How Opal Reached $10M ARR with 11 Employees

We we basically believe that in the next 10 years, the topic of screen time and focus will be just [music] as big as the topic of diets. It'll be something that everybody knows and everybody talks about. Opal is about attention sovereignty. You know, it's about the fact that you decide where your attention goes, not the algorithm. And I think that many people care about that so much that they actually want to share it with their loved ones, with their friends. It is possible and we are doing it. we will align the technology we use with human well-being. It's just a design problem. It's not a fundamental problem. And I think the more people care about this, the more products like Opal will exist and the more uh we're going to create a brighter future.

Welcome to Subversive, [music] a podcast dedicated to sharing stories from the best consumer subscription apps in the world. We'll bring you lessons for how to grow your consumer subscription [music] business, including insights and inflection points that led to exponential growth from leaders at category defining companies and innovative startups. Let's get into the show. My guest today is Kenneth Schlinker, the founder and CEO of Opel, which has rapidly grown into the world's number one screen time app since launching in January 2020. In this episode, I talked to Kenneth about why apps like Opal that help people focus are more important now than ever, about why getting early access to Apple's screen time API in 2022 was such a critical inflection point for the company, and about the specific product and growth tactics that Opel used to grow to $10 million in ARR with a team of just 11 people. All right, welcome

Kenneth to the Subversive Podcast. I'm excited to have you on today to talk about your screen time tracking app and focus app called Opel uh which is certainly my favorite screen tracking app and and my wife as well. We're both avid users of the product. Would love to just start with a little bit on your background and what inspired you to start this company in 2020. >> Yeah, thank you very much for the kind words and thank you for having this great podcast. At some point in the last 20 years, uh technology industry lost its way. you know, uh, we forgot what matters. And so what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to make sure that we can realign computers with human well-being.

Um, and so this is kind of a big mission. The way we got started was a very practical approach, which is like what can we do to make a difference in everyday lives of people. They're using their phones. uh most of the day. Initially, uh we um yeah, we started building a an app that was a VPN app back in 2020 that eventually became the app that you know today with access to screen time API. It's a long journey and uh we got to uh to build an app that you know makes a difference in so many people's lives. So, we're very excited about that. Well, one thing I'll say right off the bat, I feel like there's the canonical Jeff Weiner post around how to write a great vision and mission and strategy statement that came out of LinkedIn, but I find that a lot of companies do that in a very handwavy way. And so, it's funny to think about an app that on its surface seems as simple as Opel, but with a vision that's

much more expansive around better aligning computers and technology with human needs. And I I couldn't agree more. I really do feel like technology, you could argue, has done as much harm as good uh or at least in certain categories it has over the last decade or so. And so I'm excited to talk more about that today. But before we get into Opal and its mission, um let's talk a

little bit more about your background. So you started your career at Google and then you spent over a decade as a serial entrepreneur and you've started a number of other companies and so what do you like so much about starting companies and what are a few of the other companies that you have started over the years? >> Yeah, so I I did start my career at Google. um left in 2012, started a marketplace, completely different local which was a fine arts and collectibles marketplace which sold in 2017. After that uh went to building a variety of products um SAS products actually I tried to learn uh and you know how to actually build market and sell software products uh at a larger scale. built Opel in 2020. So this is kind of the third uh the third business. And I think you know linking back to what you're saying before about the mission. There's something which actually stayed with me throughout the entire time because when

I was at Google I was basically building addictive products like many people you know working in large tech companies. >> That was it was pretty early on. I had that insight that we actually need to we need people actually need help to be able to navigate the tools they're using. And so I basically built the business model for Opel at that time started as a you know one of the ideas that I had for businesses and it yeah it took more than 10 years to mature and to become a business. And so when I did go around and and want to build a business like Opal it started with a mission statement. It started with a manifesto.

Uh the initial product that I had in mind was very different from what it is today. It was originally an operating system. The company is called Opel uh OS, Opel operating system because I wanted to fork Android, you know, build a completely new operating system. Tried that. Uh found that it wasn't actually very viable, very hard to do, very hard to find out what you actually need to do uh to make a successful product in that space. No MVP, you know, no testing. Um and then eventually got around to finding you know specific use case that we could build for uh on iPhone with a with a first product that then turned to a second product into into the product that you know today. But I think that one thing that was constant was the statement of you know what I think about the market, what I think about the tech industry at large and and uh and uh what I'd like to do in terms of contribution in that in that space.

>> Yeah. So let's let's dig in there and and you talked about your time at at Google and you've mentioned that when you were there you had quote a firsthand view into the architecture of addiction. So you alluded to that earlier but could you describe maybe what you saw then and then how that did influence your decision to to start Opal. >> I was part of a very small research team and one of the projects that this team was working on for example is can you predict the unemployment rate using Google search queries. Um and um that was you know that seems like a trivial thing today but back then was kind of kind of big deal and you know the answer is yes you can you can do it very well um you know things like can you predict that the user is a pregnant woman uh when they're using only you know using only search query data and um and so pretty early on I was I understood that you know companies have very large

amount of data uh have a lot of power to be able to predict behavior and also influence behavior and I think a lot of people you know have been kind of at that time inside those those large companies, you know, got that that awareness. Um and um you know, it was it was a smaller issue back then, but now that today, you know, every single person in the world has a smartphone, every single person in the world has social media. Uh you know, people uh the average age for smartphone ownership is just under 12 years old now in the US.

