About Headspace

Headspace is a mental health support app which caters all different kinds of routines to aid individuals and helps them to create a safe space for themselves. Headspace via their app provides a series of guided audios on meditation, sleep enhancing, anxiety, focus and many more. It's proven to bring transformation in individuals and helps them break a bad pattern as well as supports users to form a happy habit. It is a very simple app to use and thereby is freely used by all age groups, be it young professionals to people in mid ages.

From Business View:

Headspace falls under B2C category where users download their app and can sign up on Free/Paid programs for their sessions and audio series. Being one of the leaders in industry many organizations have rolled out Headspace for their employees B2B2C) and the employees cherish the corporate account benefits on the app. Headspace has over 70 million downloads worldwide and various studies show that how beneficial it's usage has been on the personnel.
With the increase in daily challenges in our daily lives, headspace's revenues have sky-rocketed in the recent years which clearly indicates the role of the app in this space Source Last in 2023 it was approximately having a revenue of 190$ Million with claiming of more than 100 Million users having to use Headspace at some point in their lives.

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Competition Space

The mental wellness space is really a cluttered with some great players present. Let's take few of them.

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1. Calm App -
   Calm is a popular mental health app designed to help users reduce stress, improve sleep, and live more mindfully. It comes also in free and paid versions and offers a variety of solutions. It provides guided meditations, soulful music , sleep aiding sessions, mind movement sessions.
   Pros - Very Details and seems advanced
   Cons - Cluttered and Costly on the pocket as well
2. ThinkRight Meditation -
   This is Top grossing app in the Indian Markets. Highly endorsed and branded by individuals who are pioneers in this sector like BK Shivani. This enables the user to gain more trust on the platform and allow the app to gain a nudge
   Pros - Highly recommended by Indian Leaders in Space.
   Cons - Not having enough content
   

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Ideal Customer Profile

Who are the ideal customers for Headspace?
Who is signing up for Headspace?

Let's find answers to these questions :)

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ICP 1 : Mr. and Ms. Shant Rejoice

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Jobs To Be Done

The ICP1 Stated above primarily focuses on Personal Goal.

These are the briefly broken down goals this couple is trying to achieve by the usage of Headspace. Following are few statements which were visible in their ICP call.

• "Help me take control of my emotional quotient"
• "Enable me to Lead a stress free and soulful life"
• "Cherish and Trying to live in the present"

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ICP 2 : Mrs. Phoebe Buffay

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Jobs To Be Done

The ICP2 described above gives clear signature of a Primary Goal as Functional Goal.
And here's why - The most used and enabled feature of the app for her was

1. "How simple and engaging they have created Meditation"
2. "Can just start with such a small experience"
3. "Have taught myself the art of meditation, and now seek app's help only once in 10 days"

But a small portion of Secondary Goal is Personal Goal -

Here the ICP is prioritizing physical well being features and have explored the options like sleep unwinding sessions and How to undo stress from the app.

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Customer Journey Map

The customer Journey Map outlines typically what all a user has to undergo from the start of the research or discovery of the app till the point where he becomes an activated user, in directions of

1. Actions
2. Pains
3. Feelings
4. Touchpoints

Throughout the journey Headspace continuously address the fact that it's a difficult step to address your emotional turmoil yet it provides safe space to all the users. Thereby increasing happy quotient in overall user experience and the journey.

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Onboarding Teardown

Here is the PDF for the detailed onboarding teardown for Headspace across various Platforms

Headspace_Onboarding Teardown.pdf

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Activation Metrics & Hypothesis Formation

When can we term that our user is an activated user?

1. When the user completes his first guided meditation session
2. When he/she agrees to the 14 day trial to the premium provided
3. Tracking his daily progress of series/guided meditations with help of the app (D1 to D7 journey)
4. Explores minimum of 2 topics which he is seeking solution for , making the app multi facet and usable in many scenarios/stages of life and routine for a user.
   
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Let's look at some stats which can help us figure the same

Headspace Statistics in Numbers

1. Headspace currently has about 2.8 Million Paid subscribers
2. This number has dropped by a little from previous year
3. Around 2700 tech giants/commercial customer are paying to headspace for their employees.

For headspace the majority revenue share comes from the paying customers. This is due to the fact that the paying customer will value their content more. Due to the subscription model coming in, that enables the user to enjoy the additional and extensive courses and guided sessions enabled. Mental health in recent years has been looked at differently and is an important factor post Covid-19. People value their mental wellbeing and a 1499 Rs/Year is an amount which is negligible in account to the value addition happening in their lives on the same.

Headspace Revenue

Headspace and it's user share

Headspace's user Categorization

In a split between Men V/s Women using Headspace, according to source around 55% are female users and 45% users are Men on the platform. Amongst top revenue Generating countries it is USA and India which top for headspace.



And here is the graph which is showing their age bracket ranges which clearly signifies that the entry level working force a key user due to multiple factors related to personal life and work life , thereby trying to balance on these lines.

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Headspace Marketing Channels

Average Time for Signup

• Headspace's basic signon which involves signing up via email takes approximately 4 minutes and it enables user to undergo a guided small session at the end of it.
• In case the user prompts to start the free trial with a payment method it does include another 2-3 minutes where he spends time selecting his payment method and validates the same .

Let's try to formulate our hypothesis based on the above statistics.

