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The people who are on HALO Talks NYC have the pleasure of bringing from the northern border of Canada, Anya. We are gonna talk about rooted. We're gonna talk about dealing with panic attacks. We're gonna talk about helping people, through technology that is a trend, and she has executed on that effectively. So Anya, welcome to HALO Talks. Thanks for having me.
So, you know, maybe talk a little bit about, you know, what the frustration that that was solved, that either you experienced or others around you experienced that decided, on your end to basically devote this into a full time career and to, to start a company and not just a, you know, a self help, component to, to helping others on the side? Yeah. Definitely. So I was in my 4th year of university when I experienced a panic attack. And up until then, I thought that
panic attacks just meant that people were too stressed out. I couldn't relate. I was a pretty relaxed person. And then I went to the ER room, and, the doctor there, understandably now looking back, but just didn't have enough time to sit down and explain everything to me. So I was just basically told, you're fine. Go home. And that set off this spiral of fear, which is extremely common with panic attacks. If you don't understand what's happening when it first occurs to you especially, it can
get really, really challenging. So that spiral of fear set me down, just a lot of, like, negative changes in my life, a lot of debilitating changes. So that's where that frustration really came in. And it wasn't till I started learning the tools to effectively heal and manage panic attacks that I decided that an app needed to exist because I have my phone on me at all times. Why not have this helpful solution
right there? Yeah. So could you just talk, you know, it's kind of like a preamble here to the rest of the discussion on what is going on chemically in your body when you actually have a panic attack? Well, it's a little different for everybody, but, essentially your nervous system is activated and there can be a number of different physical effects from increased sweating, blurred vision, heart palpulations, dry mouth, seeing stars. You know, those are all, like, the
physical effect. And then there's the mental effects that have to do with, like, really negative thoughts, thinking that something really bad is happening. Like, everything in your body is telling you that something's hap many people get the sensation that they're dying, and that's why 1% of ER visits are from panic attacks.
Gotcha. It's actually a lot of ER visits. You know, I just thought about going through an app given that people have different, effects and different severities, you know, how did you go about building the app in order to kinda take you through the sequencing that either majority of Pete have or it kinda, like, takes you through, you know, the the the life cycle, of the panic attack? And is this used now as kind of, like, not dial 911, like, go to the app, or explain
to us how the usage is? Yeah. So when I was first creating it, it was definitely modeled off of what I needed. Right? Because I wanted to create something that I knew very well. And that's why even today, when people come to me, they say, hey. Why don't you make this for depression or for ADHD? I say, you know, I really wanna focus on what I know well, and I wanna execute on that very well. So, that was sort of the premise for building rooted and the different tools within the
app. And then, Pete to answer the latter question, you know, it is used for immediate relief. So if you are in the moment experiencing a panic attack, you can pull out the app. It's based on cognitive therapy, and you're able to walk through whatever you're experiencing. There's 2 different options. You can either face the panic attack head on, which is very healing, or you can use these prompts to sort of keep
it at bay. You know, activating that parasympathetic nervous system, that's the one that calms us and gets us back to, feeling stable again. Got it. And is there any kind of well, first, talk about, like, the the name of the of the apps of Rooted. Like, what what was the genesis of that? Yeah. So with Rooted, it the idea is being grounded in the ground like a tree. You know? You have big roots. When there's a big storm and you look at a big oak tree, it's not toppling over. Right? It's
handling that storm. So the idea is for everybody to get as rooted as possible to build those roots themselves, and they don't feel like they need to call for help or or, you know, topple over when those horrible feelings come. And so from a total, you know, if we were looking at this from, like, a venture capital standpoint, you'd say, okay. K. Anya, what's the total addressable market? How how many people get panic attacks annually in North America? Yeah. So about 4%
of adults get panic attacks. Wow. And that yeah. Exactly. Like, depending on how you look at it, it's a huge number. Right? On the other hand, there's Talks, anxiety disorder. And so over the years, because I was also experiencing anxiety, we've put in a number of different tools that also address anxiety in general. So there's, sleep support. There's visualization. There's journaling to help those sessions with the therapist be more effective because you can go back and really easily realize,
okay. What was I doing before the panic attack or sensation of anxiety occurred? And so there's these other tools in addition to the lessons and the panic attack tool that really help with anxiety. And the number of folks with anxiety is just staggering now. It's one out of every 4 adults in North America will experience some. Gotcha. So you have 2,000,000 users. Talk about how that how that evolved over time. And are you specifically targeting,
you know, talk about, like, your market penetration strategy. How do people find out about Rooted? And is it also as an add on question there, are you aligning with doctors and people in the profession, or is it or they view it as like a disintermediation of their services? Yeah. So we're actually at 3,000,000 users. I think it's that Got it. We've been kind of hooked this podcast for a while, so we actually had a, yeah, a 1000000 more users in growth there and, primarily
organically. And what that means is, like, we don't do word-of-mouth, people sharing it with their friends and family after using it with their community. You mentioned doctors and relationship with doctors. Doctors are huge referral source for Rooted therapists as well Mhmm. Clinicians. And, yeah, the, like, app store optimization is something that I really focused on. So making sure that if people are searching for something like Rooted, Rooted pops up.