Um and and uh and going down year after year and these small problems became really big problems. And so now we have to ask the bigger questions. Did you say that the average I assume you meant the average starting age for owning a smartphone is now 12 years old in the US? >> Yes. The average starting age is just under 12. And it goes, you know, the age goes down year after year. It's I mean, I'm sure you know, but it's not atypical for uh, you know, 8-year-old kids to have most of their friends that actually have a smartphone today in many places.

And so, uh, that causes new challenges. Yeah. And it's not kids, by the way. It's all the way through, you know, our ages, all the way through, you know, retirement. Um, it's a it's a it's a topic where, you know, everybody's affected in different ways. Uh, with, of course, you know, different varieties of people. Uh, some people, you know, have attention deficit disorders and they're affected in a particular way. Some people have, you know, pre-existing health conditions in of other kinds. uh you know people that are you know much younger are affected in different ways you know and and so the thing is uh I I view it a little bit like like diet where you know there's not a one-size fit all um it's there's some things that are good some things are not so good what's really important is understanding what what you need and understanding what's good and what's bad for you and making those decisions and so um for

this you need I think you need education you need to learn things and you also need a tool um and that's that's what we're trying to provide with YAP. >> Yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree more. And when we were preparing for this episode, uh, you know, I mentioned that I have two daughters, an eight and a six-year-old, and so they are, you know, the oldest one is right at that age, 8 years old, where her friends are starting to get smartphones where at the very least they've got the like smartwatches now that are a little bit more toned down, but they're going to be wired up very soon. And so, it's very top of mind for me and and my wife as parents. We also talked about the anxious generation, Jonathan Hates's book, and and the impact that social networking has had on young brains over the last uh 20 years. So, let's use that

as a segue into this broader question, which is why do you think screen time apps and focus apps are more important now than ever? And I'll also do tail that with you started this company in January 2020 just before the co pandemic. And I'm curious how that has in some ways sort of accelerated a lot of the trends uh that were already existing but that that now have made it even easier to sort of fall into some of these addictive habits.

>> Yeah, I think I think uh more and more people are caring about this topic. You know, it's showing up in so many different ways through you know the books you mentioned through media through just general public attention and you know I think people in tech and many people listening this podcast are pretty attuned to it. Um I think it's getting into the mainstream. It's still it's still early but um yeah back when we um back when we started in 2020 this was probably a nent trend definitely co you know accelerate things but like many things we're seeing that you know there's a lot of these trends actually or accelerate by co but definitely not caused by co and if you look like for example at you know some of the more worrying signs of the of the topic like performance in in reasoning tests of of younger people uh you know they they start declining uh in around the time of generally around all rich countries uh

around the time of the introduction and and of the iPhone actually and this kind of strange correlation there um but it's in you know it's accelerated with covid it's continuing beyond co so in many ways it did light the match it did um accelerate things but it's a it's a it's a deeper uh a deeper trend beyond that um yeah we started just two months before lockdown uh typical I guess startup story of that time u I wanted to open an office in New and then open ended up building a remote company throughout Europe and and the US for two and a half years and um and now you know return back to kind of a more hybrid um approach. Uh but yeah, I think certainly the the topic keeps growing more and more people are caring about this and why are screen time apps important today? So, you know, the the market of screen time essentially really began uh there were a few apps before then, but really began with the

introduction of screen time settings on the iPhone in 2018 and Google followed suit pretty shortly after Google Wellbeing. Um those settings basically educate people on the fact that hey, you can actually measure the time that you're spending on different apps. That's an new idea for many people. >> Uh but they don't really work for most people and they certainly didn't work for me. Um, and so we're pretty excited to have been able to uh work with Apple and essentially uh get access to an API um that allows us and now many other apps to innovate on top of screen time and to build new kinds of features. I think personally there's two things that you know screen time settings are missing. The first really the first thing is if you want to change people's behavior on a topic that's so important, you can't make them feel bad only make them feel bad. It has to be motivating.

It has to be, you know, enhance enhance um uh positive uh behavior change. And um and the second thing is there's no oneize fit all. Like people are very different. Some people view screen time as a more sleep thing. So basically being able to go to sleep earlier. Some people for some people it's really about work for others you know they need a really uh restrictive approach and and for other people they want a simple nudge something light and so it's really difficult to use settings for that uh that are kind of out of the box and so what we do is we try to provide a tool that can be used uh by everybody with different kind of settings with different kind of ways in um and also we really focus on on how to build motivation you know biggest inspirations of other apps in that space like Dualingo and many others that have, you know, basically taken something that is really hard like learning a language and

that very few people will do because it requires like, you know, getting a book, getting a tutor, uh, learning something every day, um, and making it really incredibly easy, uh, by, you know, building motivation, um, and and doing something that people like to do. And so really, that's what we're trying to trying to do here.

