How Purpose Hit $1M ARR in 14 Days

self-help books don't text back. So that's why we built Purpose that 100 million people are using chat GPT for life advice type questions on a monthly basis. I kind of realized that there was an opportunity once in a lifetime which is how do you give a [music] sophantic LLM a backbone? All the foundation models, chat, GPT, claude, they're not just too much sugar. They're they're can because they are [music] maxing for engagement. And we think that trust and alignment are are some of the critical differentiators [music] for us. Clearly, it's working because over 40% of purpose users now say they've not just gotten value, but quote life-changing value.

So, let's talk about the unfair advantage that is Mark as a co-founder. [music] And that was instrumental in helping purpose get past this cold start problem. Our team built [music] the entire product in about six months from a cold start. And when we came out of the gate, a million of revenue in two weeks was surprising to the upside for us and just indicates how much hunger there is for something like this in the market.

Welcome to Subversive, a podcast dedicated to sharing stories from the best consumer [music] subscription apps in the world. We'll bring you lessons for how to grow your consumer subscription business, including insights and inflection points that led to [music] exponential growth from leaders at category defining companies and innovative startups. Let's get into the show. This episode is brought to you by RevenueCat. The world's best apps use RevenueCat to power their subscription infrastructure, manage customer data, and grow revenue across iOS, Android, and the web. From any developers launching their first apps to category leaders like OpenAI, Notion, and Ladder scaling to millions of users, RevenueCat handles the complexity of monetization so you don't have to. Learn more at revenuecat.com/subversive.

My guest today is Raj Singh, co-founder and CEO of Purpose, an AI coaching app for personal growth that he built with three time New York Times bestselling author Mark Manson. In this episode, I talked to Raj about how his chance encounter with Mark at a poker table ultimately led to a startup on a mission to bring great life advice to a billion people. About how Mark's audience of over 10 million readers helped Purpose blow past the cold start problem and reach 1 million in AR just 2 weeks after launch. And about the specific growth loops and channels that Raj expects Purpose to use to continue growing rapidly in an increasingly crowded

category. All right, welcome Raj to the Subversive podcast. I'm really excited to have you on today to talk about your latest startup called Purpose. Uh, but you're actually a serial entrepreneur who already has at least one successful exit under your belt. So, let's start with your professional background and what ultimately led you to becoming an entrepreneur and to founding this company called Purpose. >> Yeah, it's great to be here, Phil. Um, so, yeah, I've been in AI and chat for about 12 years now. I started a company in 2014 that basically made it easy for hotel guests to get service uh by text message. So, if you've ever gotten a text at a hotel, that's that's probably us. Um, yeah, brought that to 100 million people. Uh, Google invested in that company and then it ended up getting acquired um by a top 10 tech player in hotel tech. Uh, I'm a product guy through and through. Just love

making people's lives easier. And you know, purpose, I would say, is my most ambitious venture yet because um I want to take uh AI and and try to not just help people in their day-to-day life, but actually in their internal uh everyday, you know, uh quandies that that life presents.

>> Yeah. Well, I remember we had the opportunity to get dinner together at the MAU conference a couple months ago, and you were telling me how from a relatively young age, you were sort of on a mission to make life better for a billion people. And so, you were looking for these opportunities to build startups that could really scale to massive size. And with your first company, Go Moment, you obviously did that in a more utilitarian way, but but a way that made people's lives a little bit more convenient. I feel like Purpose's mission is much grander. Uh, but similarly, you're you're looking to improve the lives of a very large number of people. And so talk me through the year you spent after selling your first company traveling the world and trying out these various coaching practices and then how that ultimately led one thing after another to the founding of purpose.

>> Yeah, definitely. Um so yeah after selling the company I you know joined the the acquiring company as CMO. Um you know that was that was a great experience at a at a large scale. After that I I decided that it was time for me to take a break from operating. I I think I've mentioned to you over dinner that, you know, I started my first company when I was 17. Uh worked with a bunch of media customers. Um you know, global brands like Lady Gaga and Virgin that that uh people have all heard of and had not really taken a break until the exit of uh Go Moment. So yeah, basically I said, "Okay, I'm going to take a few months off." Then I talked to a bunch of friends who have who had also sold companies and they said, "Take at least a year off if you can afford it."