There's a number of things that go into that from, you know, user reviews and user ratings is huge. So we have a 4.8 out of 5 star, rating, and we have over 50,000 reviews from people now. So, that is, like, super huge and being credible and, you know, getting to that, you know, to that search spot that we wanna be at. And that's where most of the growth comes from.
This is Pete Moore. I wanna let you in on a little secret. There's this company called Promotion Vault, and what they do is they give out rewards from retailers that allow you to incentivize your members without having to do 0 down and 1 month free or giving away shakes or giving away t shirts. What you want to do is build a rewards program that lasts, that people value, and that doesn't discount your own products and services.
So here's the deal. There's something called rewards vault. The rewards vault is going to allow a member to set up their own profile. They are going to answer questions. You are gonna get those answers. You're gonna be able to target those members, and you're gonna reward them inside your club, inside your spa, and outside of the club, and outside of the spa to get them to become loyal, to get them to pay their monthly dues, and to be rewarded properly for
the actions. A lot of companies are cutting back on rewards. You shouldn't be. Promotion Vault's your answer. Trust me. This is real. You know, when when you started the business, what kind of, did you do any any any outside research or say, look, you know, some of the best companies are built off of personal frustration or personal experiences like you articulated at the beginning here. Was there a need for you to basically, like,
validate that, hey, I can get the 3,000,000 users one day? Are you, you know, equally, you know, kind of excited about where how this has grown organically, with without actually having to spend, you know, $20,000,000 in marketing? Yeah. So, yeah, I had no idea what would happen when I first launched Rooted. I had no idea. I just knew that I wanted to get it out there. I did not I don't have an MBA. You know? I don't have
a background in business. So for me, the frustration and learning that, you know, some of the best products are created out of frustration, it it wouldn't have mattered to me at the time because it was just like I was so I had, like, horse blinders on with what I was experiencing and what I was doing, and I didn't do, like, you know, competitive analysis or any of that, to be honest. So getting to 1,000,000 users was such a huge, huge, bewildering number. It
was just like, wow. I can't believe that happened. So, yeah, the rest sometimes feels like a dream. You know? It's a but, you know, looking back, I would never wish panic attacks on anyone, and I would wish that I hadn't experienced them. Even though I'm so happy that now Rudas is there for so many people, and the user reviews are a testament to that for sure. But, you know, it was a horrible time. So I like, when I was experiencing it myself. So, you know, I wouldn't, you know, wish that on
myself or anyone. Gotcha. You know, when you think about separate the the people that you're helping and and and the usage and the fact that people feel like they have a support mechanism basically, you know, on on their phone. You know, how do you think about from an entrepreneur building a business and say, well, what is this app worth to someone? I mean, it's worth 1,000 of dollars per potential episode. Right? You probably couldn't even quantify, like, what this is worth to
someone. How do you think about pricing an app or having a a freemium type of model? And also say, like, there's a point that I am comfortable with as an entrepreneur to provide this service to someone with technology. And I'm not going to look at this as if it's like, you know, a drug company Square they say, like, hey. What's the maximum amount I could get someone to pay for this pill that's gonna
solve x? So how do you think about that? Maybe share that, you know, for our entrepreneurs here that look at, like, the price to value proposition. Obviously, it's off the charts, but I just wanted to understand how you think about it. Yeah. That's a important topic, I think, especially because Rooted is a social impact business. And when I was starting Rooted, social impact businesses weren't even taken
seriously. There was, like, very few venture funds for social impact businesses, and it just wasn't considered, like, you know, profit and helping people. They just weren't considered, like, mutual. And so that has always been a challenge. I'd say that the reason why freemium resonates with me is because, you know, with over 66% of people who experience panic attacks don't actually look for the treatment they need, often due to barriers like stigma. A huge one, though, is also financial.