>> Yeah, I love that. And I think that's a good segue from the sort of big picture mission and philosophy of the company into the brass tax and the strategies and tactics that have made you so successful and propelled you to believe the largest or certainly one of the largest screen time apps in the world at this point. Um, and a lot of this started around 2022 or at least that's my understanding when Apple released their screen time API. You mentioned that prior to that you spent a couple years sort of wandering in the desert trying to find product market fit. It started as an operating system. and you tried a bunch of different approaches.

talk me through why the launch of Apple screen time API in 2022 was so important and and why it served as an inflection point for >> so I think it comes down to the fact that uh when a user installs a new app and you know gets a Apple branded permission screen that says hey you can just hit this button and give access to screen time settings that comes a lot of trust and it makes it much easier for more people to do before then we had our own kind of tech stack that required installing a VPN and all these complicated things that uh are not something that most people would do. And so overnight it it made it legit. It made it easy um and and safe. And of course, Apple being Apple, they made it in a way that is uh really conscious of privacy for example and performance. And so overnight it made it really really helpful. The other thing it did is uh it it helped us build a relationship on the

editorial side. And so obviously being able to be featured uh was was also something that that u that helped. Uh I think that you know beyond that it's just the timing right like I think 2022 was when more people cared about this topic than ever and there's a lot more people for um for these kind of apps and also you know we were able to yeah we did definitely like spend two years in the dark but we acquired a lot of learnings during that time and um and so the product that we relaunched at that time late 2022 was really blending all of these uh learnings together in a single product. Um, yeah. So, a bit of of these three things together.

>> Got it. And can you just to sort of put a finer point on it, talk me through what some of the legacy versions of screen time tracking apps looked like prior to that API release and then how you were able to fundamentally transform the category based off of some of the functionality that the API made available for the first time. So before that you could try to guess uh the specific screen time of the user and display some UI that showed an approximation of how much time you were spending on apps that without getting into the technical complexity it was uh let's say a workaround and it wasn't very precise and the other thing is you couldn't really properly block an app or display these kind of overlay screens that you have when you open Opal. So today, you know, you use Opal and you're going to say, you know, during my work time, for example, I'm going to try not to go on social media. And then the next

time you open Instagram or, you know, Tik Tok while you're working, uh you're going to get a instead this kind of overlay screen that we control, uh that will remind you of why you made that commitment and you can't access the app. So that's only possible uh with Screen Time API. Before then, you had to find all kinds of other workarounds um that that didn't really work as well. So, you know, overnight made it a lot easier to use, a lot more effective because a you could get access to data that is precise in the same data that you have on settings and b you could actually like now uh put some uh some uh some overlays block screens specific places uh with your own message and so I think these are the two capabilities other things but these are two main ones. When did

you start to see the impact show up in your growth metrics on some of these changes? Like you talked about how before a lot of this was manual and those subtle differences make a big difference, right? You talked about how, okay, if I wanted to learn a language before I needed to hire a tutor or go purchase a book or spend a lot of money on Rosetta Stone, but Dualingo comes along and they make it so much easier, so much more accessible. Now you have a free language tutor in your pocket at all times that you can pick up and in five or 10 minute increments you can learn a language. The equivalent here is you can just automate all of the little tricks you need to stay motivated about tracking your screen time and avoiding apps that might be addictive like social media. Um, when did you start to see this show up in your metrics and how did it affect your growth trajectory from 2022 up until this point?

>> In the first year, uh, we really focused on finding people that are willing to pay for the product. Um and so the reason this framing is important is uh we had a pretty hard payw wall and we were doing performance marketing for the beginning to kind of figure out not only like you know who are the people willing to pay, what are they willing to pay for um and then make sure we can build that. And so in that process you really have to make sure that the um the initial experience works really well. the on boarding works really well up to the pay wall and people you convince people to uh to sign up for a trial overnight when the API got introduced that first part was much easier. we got like much higher you know on boarding completion rates and trial start rates uh for sure and um and what we discovered was that uh of course people willing to pay so two things one people willing to pay really

wanted to use Opal for productivity first I would say productivity first and well-being second it's much easier in my experience to sell uh productivity especially when you ask people to pay rather than uh just wellbeing productivity is you know direct ROI I'm going to save time um And as a matter of fact, we can now measure that we're saving people over an hour and 20 minutes every single day once they start using the app because we see their screen time before and after. So that's a really high ROI uh product in that way. And so we discovered that was the main use case and we discovered that uh you know the types of people that were uh willing to pay for for the product and so that allowed us to you know build better feature. So typically you know uh people you know there was mostly uh has been at the beginning you know people are ambitious people want to be owners of their own lives uh you know really

want uh to do the best at work but also uh you know make sure that they can actually have a life outside of work. We're able to learn these things and uh and build the better product, build better features uh for them. And beyond that um in the last two years now we've really made um a much more accessible premium product. So now there's a a lot of the product that's completely free. There's not a very aggressive payroll in the on boarding and we've uh uncovered and unlocked uh other segments and the biggest one is by far is students with like high school students and now uh college students that don't necessarily convert into paying customers but have massive needs. you know, when you're a college student today, uh it's very difficult to relearn how to, you know, read a book, uh finish an exam, um paper or or uh be able to um go to sleep on time. And so there's a there's a there's we covered a massive other segments uh

