Transcript
Anthony Rose
So hello, welcome to Founder Interviews, where I talk to amazing founders on SeedLegals. And today, I’m talking to Jas from Luna. So Jas, introduce yourself.Jas
Hi, I’m Jas. I’m 50% of Luna, so co-founder with my best friend, Jo. And we’re building the world’s first health app for teenagers.Anthony Rose
OK, so tell me, what problem are you solving for teenagers?Jas
We are solving for the massive amount of misinformation that exists today online when it comes to teens’ health and wellbeing. Because today, teens aren’t always going to their parents, they’re not going to books. What they’re doing is going to TikTok. And let me tell you now, there is a lot of scary stuff on there when it comes to health and wellbeing information.Anthony Rose
Okay, so teens are gonna find the Luna app, they’re gonna get on it. Now, I understand your traction’s amazing so far, tell me more.Jas
Yeah, we are pretty impressed by what we’ve been able to build and make a somewhat taboo topic seem cool. So we now have around 100,000 members on our platform in over 150 different countries. And teenagers are genuinely loving Luna. They’re logging in on average six times a week, some 20 times a week. We’ve really built a community feel around the brand and the product.Anthony Rose
That’s amazing. You’ve raised like one and a half million pounds so far, which is awesome. Tell me how it works, because you’ve got part of the app or website for kids and part of it is for parents. Tell us more about both sides of that.Jas
Yeah, absolutely. So the app is primarily for the teenagers themselves. There’s a space for them to learn through curated content, all about health and wellbeing, all created by experts. They can ask anonymous questions to experts as well, and then we publicly post back the answers. So it’s like a forum style. Other teens can go in there, read things, and realize that they’re normal. There’s a tracking feature as well, so a place for them to track their moods, emotions, start seeing their habits. And then all of that is gamified. There’s lots of quizzes and points, which is what Gen Alpha and Gen Z love.Now, on top of that, the parent layer, like you said, we’ve got so much insight on this generation and we want to be able to share that with parents and also help them through parenting teens as well. So parents can also access insights, content, tips, and tricks from our experts too.
Anthony Rose
Okay, so you’re a team of seven people, is that right?Jas
Yes, small, lean team.Anthony Rose
Okay, great. So obviously, this kind of app is going to be heavy on moderation. How do you keep it clean, so to speak?Jas
Absolutely. So there’s no user-generated content in the app. It’s all created by Luna’s amazing expert community. And there’s actually no peer-to-peer interaction in the app either. So there’s no sort of risk there when it comes to potentially harmful information or harmful conversations. It’s just a member and Luna.Anthony Rose
So you are the content creators. Is there a plan to open that up to a community or expand further to get a wider group creating content?Jas
It’s a great question. At the moment, there isn’t that plan, and the reason for this is it’s such a vulnerable audience that actually Luna having control of the conversation is really important. And we’ve already created a very sticky and engaging product without that. So for now, the plan is to keep it with no peer-to-peer interactions, but who knows what the future might hold.Anthony Rose
Okay, so building a brand for teens sounds notoriously difficult. Tell me how you go about building a brand.Jas
Great question. And, you know, I’m not a teen, I’m not a Gen Z, I’m very much a millennial. So this was an upward curve for sure. The secret sauce was really two things. Number one, getting the community involved, getting them to spread the word and having them co-create the product with us. So we have a team of nearly 500 brand ambassadors who help us with social media, but also help with the product roadmap. Every half term or summer holidays, we bring these work experiences in, not all 500 of them, to our office to help us refine the roadmap, give us feedback. So I think part of the success has really been working so closely with the teens themselves.And second of all, and I hate to say this, because obviously TikTok is the whole reason we exist, but we’ve been able to use TikTok as a way to get the word out there for Luna and bust the myths that they are learning from. And for us, TikTok has been a great source of organic growth. We’ve really managed to nail what the Gen Z and Gen Alpha like on TikTok. And yeah, the two things in tandem have helped us create a brand that teenagers love.
Anthony Rose
So that sounds amazing. The traction so far has been awesome, 100,000 people using the app. What are the plans over the coming years? How do you expand?Jas
Great question. And we’ve done 100,000 members on not that much marketing budget at all. So just imagine what we can do when we’ve got more. I think we’ll be reaching millions of teenagers across the world. And my vision really is to be in the pockets of teens and parents everywhere. So the focus for us next is to keep improving our product. Again, this is our MVP that teens are obsessed with, and there’s so much more we want to launch and do with the product, but then also grow and reach more teenagers. So that’s really the focus for the next couple of years for us.Anthony Rose
Okay, so what’s the business model? Who pays? The kids, the parents?Jas
So the business model is a freemium model and parents are largely the payer of this because they are getting healthier, happier, more empowered teenagers. But we’re talking the price of less than a cup of coffee a month, so it’s really not a big investment.Anthony Rose
Okay, so it’s primarily for kids, but there’s a parent angle as well. What’s the parent angle? How do the parents get in the app and what do they get as value?Jas
Yeah, so like we said before, obviously they get a happier, healthier teen. But on top of this, we have insights like no other on this audience. We can tell you what’s top of mind for teenagers from all the questions they’re asking us. We know what’s trending on social media. And we’re working with amazing experts in this space as well. So parents get access to all of these insights and advice that we have at Luna.