So if you experience panic attacks, you might know that it can be so debilitating that, understandably, many folks, like, aren't able to work. And so it was really always important for me to have that free component, And it did make me sort of butt heads with potential investors and with, like, judges of different competitions that Rooted was in, because they were under the impression that, you know, you shouldn't have that much free content. On
the flip side, however, that's really how we grew organically. Right? People sharing it with their friends. There's no, like, hard paywall. You can go and you can get value from it. So it's kinda like the chicken and the egg with that. And then in terms of the actual price, that has a lot to do with, you know, what is out there for other health and wellness apps on the app stores and
and looking at that. And you're right. For some I mean, we get testimonials from people saying that they're able to go back to work because of Rooted. So, like, it is really hard to put a price on that. Right? But we just sort of go on what is sort of like the market standard for apps. Not necessarily healing panic attacks, but just for an app. Mhmm. So so as you think about, I used to run a software company Academy my partner, he was on the product side. And, you know, he was always selling the
next version. And I felt like the the app and the and the web platform that we built was always like a a web painting. And and it always had more work to do. So as you think about going forward, do you go deeper into, you know, panic
attacks? Do you kinda say, hey, if you have a panic attack, you know, and now it's 25% of the market or or, you know, adults have have anxiety that I'm basically gonna take on the anxiety side of it because the foundation is basically, like, an ongoing, you know, subtle earthquake at, like, 4 point o instead of, like, at 8 point o. How do you think about building the business? Or do you say, look. I'm gonna stay in my lane, and it's my lane. And I don't have to, you know, I I don't have to talk
to investors about what I wanna do. This is my company. I'm gonna run the way I wanna do it. And that's the voice you listen to. Yeah. I'd say I would've, like, definitely stay in my lane part. I am, trying to build a happy life alongside working on this. And Mhmm. Yeah. I think in figuring out my values and learning more about myself over the past 5 years, I think that doing it this way has been beneficial
and is how I'd like to continue. Great. And and from a standpoint of, you know, build you know, work life balance or if that really exists, It's it's a it's a nice, cliche. But anyone building a business, you know, it's it's top of
mind all the time. And, you know, I've, I I talk in my sleep so some, you know, my significant other would tell me, like, hey, I think you were talking about business, you know, in the middle of the night based on what you're talking about, you know, because you told me a story recently about this deal you're working on. So when you say, like, creating a happy life,
like, what what does that mean to you? And and what are some of the things or guardrails you would you would advise other entrepreneurs to take that maybe you learned over time, that weren't self evident? Sure. Yeah. I'd say one component is sort of managing my own time. So like you said, for most entrepreneurs, your business is always top of mind. We don't really get weekends. That really wasn't a thing for me at all. My first few years of the business, like, I
didn't take any days off at all. And, I think that at the time, there was, like, a desperation. I needed this product to exist. I needed to get it out there. I needed for people to see the value of it as well. And now that all of those have been those goals have been met, I'm able to actually relax a bit more. Right? It's no longer from this, like, place of desperation. It's more of like a, okay. How do we keep making it better? How do we keep getting the
word out? But it's definitely not as intense and stressful as it was at the beginning. So that's been a huge part of it, just managing my own time. I think I think it was, like, Morgan Housel, the guy who did, the psychology of money, that book. He said that time will be more valuable of a commodity than money in the future. And I can see that personally for me. Like, my time is is precious. Like, I I really value it. So managing it is a huge part
of happiness for me. And then, yeah, I think, you know, financial security is important, and I think deciding, like, when enough is enough for you is a huge component too. I see, I'm, you know, fortunate I'm able to interact with a ton of awesome entrepreneurs. I see some of them, like, extremely, extremely wealthy and still very unhappy. And so it's, like, pretty cliche, but, you know, money doesn't buy happiness. It provides security. And I think understanding
where your enough is is a huge part of that. And so I guess rooted is more so based on, like, steady growth versus, like, growth at all costs. And that's another component for happiness. Gotcha. When when you take a look at marketing and doing any any kind of, like, speaking engagements or you know, you're out there basically bringing more and more awareness, to panic attacks. Have you seen a cultural shift, you know, related to obviously, everyone in the
US is talking about mental health. It's okay to, you know, talk about how stressful you are. It's okay to talk about how you feel. It's okay to say, I wanna take some time off from playing tennis because I'm not in the right frame of mind, which, you know, before it used to be deemed a weakness, and now it's just basically I'm human. So so how is that kind of propelled you and giving you confidence to have this as a as
a a lecture? Or, like, hey, we can talk about this. There's nothing, you know, you know, there's no full power about talking about panic attacks Square there might have been, like, something that was under the rug before. Totally. Yeah. It has completely changed since I started Rooted. So I started Rooted in 2018, and panic attacks just weren't talked about. It's just not something that you would want to even associate with yourself. I had trouble putting my own
face on the brand. I also thought, you know, it's not about me It's about the app, but I remember yeah the first few articles that I participated in they would ask for a headshot and I would send them the app mascot Ron, because I just wasn't comfortable. And I didn't wanna just be known as the anxiety girl or the panic attack girl because there's so much more to me, and there's so much more
I wanted to do with my career too. So, yeah, I'd say it's like night and day, and I think, COVID was a huge part of that. I think a lot of people opened up to the fact that they were really struggling during covid. And a lot of large institutions and government organizations were just starting to talk about mental health, and, you know, that does really play a part in destigmatizing. So I think it's, yeah, like night and day since when I first started. It's a lot more talked about now.