with this approach. So, I want to drill

down into your growth strategy because in some ways it's the opposite of how I think a lot of the most successful consumer subscription apps from the last generation came up. You look at Tinder or Duolingo or Strava, right? They all started with premium products, highly organic driven growth strategies, some combination of word of mouth andor SEO. Uh, and then eventually once they got to scale, they introduced a more aggressive payw wall. they increased their prices and they were able to funnel all of that incremental revenue back into paid acquisition. You went the opposite route and I'm seeing more and more consumer subscription apps, especially among smaller teams, do this really successfully, which is we're going to start with a hard pay wall from day one.

We're going to focus on finding the highest intent, highest willing to pay users. We're going to use meta and other paid ad channels to find those users really efficiently. and we're going to be really disciplined around metrics like D8 rorowaz which you've talked about on other podcasts to make sure that we are doing this cost efficiently and sustainably. Um so why did you take that approach and then at what point did you decide okay we've made it to the point now where we're going to move beyond paid and we're going to experiment with some more organic acquisition strategies. I have huge respect for Duelingo as a company as an app and what they've done is is absolutely incredible. As a matter of fact, I remember distinctly I met um Sean Hacker. I he wouldn't mind me uh telling that was one of the co-founders of Duelingo. uh right at the time when I was actually making that transition from

a aggressive monetization strategy to kind of open up uh fremium and um you know sever opinion was like you know open up you know make make a premium make a premium first you know figure out uh how to pay later which been extremely successful with doing I did listen a lot actually in our strategy uh but I do think also we you know recognize that when you start an app in early 2010 it's a very different thing than than starting up in in uh in uh in in 2020 or 2025 in a few different ways. Organic is much harder. Um and the second thing is the willingness to pay is much higher and we've seen this because of course like many more people are paying for subscriptions. You know the overall market for uh non-gaming subscriptions is increasing as you talk about in your podcast very well. And so that means that there's more people willing to try a product and pay for it early on. And so commission of two things means that

there's a new playbook I think which is a bit different that you're talking about where you can actually start uh start paid learn a lot learn about who's your core product core user but what I think that not a lot of companies are doing is uh moving on to that second step which was the step we're in now which is kind of opening up because I do think if you you can have a very successful um business of a few million dollar annual recurring revenue maybe 10 maybe 20 with the uh with the approach of heavily mo mon mo mon mo mon mo mon mo mon mo mon mo mon mo mon mo mon mo mon mo monetizing but if you truly want to create a product that has a mission and change the world you're going to need to move beyond that and so and I think it's possible to do it um and this is what we're doing now >> and so I I think that's so insightful specifically this point around okay you start a company in 2010 the app store

across both Apple and Android is still in its early days there are far fewer apps out there which means organic discovery through things like app store search is much easier Um, but also it's just a lot more novel. So, people were talking about new mobile apps more. There wasn't nearly as much competition. Uh, fast forward to 2020 and that equation had completely flipped. The app stores have gotten so crowded. Uh, Ariel Mickey at uh, App Figures often talks about how they're now more than 100,000. I think it's approaching 200,000 consumer subscription apps across both app stores. Um, also, um, I think the the amount of novelty has just gone away and so people aren't organically talking about or searching for new mobile apps as much as they used to be, or if they are, they're just running into all sorts of competitors. Um, but then at the same time there's been this other trend which is as people have gotten more and more

accustomed to paying a subscription for software which I I I think people don't appreciate the degree to which 15 years ago that didn't even exist and 10 years ago it was still very uncomfortable for a lot of consumers but now it's just the norm. People pay for Netflix, they pay for Spotify, they pay for Dualingo. And so the equation has completely flipped. As you have looked at a paid ad first growth strategy versus now moving beyond that into organic growth, what are the

specific growth metrics that you and your team have focused on? And how have some of those growth metrics changed and evolved with the transition from paid first to organic? >> Yeah, I mean paid first, I think, is relatively simple and and pretty well documented. Basically, what matters most is um day eight's, you know, return on marketing spend. Uh if you have a 7-day free trial, depending on how long your trial is. But essentially, what you want to do is you want to figure out a way to acquire customers. Uh that's your marketing spend. Um where you can pay yourself back within a short amount of time. And um that's the most important metric because that's going to mean you're going to want to, you know, not only do better marketing, whatever it is, performance or others, but just you do better marketing like iterate on the messages and and how you talk about your product stories and and and what

features you talk about. And then you're going to want to iterate a lot on the onboarding, how you convince people to start a trial, for example, if you have a trial first approach. And then making sure you can deliver on that promise and actually have a product that uh people keep. uh up until up until they pay and and and don't get a refund. So that's really I think the first part of like the focus and and really we've been ruthlessly focused on this metric uh for the first uh phase of the of the of the company. That's pretty much the only thing that really mattered. And um and we were able to scale pretty successfully from uh you know from zero to going to um you know five 7 million annual recurring revenue with this kind of sole focus uh annual recurring revenue and then beyond that moving into you have to make a a complete turn which is what we did which is not easy. Um but right now our our priority focus is