uh and like you know that that you should really take the time before you have kids especially to really you know get out there and and um understand uh what you truly want to do next. So I traveled uh 24 countries. I spent tens of thousands of dollars on every modality I could find as far as constructing meaning and purpose after having sold my last company. And this really awakened something in me. It was it it really enabled me to realize number one I didn't fully know who I was and you know from a couple of decades ago that you know I had been executing for so long you know I was in execution mode all the time and and needed to kind of reconsider who am I today not just the person that I thought I was and doing all the travel doing a bunch of meditation and breath work and uh you know coaching all of that helped me unbundle and unpack who I was and then kind of re uh assemble it uh which was

an incredible experience and I realized okay well the price point for this is absolutely atrocious. I was actually shocked at the kind of bills that I was getting from my coaches and you know therapists and everybody else like that and I realized that you know this did not need to be that way anymore. So, you know, having traveled 24 countries, having done all of this uh, you know, coaching and and and meditation and all that, I I kind of realized when I came back home to LA that there was an opportunity once in a lifetime, maybe once ever in the universe to bring this price point down by a,000x and make it available to everybody. And that is exactly that you know because I realized the the substrate of all the transformation that we that I personally went through it was all language and here come large language models and a complete revolution in AI the space I've been in in 12 years. So the timing was

just absolutely incredible. Yeah I love that you're bringing up the cost point. My last guest was Sam Chowdery who co-founded uh Class Doa, the edte startup um focused on K through8 schools. And one of his big points was um tutoring and and teaching is something that in many cases can cost hundreds of dollars an hour. At the very least, it's many tens of dollars an hour, which a lot of families can't afford. And so a lot of people have been focused over the last few years since Chat GBT exploded on the scene about all the new and and exciting things AI can do. But there's also examples of where AI can take existing categories and just make them significantly cheaper and more affordable for people who can't afford hundreds of dollars an hour. And and I love that you're doing that in the therapy category and and the coaching category because it's one that's more important now than ever with the way the

world is going. So let's get into

purpose now and let's start with this fateful poker game that you had with Mark Manson who is very different than you, right? It sounds like you two both around the same time got really excited about this space and about using AI and technology to improve life coaching, but you were approaching it from very different angles. He's a three-time New York Times bestselling author and he's really built his career around content and building audiences. So, what did that poker game look like and and how did you ultimately decide to start this company together? Well, the poker game looked like me losing all of my money that that was, you know, uh it's a it's a pretty uh great game that that a buddy uh who's a mutual friend of Mark and mine uh puts together and yeah, I was at the tail end of my sbatical in 2024. um you know just had this wide open kind of space in my mind and I'd been exploring a lot of ideas and I mentioned to Mark

that you know having done all of this exploration and and work on myself that I was finding that you know I was starting to prototype these AI tools where you could just call in and get you know emotional support or get like a tarot card reading or you know a therapist type of thing. Obviously, it was like, you know, just a a toy prototype. And I had some friends calling in and I just noticed my API bill was going up like crazy. And I was like, what's going on exactly? And, you know, I mentioned to Mark that I have friends calling in telling me this thing is better than a $300 an hour therapist in their life and in their view. And I was like that I didn't even try to build for that. So, you know, what else is possible with this? So, I shared with Mark that I I thought there was something really interesting here and that this would probably be the next company that I I start. And Mark turns

to me and he's like, "No I'm actually looking at the exact same space." And I think he was trying to acquire a company in this uh exact kind of space. >> Um the deal ended up falling through and you know uh Mark actually then contacted me in early 25 saying, "Hey, why don't we start our own thing? You know exactly how to build and scale it and I have the audience and you know two decades of trust built with them having sold 20 million books." So you know that's that's how the conversation kind of started. Mark and I would meet up for lunch uh for you know just to kind of shoot the breeze a little bit on this.

And you know it went from like our one-hour lunch turned into like three hours of just like mindmeldding and realizing that even though we had totally opposite paths through our entrepreneurship journeys that we had ended up in exactly the same space um knowing that AI is about to disrupt personal growth in a massive way. >> Yeah. Well and often the best co-founding teams really do have highly complimentary skill sets. Obviously, there's the there's the archetype of the technical co-founder and the CEO who's sort of the face of of the company and a great speaker and a great recruiter of talent, but in your case, it's, you know, the serial entrepreneur and then the content guy who understands how to build audiences, which can be particularly effective for consumer apps that are trying to get past the cold start problem. So, we're going to talk about that a little bit later, but for now, let's talk about the evolution of

this early idea. So, you and Mark start talking. you [clears throat] know, a poker game turns into a three-hour conversation over lunch turns into a bunch of meetups, and you start to build this MVP, which includes rapid self-discovery engine, advanced memory architecture, an intelligent challenge system, and guided quests. Why were each

of those four core features so important? And how do you see them adding up to this whole that's greater than the sum of the individual parts? >> You know, the first thing that we did, Phil, is is we scanned the entire landscape. We looked at every single quiz, you know, everything from like personality quizzes to enagram to, you know, the big five. Uh I, you know, from the corporate world, I'd also had a lot of exposure to things like discovery insights and other personality mapping kind of, uh, tools that executives often use. So we just scanned absolutely everything and we said, okay, well, what are the first principles of psychological science in the literature that are underpinning all of this?

