You become what you repeat. Yet, many do not consciously decide what they repeat but act in autopilot mode, resulting in the same old behavior and thought patterns. Those who want to break these patterns often lack guidance and motivation. This is why 21done built a learning app that helps individuals intentionally and knowledgeably develop the right habits. Find out more about their mission and check out their live round on Leapfunder.
1. Hi Thomas, thank you for agreeing to do the interview. Tell us about 21done, the idea that got it all started, and the amazing team behind it.
Feng Xia, now Co-Founder of 21done, was my best student when I was a professor for digital customer experiences at Brand University in Hamburg. In my entrepreneur class, she conceptualized a digital platform and marketplace for pet services that serve the diverse needs of pets and their owners. In her final presentation, I was joking when asking her, “When are you going live with this soul service?”
Feng Xia thought about it and 2 months later wrote me that she would love to create this business and wondered how to start. Coming from an entrepreneurial family like Feng Xia, I quickly jumped on the idea. Still, I thought in a different direction: Why not create a marketplace for multiple and different types of soul services, like yoga, coaching, and creativity workshops? “Soul services” turned into “personal growth” with the idea of mediating services that contribute to people’s development, creativity, and mental health.
Digging deeper into how to help people achieve their personal growth goals and behavioral change, we found the saying, “you become what you repeat.” This led us to our second and even more prominent offer: Our 21-day plans with 21 effective learning resources curated by our 21done coaches to inspire users for new healthy and productive habits. Once a user believes that a habit suggestion would be conducive to his/her happiness and success, we enable him/her to start practicing for at least 21 days – since that is the suggested minimum number of days to actually form a new habit.
We were happy to have found Prakash, our CTO, who was already a serial entrepreneur then and came in with great passion, experience, and team spirit to build the platform and app with us.
2. What problems are you trying to solve? What are the benefits of 21done, and why is your startup a product-market fit?
You become what you repeat. Yet, many do not consciously decide what they repeat but act in autopilot mode, resulting in the same old behavior and thought patterns. Those who want to break these patterns often lack guidance and motivation. This is why 21done built a learning app that helps individuals intentionally and knowledgeably develop the right habits.
These habits can be created in any of these categories: mental & physical health (e.g., becoming more positive and relaxed or becoming fitter), creativity (e.g., becoming a more creative problem solver or becoming more humorous), general growth (e.g., understanding oneself better), professional growth (e.g., communicating better or being better organized), sustainability (e.g., living more minimalistic or saving more energy).
Since our launch in September 2022, we have had great traction – despite difficult economic times in which many people need to save money. We earn through annual and monthly user subscriptions, where our revenue grows by 65% month-over-month. More than half of our subscribers prefer an annual over a monthly subscription plan – validating our product value and customer satisfaction (as indicated by our positive App Store and Playstore ratings of 4.7 out of 5 stars). Now, we successfully started to offer our app to businesses to enable their employees to grow holistically and be more productive. Not to ignore our above-mentioned marketplace for personal growth: We earn 14% of every purchase made by either a private or business customer. Currently, 190 services for personal growth are offered via this marketplace.
3. You have a live round on Leapfunder. What makes it the right tool for your startup, and what do you expect from the round?
Leapfunder has a strong reputation for fundraising among startups and investors. It is the right tool for startups in an early stage, like our pre-seed stage. So far, my experience with Leapfunder and its team is great, and we already collected a third of our funding goal of €300K within a few days. Our round lasts until the end of March, and every business angel is welcome to check out our profile or book a meeting with me here.
4. How much growth potential do you see for 21done, and what type of investors are you looking to attract in this round?
For 2026 we see our revenues at €12M – split almost equally among B2C and B2B segments. Growth would accelerate after that. Growth would come not only from the two segments but also from two scalable revenue models based on two different offers: 1) Subscription revenues based on our 21-day-plans offer within the app and 2) commission revenues from our marketplace offer that is accessible from the app and via desktop. Next year, we want to scale our business internationally by stepping into markets that are even more receptive to personal growth offers than Germany, like the United States. Our vision is to become the number one platform and companion for personal growth.
We are looking for investors who share our vision and enable our growth through necessary funding and want to share their experiences and network with us.
5. What are your plans for the upcoming months? Tell us about your go-to-market strategy and the plan to acquire customers.
Our investment focus and our go-to-market strategy to achieve our 2023 milestones are as follows:
- B2C product: Ongoing development to enhance user experience and strengthen their positive behavior change
- B2C marketing: a) More effective paid ads and a higher budget for these, b) increasing our reach for our great content, i.e., our podcast and our blog for personal growth, c) strengthening app referrals
- B2B product: Officially launching a B2B app for employees with great synergies and few adaptations to the B2C app
- B2B sales: Hire a part-time sales agent to grow our B2B sales
Thank you for sharing your story with us, Thomas. We wish 21done the best of luck.
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