actually daily active users and we have our own definition of active but that's aligning to our mission but really it's how many people are using uh using the product and um you know the we we still do performance marketing. We also do other kinds um of marketing. We have uh we have organic content channels. Uh we do we we have a lot of referrals coming through the app uh with some social features and different kind of referral mechanics. Um but what we want to do is want to make sure that you know as many people in the world uh can uh can benefit from uh from from the product that we're building and so really focused on um really focused on on daily activives. Um the uh the marketing team is tracking of course the you know return on on investment as well.

Basically, we we we have a notion of what kind of content we want to put out in the world and and the level of quality and we track views and then we track um uh we track mentions as well, which is how many people talk about about the app. As we're building, you know, we basically believe that um in in the next 10 years, the topic of screen time and focus will be just as big as the topic of diet. It'll be something that everybody knows and everybody talks about. And what we want to do is we want to make sure that you know Opel is the brand and [clears throat] the company that uh is synonymous with this uh with this uh with this topic. And so tracking mentions a way to make sure that we're part of a conversation. And so we look at you know how many press articles talk about us, how many uh you know people talk about us on social media and other uh in in other um other outlets. You

mentioned that um as your strategy has evolved from pure play paid acquisition into more organic obviously word of mouth and referrals has been been a big part of that. Are there any other organic channels that have been particularly important for Opal? >> So definitely like word of mouth is by far the largest. So in here you know it's primarily making sure the product is great and people talk about it and then also building some features that can enhance that. Um, we have our own organic channels. We have a pretty different approach. Like something that I think is interesting, we um recently just launched a it's actually a brand account, but it's not it's not a brand account. It's not the Opal Tik Tok account. It's called Olivia Unplugged and it's uh basically a creator that we've hired as part of the team is full-time here. Um that's really building a media basically talking about the topics education around the topics

of you know focus u but also like what to do instead of scrolling and so you know how to build a hobbies how to have how to make friends and many things like that uh which has been super successful and so it's Olivia unplugged powered by Opal um and we're replicating that strategy as well because we think there's a there's there's a lot of potential there um and um and then we're we're starting to do press. Um, so we're starting to talk more uh to press. I had the chance of of uh uh publishing an op-ed recently uh on the back of a outdoor campaign that we did which we also tried recently. It's actually still up in New York. Uh we bought a billboard. So we're trying all these different things uh and starting to invest in in more um more channels as we grow.

>> Very cool. And and I guess a related question is so Apple's continuing to evolve iOS and other platforms to make screen time more top of mind and to help people preserve their focus in an increasingly busy world. And as that happens, I'm sure there going to be other competitors that flood into the

space. So how do you think about maintaining your first mover advantage in this space and continue to evolve ahead of that competition? >> Yeah, I think so. By the way, I'm very excited to see more people enter the market. I think the the potential of this market is huge and I see, you know, it's a it's a billion user uh product potential. At least, you know, there's 5 billion people in the world that have a smartphone every day and use it every day. Um, so there there's plenty of space to build and compete and build great things. And I really think that it's it's a it's a great way to learn uh you know also and and um and and basically distribute the R&D bud R&D budget with different companies experiment with new things. But how do we keep um the first move advantage? I think there's a few things you know we um we try new things. Um we uh we build new kind of features. We listen to the customers users

to discover what they might need. I give you an example. Uh we just launched quietly uh a sleep product inside Opal. It's a new feature. Uh it's a new tab that you may or may have not seen if you use the app already. Uh you can check it out. And basically it's um it's a product that allows you to a you know gradually make sure that you go to sleep when you're supposed to and then you know b when you wake up that you're gradually uh uh waking up. What what we found is that it's very hard to fully separate from your phone. Uh and you know it's often times it's people's alarm clock and it's also one of the main causes of you know people going to sleep later than they should. And so we're trying to ease people in you know on the way to sleep and the way after also building content in their sleep stories and soundscapes uh that really excited about uh in the app. And so this kind of thing is a process of discovery

that we just found a lot of people were using the app Opel for sleep and we didn't have a feature for that. So we actually building uh in that direction and I think that you know every company's different like they'll all the competitors will build in different ways. Um but really comes down to for us you know talking to users and figuring out what they need um and um and experimenting with new ways to uh to serve their needs. This brings us all the way back to where we started the conversation, which is the importance of having [clears throat] a clear and aspirational mission that defines the company as opposed to starting with a single product and then just retrofitting your mission to that product. Because if you were to set out and just say we're a screen tracking app, screen time app, then that could lead you to a much more narrow vision and mission. But if your mission is aligning technology with human needs,

then okay, the first hero product is screen time tracking and increasing focus. But now you can get into sleep, you can get into better habits. There's all sorts of places you can go with this. Also say I'm somebody who I have an aura ring. I I use it every day. I've got my Rise app that I use to track my sleep debt. And I think sleep is one of those categories that is just in the very early stages of the innovation that needs to happen to help people because our world has gotten so complex and so stressful that I think it's becoming a pandemic. People just aren't sleeping enough, especially in the modern world, which is a little bit ironic. Um, so that's really exciting that you guys are finding all of these adjacent opportunities to expand into. And I

guess that segus into one of the last topics that I wanted to cover today, which is just how Opel has managed to achieve um such a significant amount of success in a short period of time with a relatively small team and whether you think you can continue to that or whether the team gets mar much larger from here. So to put a couple stats out there, you started the company in 2020. It really took off in 2022 with Apple Screen Time API. We talked about that.

