$1 Million Panic Attack App

I heard the story of Rootd at the 24-minute mark of this MFM podcast 🎙

It’s an app for “panic attack and anxiety relief,” with great ratings on the app stores and more than a million downloads on the Google Play store alone.

They offer a free trial for 7 days and then it’s $60 per year.

Best I can tell, founder Ania Wysocka first launched Rootd back in 2017. (Update: Ania told me via Twitter that the app officially launched in 2019.)

And according to the MFM podcast the app recently crossed $1 million in revenue 💰

A big chunk of their revenue seems to come from company plans, which allow companies to bulk-purchase access to the app for their employees.

Ania shared how she came up with the idea for Rootd in an interview…

During my last year of university, I experienced my first panic attack, seemingly out of nowhere. In that time of uncertainty, confusion, and loneliness, I couldn’t find the support I needed or that spoke to my demographic.

Exhaustive personal research and my journey working with mental health professionals combined with my love for graphic design and entrepreneurship inspired me to create Rootd – an accessible resource to help anyone in need navigate their own journeys overcoming anxiety and panic attacks.

Amazing example of someone turning lemons into lemonade 🍋

Also interesting: Ania isn’t a coder.

She’s still a one-woman business and hires contractors to help her with programming and other tasks.

Her advice for aspiring app builders 👇

I think many people with ideas for amazing apps worry that they’d need to raise a big round of investment or spend a ton of money for an agency to develop the app for them […] 

My advice would be to not discount bootstrapping. Bootstrapping can be a lot of work and lonely at times, but it can definitely be a very viable and rewarding option too, as it has been for Rootd.