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workouts. Higher dose, check it out. There's a wholesale code, and we look forward to helping you augment your products and services to meet the demands of your members. And, hey, let's get people happy, healthy, and sweating, and the recovery should be just as good as the workout. And and one other question Pete, and maybe a couple of follow-up questions, but you started off just as a a b to c app in the App Store. Correct? Yes. And you you referenced that there's some
b to b relationship here. Can you talk about, you know, maybe on a no names basis, you know, who's first in line to basically say, hey, I need to make sure that my employees or my members have access to this just in
case? And then is this been a big push into corporate wellness programs where they say, hey, here's all the here's all the apps and here's all the services that we wanna provide to our employees, and this is a, you know, mission critical part of that app suite or just talk about the b two b side because everyone tries to sell into b Pete b on the corporate wellness side. And, obviously, it's a very long sales process typically, and there's a lot of groups out there.
But there aren't as many groups that go as deep as you've gotten into a specific, you know, modality or search, you know, specific circumstance that I would think, yeah, this is mission critical. We should have this on here. So can you talk a little bit about the
b Pete side? Totally. And I think, you know, since you said there's entrepreneurs potentially in the audience, I'd say one important distinction is that I started off with b Pete c, and that traction allowed me to approach the b to b. Traditionally, you'd get venture funding, build out a team, a sales team, and then go after b to b. So that's, like, an important difference there. But, yeah, when I first started the b to b component, it was from getting
comments and testimonials from users saying, hey. I actually can't even work right now, or I can't afford this because I'm out of work, and could my employer you know, I'm on on leave. Could my employer not pay for this? Could my government not pay for this? You know? A lot of testimonials like that. And so that's sort of what it started that. And I started off with just working with other start ups actually, who their goal would be to reduce turnover
and increase performance of employees. And they were like, hey. We actually do have turnover from mental health issues. Let's see how this would work. So we did some pilots, and the pilots were positive, ended up working with, you know, retail, the restaurant chains, and and eventually, yeah, with therapists themselves. You know, during COVID, there was, like, such long wait list for therapy. So those that, really did wanna help, they just offered these other
tools that folks can rely on. You know? Even when you have a therapist, like, you can't necessarily call them in the middle of the night. Right? So, that's when Rooted is there. And, yeah, it's meant to be a symbiotic tool, but it is, yep, definitely recommended and used by those groups. So that's the b to b component. Yeah. And then just one other question or comment on the b to b side. As people renew annual contracts for their corporate wellness
initiatives, a lot of times they'll look and say, hey. What's the usage bit? Right? And if it's like a fitness app or if it's a data tracking app or or what have you, the number is usually very low, from an employer providing services to an employee that they actually, you know, 20 or 30% of the employee base take advantage of. In your case, is it viewed more as, like, this is an emergency type of
app? And therefore, even if it's 1%, like, that's 1% versus 0, you know, and and that turns potentially into, like, a huge catastrophic issue. Have you had had any conversations on a b to b side where they ask you how many people have used the app? And it might be low, but that low number is, like, almost irrelevant because it was only a couple Pete. Like, that's those are important people, you know, in that moment
of time. I just that seems to be like a distinction to me that could benefit a recurring component of your business or anyone that's in, like, this mission critical, you know, Square? Did can you comment on that? Because I feel like some people may need to think about that when they answer a question on what's your usage. Yeah. So I'd say it completely depends on how that business calculates the value
of Virta. Right? So Right. If we look at, Virta being offered as one of many tools that, you know, a company might be offering to hopefully prevent, you know, turnover, that's a different type of calculation than when you look at, okay, every ER visit is costing us $27,000. Wow. Gotcha. If we're spending a couple $100 on rooted and it prevents even just a couple annually, then that's already a win. So, you know, it totally depends on how those
businesses look at it. Yeah. Awesome. Happy to say we've had happy customers. So Yeah. It's great what you're doing. It's also great that you didn't think about, you know, doing it in a traditional fashion of, you know, putting together a business plan and, you know, saying, hey. I hope there's a Moore. And here's, like, research because I feel like the best ideas come from solving your own problems. Yeah. And and, you know, kudos to you for, for executing
on that. And then the last thing is you got any quotes that you live by or any quotes for our our quote library that you like to reference? Oh, I think this too shall pass. This too shall pass for a minute. Shall pass. Very relevant for panic attacks, obviously. Sure. Sure. Any life events. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks for
coming on. You know, please let us know how we can help you in any of the, you know, whether it's business, if you got relationships with groups like Gympass or Fit Reserve or any of the, the corporate programs that are, you know, fitness based that are always trying to add more, to their, ballot work of of services. Happy to do that and, and thanks for what you're doing for people. Awesome. Well 3,000,000. Thank you.