In August 2015, my co-founder and I had an idea: Wouldn’t it be cool if you could get a daily text message to start your day off right? Something that could be your own personal confidence boost every day. A work bestie in your pocket. We wanted to counteract ‘imposter syndrome’ and other negative feelings that limited us – and so many others — from being our best selves in the office and in our personal lives.
We met working together at DoSomething.org, a tech-driven NGO, where we realized the power of having a friend who understands your work/life situation. We often thought about building a scalable way for others to get that type of support. We went full-force into text messaging and put our ideas to action when we launched Shine in October 2015.
Eight months and 2.8 million text messages later, users are telling us that Shine (with all of its gifs and off-beat pop culture references in tow) is their morning addiction and really does feel like a friend messaging them to make their work and personal life more focused, fun and intentional.
In a world that not-so-gently reminds us of all the things we need to be, the reminder that you’re not alone in your struggles or insecurities and the permission to be human has struck a powerful chord.
The top five most engaged topics for our users, all revolve around living their best life. They are as follows:
We often ask ourselves, “What are the issues in 20 years we’re going to look back at and be mad we aren’t talking about right now?” Our mission, through Shine, is to break the spiral of silence around the very things that make us human, like the normal feelings of self-doubt that sometimes comes with our ambitious, purposeful lives.
Naomi Hirabayashi is the co-founder of Shine: the daily messaging experience to help you be your best self. Sign up for texts at www.shinetext.com. Naomi lives in Brooklyn with her fiancé, is passionate about diversifying entrepreneurship and believes Brené Brown is a QUEEN.
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