Hypothesis 1

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Statement - User Completes the Free Guided session in first 7 days of the signup

Reason - This can be a activation metric for headspace because this will be his or her first actual experience with the app. The user will feel inclusivity from the app's usage if he completes this and will be well versed with all the features of the app. It also will demonstrate user's will to complete a task which he has to put an extra effort to do

Metrics to track - D1 to D7 retention - this would enable to track and map when a user is performing this activity he will be present on the app on D7 as well

DAU/WAU - This number will show the user's activity on the platform app

Average TAT - The more the TAT the difficult it was for the user to get on the platform, if this is less it is likely that the user will perform this hypothesis


Hypothesis 2

Statement - Signing up for Free 14 day trial within 2 weeks of signup

Reason - This action demonstrates user trust . The free trial will be purchased only when the user was satisfied with his experience with the session. Despite it being free he still needs to add a payment method via the play/app store which is telling he is trusting the process and app.

Metrics to Track - D1 to D30 Retention - Again a key parameter as to why the user is sticking around, very likely if this hypothesis is performed he will stay at D30 point as well.

Subscription Rate V/S Retention - Since he has agreed to subscribe ,it is highly likely that retention ratio of these users will match the expectations.

​ Product Reviews - If user provided delightful product reviews and is a primarily signing up for Headspace it is a worthwhile metric to track.

​Hypothesis 3

Statement - User Doing More than one topic within first 30 days

Reason - This is an important aspect in ensuring that the user has multiple reasons to come to the app. For example , if an individual is dealing with Focus issues, it can be inculcated within 15days and then there would be no motivation for him to open the app. Thereby if he is starting 2 or 3 topics like Sleep, Focus, Stress etc, he or she will have enormous reasons to land on the app throughout a day

Metrics to Track - MAU - Monthly Active Usage will throw insights on how much frequent the user is on the app, since he is spending time on what all topics as well, thus content can be built around the category which needs most improvement.

​ Acquisition Source - Users coming from a certain source like Word Of Mouth, are likely to follow this hypothesis quicker since they have been primed by their peer on the app's capability

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Hypothesis 4

Statement - Completing his calendar events in a month

Reason - If user is signing up for a month long course and is completing his due diligence by attending the session on a daily basis , absorbing the content and practicing throughout the day. This will definitely be a factor of habit formation and headspace will be a integral cog of his daily subsystem in quick time

Metrics to Track - DAU/MAU - As the user is diving into the goals completion, if his DAU is significant then he is more willing to complete the user goals. Thereby the average MAU stats will also play a major role.

User Cohorts - If the user signs up of user cohorts , he or she is very likely to perform the necessary goals on the app to maintain that streak he has set for himself and will deliver a trend towards being activated.
Subscription Rate V/s Retention - All this will be possible only when the user is willing to subscribe since these are paid features.

Hypothesis 5

Statement - Listening to at least 1 podcast channel in first 45 days

Reason - Podcast are enormously heavy on duration on headspace, due to the amount of episodes ranging from minimum 10 under one topic. Thus even if the individual is listening to a small episode of a podcast today it is likely that he or she will retain the content for a few days. Thereby if he is enjoying podcasts on the platform he or she will finish one podcast channel/topic in due time and stick with the app for a while.

Metrics to Track - MAU - Month on Month tracking with the hypothesis, Since completion of a podcast needs immense dedication this will be a great metric to track

Product Reviews - Highly Likely that someone who is doing podcasts on the app will give a positive product review. thus this can be back traced and can deliver insights on the user framework

D30 Retention - If a user has started a podcast channel, has viewed couple of episodes on D30 it is very unlikely he or she will drop in middle.


Hypothesis 6

Statement - Sharing 30 day gift pass in first 30 days

Reason - A gift pass in headspace allows the receiver to explore the premium features for 30 days, if the current user is sharing it with someone it demonstrates he really wants that individual to try it out and primes his sight with so much positive feedback about the usage. Thus it is very likely that the sharing user has been satisfied with his journey so far on the app.

Metrics to track - Acquisition Source - WOM people are first to provide the same to their peers, enabling a chain reaction if satisfied by the product

D30 Retention - Only a D30 retained customer is more likely to share a gift pass to peer

DAU/MAU - Users having high DAU/MAU stats will be more inclined towards letting their peers and family reap the benefits of this hypothesis of gift pass sharing, which enables them to cherish the app for free.

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Validation of Activation Metric/Hypothesis!!

Headspace is in Mature Scale of business thus the 3 key questions we can ask each hypothesis are

1. Does it impact retention curve?
2. Does it increase Referral or Word of Mouth?
3. Does it increase LTV?

And let's try to populate the answers in Yes/No for the hypothesis in this table

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Conclusion

We began Headspace's journey by defining the goals and insights for which users are getting on boarded, and in a country like India if users were willing to pay for something which seems so simple "Mental Wellness"

But over this study we can say with complete faith that headspace has gained their user's trust with factors such as their in depth content library, simple and effective module framework which allows users to learn and build a muscle slowly. Though there are few areas which were highlighted in their app teardown which can be improved to much greater extent, but still the app does the core value and it's job on a decent enough level. However, Headspace can attract more onboarding and user retention if they can inculcate more free trials before moving to paid subscription, by increasing the delight of users by integrating small happy aha moments and with inclusion of small achievement milestones which can give the user a positive rush over himself to turn to the app very soon thereby increasing the Active Usage on the app/platform.

Cheers!

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