Um you publicly stated that earlier this year you reached $10 million in ARR and that was with a team of just 11 people. although I know you expanded quite a bit even since then. So what have been the biggest advantages and disadvantages of staying so lean and do you see that changing over the coming years? >> Staying lean keeps you focused. >> Uh it helped us tremendously in the early days to have uh a small team. It also means that you know you really want to make sure that you're hiring people in the team that are you know super entrepreneurial really believe in the mission and can be can do many different kind of things. What this has helped us do is create solid foundations as well to be able to expand what we're which what we're doing today. And so, you know, we're lucky actually, I think I think out of the 11 people, we we've kept almost everybody in the team today. And a lot of these people, you know, now

hired uh people in their um uh the work with them. And so, the benefit of that is you you have people who have done it uh themselves and now, you know, know exactly what to what to look for uh to grow to grow the team. And so it's been it's been tremendously helpful. Also, we didn't raise a ton of money, which is also the other the other aspect. Uh we just also were not in a position to uh to hire so many more people. Uh that gave us an advantage, I think, in terms of not having to grow too fast too soon.

we did grow pretty pretty fast but uh we still you know are at a scale where we can actually do things like we're doing today which is discover new new use cases and um and build build out uh build out a new product so I think overall um yeah it's been very helpful right now we are actually uh 24 people today so we grew quite a bit uh this year that's allowing us to do more things so we launched an Android app for example this summer We're building new use cases like sleep. We also introduced a product for schools uh which is a new nent product as well in that is enforce helping enforce uh phone policies in schools. Um so that's that's also been possible by uh uh by uh by new people in the team. But you know with the same approach I I try to look for people who are really passionate about the mission and again like very important there um and people who typically are pretty entrepreneurial. Every one of our

engineers so far um that joined the team has their own app on the store and something I really insist on meaning they've actually like built their own app and published it and I think it makes a very different kind of mindset uh in terms of engineering and um and yeah I think that's um that's it's been part of the part of the fabric of what we are as a company. >> Yeah, I love that. I'm a big believer in that. I also think that AI is going to make it easier than ever for very small teams, even independent developers, to build very large companies. I think Sam Alman recently said that the first solo founder billion dollar company is coming. Uh, which sounds crazy, but in a world of AI, it's just it's possible to do so much more with so much less. Uh, and so I'm a big believer in this, especially for the consumer subscription model, because there just aren't that many companies that do reach

billion-dollar plus valuations, which means that raising a ton of venture capital and hiring a ton of people on day one is very dangerous because it can sort of paint you into a corner. Um, one of the other things you've talked about is just this emphasis on the mission which we've talked about, uh, but also delivering value to users over growth at all costs and that we've talked about the growth levers that you've used, but it also requires a lot of attention to the craft of your core product itself.

So, can you talk a little bit more about what are some of the key features that has made Opel stand out in a category that has already gotten fairly crowded with screen time? And then also how gamification has played into your success because having used your product, there are some fun and delightful ways uh that Opal makes something as mundane as screen tracking seem a lot more interesting. >> Yeah, I think that's something we really care about as a team and and thing you've pointed out. Uh it's always like a trade-off between you know craft and speed. I think for us uh like we try to make sure that we know which parts of the app we really want to spend some efforts and and time on uh to to really make the experience feel uh feel special. I mean one of the most loved I think features in the app is uh the milestone unlock experience. And so basically when you're using the app, you kind of get rewarded with these

beautiful, we call them milestones. They're basically like opal gems. Um they're beautiful. And uh and to get them, you have to crack it open. Basically, crack the uh the earth, unear these uh these gems. And that experience is something that people really really appreciate. Um and and has comes comes with a lot of craft. whole other story of how we made this but um it's been pretty pretty great to build and then um yeah I think in terms of gamification there's you know there's um there's a notion of consistency we have streaks in the app which are a mechanic that actually works to keep people motivated that's for sure we have a leaderboard which is being used by some people really uh religiously I would say where you can actually compare yourself in terms of screen time uh to uh other people other your friends and schools for example. This is really popular uh also because like no one has any idea

what good screen time is and and what's bad screen time and so it actually gives you a point of reference to have a conversation with people about um and so yeah these are these are two of the interesting mechanics and we have a simple referral program as well inside the app where we basically reward you know you for inviting people and and the other people get rewarded as well with gradual rewards. If you invite more than 100 friends, you're going to get uh a special gift actually for us. I can't disclose, but it's special. It's great.

