“Startups are like a rollercoaster,” they said. Well, they weren’t wrong and we’re still in for the ride!

Yes, it’s true. A lot has happened since you last heard from us. But we assure you that we are still working hard and moving forward with our mission! The last couple of years have been somewhat of a rollercoaster ride, and we would like to share our story with you. So, let us take you on our journey and explain where we’ve been since 2018.

New name, same mission

You might remember that we used to be called Workout for Happiness, which led some people to believe that we are solely a physical workout program. But wellbeing is about so much more than that. To communicate that our program improves physical, mental and social wellbeing, we changed our company name to wellyou. While our company name changed, our mission remains the same. Our aim was — and still is — to provide people with the knowledge, tools and encouragement to become happier, healthier, and more compassionate human beings.

With new beginnings come new challenges

After years of hard work, we were finally in a place where we could make our passion project a reality and help people flourish; the app was ready! Excited and proud, the app store approved our “wellyou — be happy!” app on March 10, 2020. And just as we were about to announce the good news the following Saturday, North America and Europe went into lockdown.

The world was no longer as we knew it. Take yourself back to those first days for a moment. Remember the confusion and anxiety we felt while we were glued to our computer screens reading the news and wondering what’s next? While stores were running out of toilet paper and cleaning supplies, people were losing their jobs and family members. How could we possibly promote our new product during such times?

When lockdown hit us, we realized that we needed to put everything on hold and stop the launch. We understood that there would be no room for an app that encouraged people in their normal lives to boost happiness, when nothing was normal anymore. Like for so many of you, our worlds were also turned upside down when the corona virus became part of our daily lives.

wellyou in hard times

Although they had no idea at the time how the pandemic would change the world and affect our company’s future, Amelia remembers how Adam turned to her one day before lockdown, out of nowhere (he’s a highly intuitive person!), and said, “we need to make a lockdown program.” To which she replied, “Adam, you’re crazy.” Amelia has always been the more risk averse one of the two. What drove Adam was his unwavering need to continue to help people, especially now during these uncertain times.

The company shifted its focus overnight. We quickly conceptualized and planned what would later become the newest addition to the wellyou family, wellyou in hard times. Thanks to the awesome platform www.helpwithcovid.com, we were able to find more helping hands to support our project. Our small team had grown to over 40 people from all over the world from Los Angeles, USA to Sydney, Australia. It was a 24-hour operation.

In only five weeks, we launched our free wellyou in hard times app worldwide. We wanted our app to provide people with a sense of normalcy and help them maintain their physical, mental, and social wellbeing during self-isolation. In our app, users could find credible sources of information, tasks and challenges to help them stay well-informed, active and socially connected during hard times.

A rollercoaster of ups and downs

As the pandemic slowly receded, we made the decision to focus all of our attention on improving our program, increasing our branding efforts and running different marketing campaigns. However, during the summer of 2020, we hit a rough patch. As if the pandemic were not enough, Adam and Amelia unexpectedly lost two people very close to them; one friend/neighbour and Adam’s grandpa (who became Amelia’s grandpa as well). They were grieving, completely burned out and lacking energy and motivation. Indeed, even founders of a wellbeing company can be unwell.

Just as we were ready to potentially throw in the towel and succumb to covid19, in September 2020, we got an amazing new team of interns, who brought just the right amount of motivation and enthusiasm to keep us going. Once again, we were back on track and with this renewed energy, we started to dream big again.

And then in January 2021, Adam’s mother suddenly passed away. It was too much. We told you it’s been a rollercoaster.

Helping children thrive

Fast forward to summer 2021. A couple of researchers from a prominent university approached us with the idea to co-create a specialized program for children who suffer from domestic violence. After our meeting, we knew that we had to contribute to this cause and help make a positive impact.

But there was a roadblock. Neither us nor the university had the resources to create a brand new app, adjusting our existing program, and animation videos to get the content to the kids as easily as possible.

But we are fixated on making this program a reality. We strongly believe that all children deserve a happy childhood. Children’s wellbeing is not only important for a good childhood, but it also lays the foundation for a healthy adult life. That’s why the specialized program will provide children with the tools and knowledge they need to create a foundation for lifelong wellbeing.

NFTs for social impact

Around the same time, we talked to our good friend and financial mentor, Abhilash, about our dream to create this specialized program. Abhilash told us about the NFT space and explained that we could help bring our program to life by creating our own NFTs.

Wait, what? What are NFTs? They stand for non-fungible tokens, which are digital assets that represent unique collectibles such as art, music or videos.

And we know, now you’re thinking: How do NFTs and the cryptoworld relate to children’s wellbeing? Well, that was exactly what we asked Abhilash about. Turns out that we can actually enable positive social impact through NFTs while also creating beautiful and inspiring art.

Since then, we have been working hard on a project that aims to bring awareness to children’s wellbeing through NFTs.

And while we are still putting the final touches on the project, we are very excited to show you what we have been working on for the last couple of months.

We can’t tell you all of the details just yet, but what we can say is that something purposeful, beautiful and impactful is coming; something that will help a lot of children worldwide to have happier and healthier childhoods.

So stay tuned for more! We promise you, it will be worth the wait.

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More about wellyou:

wellyou is a holistic program and real-life adventure game designed to increase peoples’ happiness & well-being — physically, mentally, socially — with science-based methods in an iOS app. Our mission is to help people become happier, healthier, and more compassionate human beings.