Calm

Calm.com founder secured the domain before building anything

Shaan shares how his friend who started the meditation app Calm got the calm.com domain first and decided to build a brand around the feeling of being calm, with the product form (a meditation app) coming after the brand decision.

“My friend started Calm, calm.com, the meditation app. And the first thing he did was get the domain basically. And he decided early on, all right, I'm going to build a brand around the feeling of being calm. And it took the form of a meditation app, but he sort of decided upfront what it was going to be and got that domain”

Sam bets Sam Harris's Waking Up app does $12M/year recurring

Sam estimates that Sam Harris's Waking Up meditation app generates around $12 million a year in recurring revenue, cited as proof of how lucrative a broadly applicable, easy-to-monetize app category is when paired with distribution.

“I bet you Sam Harris's waking up app does $12 million a year in recurring revenue. That's what I would bet.”

The rich get richer: leaders grow fastest in a rising market

Shaan's observation from Twitch: when a whole market grows, customers flock to the top-of-mind leader, so the biggest brand also grows the fastest. He cites Calm and Headspace dominating meditation the same way.

“All we have to do is, you know, walk out of the house with a big pot and just catch the rain of growth, you know? So I think that's really cool is that big companies when things go well, they get to eat up a whole bunch more share”

A great domain pot-commits you to the vision

Shaan's theory: a great domain (calm.com, texts.com) doesn't directly make you successful, but it makes you pursue a pure vision and stay committed because the name is too good to abandon.

“it almost pot commits you to a, to a, uh, a venture because it's like the name is so good you almost have to give it a shot.”

Mental health apps will become a standard employee perk and a school service

Shaan predicts mental health/therapy apps (Calm, Ginger) will become a standard corporate benefit such that not offering one becomes a faux pas, and that schools and districts will provide digital counselors to students, subsidized by government.

“And it will become a total faux pas to not have this as part of what you offer your employees. And I think the same thing will happen with schools. I think because of teen suicides and teen sort of mental health issues, school districts and schools will offer this as a free counselor, essentially a digital counselor for students.”

Don't wait until you're rich — think of yourself as an investor on day one

Shaan's biggest angel-investing lesson: the excuse 'I don't have capital' is false. If you're resourceful and persuasive enough, you can access other people's capital, so start treating yourself as an investor immediately rather than waiting to be wealthy.

“the number one advice I would give to you is don't wait until you're rich to do it. Because at that point, you know, the financial returns, it will just be a part of a broader portfolio. It's not going to be that exciting. But if you really want to do this, start thinking of yourself as an investor from day one and find ways to access the capital.”

Steal thisDecide you're an investor before you have money, then go source capital from people who want deal flow.

People search for sleep way more than meditation

Shaan's Trends team found that despite meditation being the buzzy wellness trend, search demand for sleep products is significantly higher, because everyone sleeps and many people actively have problems they'll pay to fix (e.g. Calm's sleep stories).

“People searching for sleep is actually significantly more, like, like sleep products. And not— and this makes total sense because Calm— I'm a subscriber to Calm. They're stories. They're pushing sleep like crazy.”

Calm's tipping point was the wind, not a feature

Shaan recounts asking the Calm founders what flipped them from $100K/year to $6M, $20M, $80M and beyond. The answer wasn't a product tweak; the wind started blowing as people began caring about mental health, and Calm had spent four years sitting ready with a good product plus Apple App of the Year.

“I asked him what changed, what was the tipping point? And I thought it would be a product feature. I thought it'd be some tweak they made. And they're obviously, they did improve it over time, but he's like, honestly, the wind just started blowing behind our back, right? Like people started to care about this.”

Steal thisBuild a great product and sit ready for the cultural wind; the tipping point is often demand shifting, not a feature.

Shaan's missed mastermind portfolio: Calm, Clearbit, Product Hunt

Shaan regrets not blindly investing $10K in every founder in his early mastermind groups, which included Calm, Clearbit, Product Hunt, and Zola Electric. The lesson: don't count yourself out as a player.

“if I had just written checks to all of them blindly, I said, you know, like with no judgment, I'm just writing the same $10,000 check and all of you guys, you know, Calm was in that, in that crew.”

Steal thisIf you're already in the room with great founders, be willing to write checks; don't count yourself out as an investor.

Calm but for religion: daily prayer/sermon audio app on freemium

Shaan's central pitch: religious figures and stories are globally famous IP that nobody owns, so build a Calm-style freemium audio app delivering a daily 5-minute prayer, sermon, or passage for a chosen faith.

“So if you use the Calm model of audio, premium and freemium audio, and every day you could have 5 minutes of faith where you would just listen to a prayer or a sermon from your religion. That sounds good. So I think this could be a really big business.”

Steal thisBuild a Calm clone around free, unowned religious IP: daily 5-minute prayer/sermon audio, freemium.

Million Dollar Homepage: a 21-year-old asks 'how do I make a million dollars?'

Shaan tells the story of Calm co-founder Alex Tew, who at 21 created milliondollarhomepage.com — a pixel grid where every pixel sold for a dollar — to literally answer 'how do I make a million dollars?' He made it in weeks, blew it, then years later built Calm.

“he created milliondollarhomepage.com because he just wanted to— he was like, how do I make a million dollars? He's like the reason this podcast should exist, really. He's got the best story, so I'm gonna have him on. But he made a homepage.”

The mastermind portfolio Shaan didn't invest in

Shaan realized that the founders at his early SF mastermind dinners — Calm, Clearbit, Product Hunt, Zola Electric — would have been a phenomenal portfolio if he'd blindly written $10K checks to each. He'd done the relationship-building right but didn't yet think of himself as an investor.

“Clearbit was in that crew. Product Hunt, Zola Electric, which is the biggest solar company in Africa. Like, so that portfolio would have done amazing. And so, I looked back and I was like, man, I did the first part right, which is what you're saying. You know, I just spent time with interesting people and added value to them through sharing sharing ideas, insights, whatever, helping, being helpful. But then the lesson I learned was, why wasn't I investing? And to me, I kind of asked myself this and I thought, because I wasn't thinking of myself like an investor.”

Steal thisIf you already sit at the table with great founders, start thinking of yourself as an investor — don't count yourself out.

Build a tiny niche clone of a venture-funded app (Mantra vs Calm)

Shaan highlights solo builders making small niche versions of big VC-backed apps. 'Mantra,' a simple daily-affirmations app one guy built as his first app, hit ~200,000 downloads and, after adding a $20/year subscription, reached $15,000 a month in revenue with no paid marketing.

“So his latest update, he's now at $15,000 a month in revenue and he writes about how he's completely underestimated how big his app could get. He totally underinvested in it. He hasn't spent a single dime on paid marketing.”

Steal thisFind a category dominated by a venture-funded app (Calm, Headspace) and ship a dead-simple niche clone with a low-cost annual subscription.