So, check it out. Um and you know, if you invite five friends, you get a free year of Opal Pro. They're actually five friends actually successfully create an account. So, um so these mechanics actually really help to bring in people. It's also something that people want to share and talk about to their friends usually. Yeah, I think that last point is really key, which is there are a lot of digital products that people are at the very least indifferent about sharing and at worst are sort of embarrassed to share because let's take a gaming app for example. Like, you know, I play chess. I play all sorts of other games on on my mobile device and I love them and they're they're part of my life, but you know, it's not necessarily something I'm going to say, hey, you got to play this game because it's going to be good for your life. Um whereas Duolingo has talked about how selling something that

helps people learn and improve themselves as a human being is something people naturally want to do. And I can see with Opal the same the same being true. Um so that makes a lot of sense and and then you guys have been very clever with how you structure your referral program and how you've built sharable artifacts and gamification into the app in ways that augment that. >> It's an important mission. I think a lot of people that use the product actually share that mission. you know that Opal is about attention sovereignty. You know, it's about the fact that you decide where your attention goes, not the algorithm. And I think that many people care about that so much that they actually want to share it with their loved ones, with their friends. Uh, and so that's been a powerful driver of the app and of sharing and of the gamification inside the app.

>> Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's let's get

into where you see Opel going over the next 5 years. What's your long-term vision for the product and how does AI factor into that vision? You know, we use we use screens for absolutely everything. We use technology for um everything from the first time we wake up until until sleep and and often times actually uh including while we sleep. And so it touches every aspect of people's lives. And um the way I see it is we started with a pretty specific use case which is more productivity focused uh people who are you know more like you and I I would say focused on productivity people working in tech and others um you know we expanded to students beyond that there's a much larger segments of people who I would say like lifestyle who you know they they're conscious of the fact that this is an important topic and they want to um they want to change, but they're not necessarily ready to, you know, change their habits right away.

They're not necessarily ready to make a big commitment. And so what we want to do is want to make sure that we can actually serve these people, making Opal as easy to use as possible, um, without any strong commitments. So, you know, nudging you, reminding you at the right time, uh, giving you really compelling information and content about the topic. That's going to be a big part. We talked about sleep which is also an adjacent topic a really large one we can do a lot uh a lot there and you know beyond that uh so this is you know really about capturing uh you know and serving uh the a very large market we think it's there's probably a billion people in there on every single platform for iOS you know Mac uh Windows and all desktop and mobile platforms and wearables and beyond that uh once Once we've built a product that can serve all these people and have demonstrable uh proven impacts on people's well-being and on

people's productivity. Uh there will also be you know companies they'll pay for this. There'll be schools like I mentioned insurance companies uh that will be um that will be uh they'll be they'll be paying for the product as well. And so the way we see it is this is kind of longer term vision is really to build a product uh that can be a billion user product uh that can really help align uh the computers the technology that these people are using with uh their well-being in a way that is extremely easy uh and motivating for most people.

Yeah, I love that and I think it's a great note to end on because it reflects a lot of the other points you've made throughout the episode around the mission of the company and how you started small with uh an initial product use case that was laser focused on screen time and focus but have since expanded that to other areas that just promote human wellness and better relationships with our technology. So

with that, let's get to our lightning round. And I always like to start with the same question here which is what is the best part about working at Opel and what's one thing you would change? >> The best part about working at Opel is the mission. One thing I would change I want to reach out to more people. I want to make Opal useful for a lot more people. Sometimes feels like we are um talking to people who have like high discipline and high motivation to change. But there's so many more people out there that need help that we're not yet serving. And that's really what I want to go to next.

>> Yeah, I like that a lot. And it's always fun to ask this question to founders because it [snorts] sort of puts you on the hot seat, right? It's like, well, if there's something you you don't like or that could be better, then you're the founder. Why not just go do it? But I love how both sides of that coin were related, right? You've you've been so consistent about saying how important the mission of Opel is to you, and that mission is to make people's lives better by improving their relationship to technology. And the other side of that is, but we're only touching so many people, and there are a billion plus people out there who could benefit from this product. And so how do we reach reach more of that?

>> It's it's both very motivating and very frustrating. Like there I walk down the street in any street in any city in the world. I go to any cafe to any subway to any bus stop to any place, any school and I think everybody needs the products that I'm building. Uh but it's just so hard to do. It's very very hard to do and it takes time and we're doing this step by step. Yeah. Well, and it takes patience. And I think you've built the company in a way that reflects uh a recognition that as much as you want to do everything for everyone right away, you know, the only way to get there is build it brick by brick and and that does require patience. Um so, next question is, what's the app you have the hardest time blocking on your own phone?

And what's your guilty pleasure? Like what do you what do you have a hard time saying no to? >> I I would say it actually changed today. Uh it's uh former Twitter X definitely. I feel like this is uh this has become one of the the most powerful uh feed apps uh for myself. So yeah, that I would say X. Yeah, for me it's always been um I was a gamer growing up. I played all sorts of strategy games. Uh and then I got into Hearthstone, which is one of the top e games in the world.

