors of a phone).
It is really difficult to filter out all obstructions and notifications. And it takes carefull design to make flexible timer that suits meditator needs.
As for meditation coaching app I think there are so many approaches to teaching meditation that there is a space for many more apps. But I doubt that one size fits all approach will ever work... Best approach might be not an app but a meditation platform where a student might mix various techniques, teachings, styles... etc...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.telesens...
There are a few things that I started with the app version and eventually upgraded to a dedicated device - a metronome, guitar tuner, and ereader are ones that I have near me right now.
But Sleep Cycle is an alarm clock app that wakes you up at the point where you are most awake in your sleep cycle, at a given interval (say 6.45 - 7.15). It measures where you are in your sleep cycle by having you put your phone under your pillow and then use the accelerometer of the phone.
Do something similar for meditation and you will have a substantially different product.
Then came the social features. They actually weren’t bad. You could create a profile and track your meditation, and you’d get messages from people all over the world thanking you for “meditating with them.”
Then the app was sold to a couple of meditation entrepreneurs.
It took a little while, but soon the app wasn’t a nice meditation timer any longer. It was a platform for people to share and sell guided meditations.
The timer feature was de-emphasized. Login became required. They added courses, group meditations, sleep stories.
The timer is still in there if you can find it, only now some features are restricted to Insight Timer premium members who pay $60/year.
—-
I think the app was at its best right before it was sold. Sign in was optional, and while the social features felt a bit superfluous they were quirky and fun, and also easily turned off.
etcetcetc
ps: for a backend think about collecting meditation statistics, and pulling in meditator networking, online meditation groups, running longitudinal meditation studies "how was your sit" and other parameters... if you eont put that into the meditation app you want the meditation app to send notifications to the other apps, so add events and notifications to the no-backend list above.
point being: its more than a timer and notifications.
you made my day :-)
The Dropbox trope is "we don't need this product, because the end-user could built it themselves using tech tools"
The comment you replied to is "why quit your job, build an MVP"
Here we go again :-).
Now a days I've become a big proponent of "Talk is cheap, show me the code", not just in s/w field but in general.
If someone says "I did it in 3 days and here is how I went about it" that will lend them more authority and also lead to all kinds of interesting conversations and learnings.
Mind you, I used to make similar comments but over the years as I introspected I realised there's not much to be learnt by building castles in the air and talking about it from the sidelines.
As they say, in theory there is no difference between theory and practice but in practice there is.
Edit: More content.
Which is pretty awesome.
How long does it take you to develop an edge against your competition?
There isn't. There is maybe a hundred iterations between idea, prototype, marketing before something catches traction. And that is where persistance, focus and dedication (including quitting your day job) comes in.
Motivation is the biggest barrier. Most people might wait until there are “problems” and turn to meditation (even then it might be hard to convince them), but if you crack the motivation problem, you could be on to something.
Someone selling you an 8 week programme to “fix your anxiety” or such, probably doesn’t have the same depth of experience as someone who has practiced Zazen for several decades, there are no shortcuts and it could be harmful.
If you really want the real deal, I can recommend you read a couple of Brad Warner books before you commit.
They are basically two different tracks.
That said, having a pool of resources to help out would be beneficial to those who meditate and feel they need it.
I keep hearing about this kids thing, gonna have to get on that soon...
Qigong is its own thing and should be addressed as its own thing. It's an energy-based practice with various claims to longevity and health through proscribed movements.
Qigong exercises are very much like guided meditation, almost like kata in martial arts. You can gain the benefits of Qigong as meditation without buying into the energy work as anything other than a metaphor.
If you overload the kata with spiritual/psychological baggage, it isn't martial arts anymore.
To quote a teacher, its "Ken before Zen"
Disclosure: have been practicing for more then two decades.
Agreed. Which is why attaching use of phones to meditation seems contrary to the point. Perhaps leaving a world where everything is mediated by smartphones behind is the next step.
So I'm beginning to wonder if we shouldn't drop the names completely and call them for what it is: like you said, assisted meditation. Or just rebrand them into something more contemporary.
Don't take me wrong, a lot of people still seek these events, but the masses will always frown upon them.
Then again in my experience a lot of practitioners of meditation and related techniques use those New Age terms not for a lack of better terminology but because they actually intend to convey the New Age meaning (whatever that is exactly). So I'm not sure they would agree with you to drop those names.
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But there’s a lot of crappy apps out there.
I'm not very well versed in this idea, curious to learn and read more. Have any recommended books? What do you think about this one https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13587160-to-save-everyth...?
I personally believe that all problems are, at their core, human problems. Hence why the focus on meditation as an Archimedes lever. Technology helps us solve problems at scale, but it has to be applied "mindfully". Technology is always a double-edged sword (see Facebook)
They defined it as addressing problems that don't exist. I always think about battery powered spinning forks.
I've been to a Vipassana camp and every day for 10 days we would meditate for 12 hours a day in a hall. As people have for more than 2000 years. I'm in no way a meditation guru nor a traditionalist but any app that would give you stimulus whether it be through vibrations or visual/verbal instructions would take away from the grounding and mindful experience.
I am confident that most people who buy meditation apps don't actually meditate for more than a few days. We all already have a meditation app. It's a the clock app, you can set an alarm on it. Similar to those people who buy a expensive ellipticals or bikes and never use it. Peloton regret is a real thing.
I think this is a first world problem regarding consumerism. Capitalist society and the higher ups convincing us to worship money. Where we put all our energy into obtaining money in order to put it back in the system. Man has successfully domesticated man.
If anyone really wanted to meditate, they would just do it. Maybe look up how to do it, then do it. But we live in an app world today, it is what it is.
I just realized you're the poster of the article. I don't mean to say what you're doing is pointless but it'd be cooler if you made a meditation app that locked the phone or something totally different than the other apps.
What do you mean by: "I personally believe that all problems are, at their core, human problems. Hence why the focus on meditation as an Archimedes lever."
Yes, tech should solve problems mindfully which is why I always see meditation apps and the like to be oxymoronic. Our brains did not evolve at the rate our technology did, it is nigh impossible to be mindful with technology. We also did not evolve to work and play on computers all day and we are now seeing the psychological and physiological epidemic of problems. That's why people in the cities go camping to "unplug". That's why there a movement of high income industrious workers like yourself quitting and picking up manual labor jobs. Making things with your hands is far more fulfilling than coding small parts in a multi billion dollar app. It's just how our brains and bodies work. I believe this is another fundamental problem with humans today, up there with consumerism.
Your Memento chrome extension is pretty sick though and is pretty mindful. I just installed it.
Thanks for reading this probably incoherent rant.
I even started to make my own until I discovered you couldn’t get haptics to work in your own app like how haptics work in Apple’s Breathe watch app.
So my question is simple: in a crowded space with low barriers to entry, how do you plan differentiate your app?
To elaborate, I personally didn't get much out of meditation until I starting using it to sit with concepts like impermanence, non-attachment, and oneness from the Zen tradition.
By contrast, apps like Headspace are selling themselves like "feeling anxious? Try our app!" and getting corporate sponsorships for employers to give subscriptions to their employees, like a commodity to pacify a stressed out workforce.
But who knows, maybe it's still a net good in that it might introduce more people to the practice. And maybe some of the apps get deeper into the practice than the ones I used.
These don't sound like complaints about anything the app itself lacks, they sound like complaints that it is successful at marketing.