And I had Albert Chang on the podcast. He's the chief growth officer at chess.com. I play chess.com every day. And you know, within reason, that's that's fine. That's healthy. It's a hobby and and I would argue it makes me sharper and I learn things from it. But it's all all about moderation. And when it gets out of control, it can be kind of productive. I've never been somebody who has much trouble with social media.

I spend almost no time on social media. Um but uh but it feels like gaming and social media. Those are probably two of the most common answers people get. >> Yeah. >> Um what's your what's your favorite hobby and how has Opel given you more time back to enjoy it? And I guess I should say hobby that is not digital that's in the real world. uh music playing I play the guitar and listening to music intentionally and this is definitely something that I feel is essential for me to find balance every day. So basically kind of pulls me in totally different direction than what I'm doing on screens >> and so um yeah Opel has helped a lot find more time for this.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I think those real world hobbies are so important for me. It's getting outside. So I live in Boulder, Colorado. My wife and I both love the outdoors. Snowboarder, hiker, uh, mountain biker, and, uh, you're right, it just changes your perspective, right? And as tech professionals, it can be so easy to get very narrowly focused on on your work. But I think things that get you out in the real world really provide a healthy balance. It's central. And by the way, I think there needs to be a reframing for so many people and that's not really, I think, heard enough in our culture, which is when you're going outside, you know, when you're practicing whatever instrument, when you're doing something that is, you know, feeding in many ways uh your soul, you are already and also investing in your work because what you're doing is you're making yourself uh you're much stronger to be able to go back and

actually produce and create and do the things that you need to do at work. And so I think this reframing is kind of essential. Um I think there's a lot of guilt that comes with you know taking time off being away from uh from uh from from the feed in many ways of work and you know stock message and others but if you reframe it and you see it as an investment then I think it can uh it can help a lot of people. >> Yeah I love that characterization. And it's a force multiplier. And sure, you could work an incremental 5 or 10 or 15 hours in a week, but if you are burned out and you've lost all creativity and inspiration, then how how much incremental productivity you're actually getting from that. Uh, and in addition to ruining your health.

>> Uh, so I love that. Um, as a serial entrepreneur, you founded many companies. What single piece of advice would you give to aspiring startup founders that will most improve their odds of success? >> Charge people early. [snorts] That's that's I think a typical kind of you know first founder mistake in my mind uh especially today all the things we discussed. If you you know most people if you if you build a product that serves a real uh purpose you can find a way for people to to pay for the product. Um it also like aligns things a lot in your in your company in your mission. You really are serving the people that are are paying you. Uh it makes things more easy.

>> Yeah, I love that. And we'll keep that one short because I love how contrarian that is. It's it's becoming less and less contrarian, but uh yeah, I mean it's the ultimate test, right? And if people aren't willing to pay you, then you don't have a business. Um last one. How do you think AI will change the need for screen time apps over the next 2 to 3 years? >> What AI is already doing, you know, and the first uh thing it's doing is making um social media apps in particular a lot stronger and a lot more uh addictive actually. And what's what's likely to happen is that there are new apps that will emerge and some of them have already that will, you know, make social media feel like broccoli in comparison.

And it's going to be, you know, so much better, so much more personalized, uh, so much more, you know, so much more dopamine with every hit. And so what this means is, um, there's going to be a lot more need for, uh, for this. And by the way, I think it's not necessarily screen time. It might also be audio, other kind of form factors, but ultimately it's about how do you make sure technology you're using is aligned with what you need. And you got to figure out, you know, if you're using products that are not really, you know, aligned with uh with making this happen, uh we're going to have the same issues.

And so I think that this is this is what's likely to happen. The problem is just beginning. Uh on the other side, I think there's plenty of amazing tools that are coming out of this and personally use, you know, these tools in an incredible way. We just need to learn how to use them and make sure they're not using us. Uh so that's really that's really what needs to happen. >> Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And you hear more and more of these horror stories of people going off the deep end with chat GPT or other AI tools and creating >> AI friends or romantic partners that they become so infatuated with that they like >> opt out of the real world entirely. And we're only just in the early innings of this, right? It's just going to get harder and harder and more and more addictive and more and more alluring.

And so it brings us all the way back to the mission. The mission of Opel is to improve the relationship humans have with their technology. And in a world where technology is accelerating so fast with AI, uh I can't imagine that mission ever being more important than it is now. This has been such a pleasure, Kenneth. Thanks for coming on. I knew you had a great product because I've used it myself for a while now, but uh it was fun to learn more about your mission and the impact that Opel is trying to have on the world. Um any final thoughts you want to leave the audience with before we wrap up? just an optimistic one I think. Thank thanks so much by the way for the invite. Uh I it is possible and we are doing it. We will align the technology we use with human well-being. It's just a design problem.

It's not a fundamental uh problem. And I think the more people care about this, the more products like Opel will exist and the more uh we're going to create a brighter future. And so I really believe in that and yeah, let's make it happen. >> I believe in it too and I'm glad that you and your team are working on it. Thanks again, Kenna. Appreciate it.