Right? So, uh, we looked at what are the most effective, um, you know, kind of boil downs of the psychological science and then we kind of, uh, just like evaluated everything that was out there and we realized that there are just not really great options for a consumer, right? Like all the, uh, options are are either quite out of date. Mark likes to say that there's nothing new in psychology for like the last 50 [clears throat] years. ACT, CBT, DBT, those are like the three modalities that that were kind of the last um you know new ones and and those are decades old and um that there's a huge disconnect between the literature and and and the scientific research as well as clinicians and practice, right? So there's not as clean of like a loop across the entire uh landscape. So that's really what we did initially is map the entire space. We thought that we would take a bunch of, you know, Mark's

proprietary IP uh and put that into purpose. Uh we ended up realizing that the LLM's mostly just knew everything. So, you know, if you think you're going to teach an LLM to do something new, you know, you might want to test whether or not it already knows the thing. >> Um and we were surprised by how effectively um the LLM could then be tuned through uh a process of prompting, iteration, memory management, and you know, all of those kinds of things. So that's really how we then created these um specific things uh around personality mapping, understanding your values and um you know creating an aha moment because our big goal was to make it so that within 5 to 10 minutes of using purpose, you feel like this thing knows you better than a coach might know you in two years. and how could we speedun the process of training the LLM and and you know getting to know you in a way that actually doesn't feel like a drag

and actually u gives you this aha moment of oh my god this is this is something totally different um I I I love this uh thing that Sean Puri from my first million says which is that different is better than better and I think that that difference we wanted to make sure is is visible right up front >> I love that last point I often say it's better to be 10x different than two times better cuz people don't remember two times better. Like that's a marginal improvement, but if you're 10x different, then at least you're going to stand out to a subset of the population, even if you're not better for everyone.

>> And then the point around the aha moment is so important. I think it's especially important in your category because if you think about the aha moments of a lot of consumer apps, it's like, okay, for Uber it was the first time you got an Uber ride and it was, you know, 10 times faster and easier than waiting for a taxi or for, you know, Strava it's recording your first run. Um, for for an app like yours, it feels like it's more

fluid, like life advice and coaching and mental health is more of a fluid journey. And so, how have some of these features that you've invested in enabled you to get to this aha moment in the first 5 to 10 minutes of a new session? And to the extent you're you're willing to share, what does that aha moment look like for purpose? >> I I'll start with the aha moment. Uh so it the you know when you first come into purpose uh you uh get asked about a lot of things about your personality about the things that um you know what are your values and we actually force you to stack rank things. So uh you have to actually choose if like autonomy is more important to you or connection and generally you know it's like it's it's one thing to just say it in conversation loosely but when you see it on a screen and you're forced to kind of commit to a selection like that it's super interesting and and gets very

interesting. um uh new answers out of people. So that's something that you do right up front and then after that you uh get into the chat experience that we have where you have your AI mentor that's available 24/7 and then the mentor can actually prepare a custom report for you um that tells you, hey, these might be your blind spots, these might be growth opportunities, here's what you're really good at, right? So, um, that's the aha moment that that a lot of users, um, basically feel like, okay, you know, I' I've talked to some friends for a decade and they don't know me this well and this thing figured it out in 10 minutes. Um, that really is is where we think, um, we are very different from a lot of other apps, which will drop you in a just, you know, uh, vanilla chat box with an AI attached to it, which is a commodity that's available everywhere, right? So, um, that's something that we think is is

pretty different. how we get to the aha moment um is really through uh rigorous application of the science uh behind the scenes. And you know that's something that we wanted to make really easy for the user and never have to have them think about it. Um I think something Mark does exceptionally well um in his writing which we've now been able to successfully extend to uh AI is he knows how much sugar uh to include so that the medicine kind of goes down easy right in the personal growth sense of the word.

>> That's something that we also have done a lot in uh in purpose which is that it will actually crack some it'll make some bad puns it'll crack some jokes and kind of keep things a little bit more interesting otherwise it can just feel like a drag. So, um, you know, having having that little bit of entertainment delivered along with the personal growth kind of advice, um, is something that that, uh, is part of the the mix there that makes the aha moment pop even more.

>> Yeah. I mean, humor can be disarming and particularly for people who might be struggling with something difficult in life. It feels important for getting people to build trust and to build an emotional attachment to your product. Clearly, it's working because over 40% of purpose users now say they've not just gotten value, but quote life-changing value from the product and you're less than a year in. So, I'm

curious, what do you attribute to such rapid success of your product? And then, how have you avoided the pitfall that I feel like a lot of LLMs and AI powered products have fallen into where they're too sick? there's there's maybe too much sugar to make the medicine go down and then as a result they can be unhelpful or even dangerous in some cases because they're not actually providing real guidance. >> Yeah, it's uh yeah, well said. I mean it it's funny we we've locked this whole sugar and medicine ratio uh discussion internally because what we've seen by a lot of testing and also just kind of common sense from a lot of other apps is that all all the foundation models uh chat GPT claw you know all the all their variants they're not just too much sugar they're they're candy it's all sugar right like that's all they want to really give you in the moment because they are maxing for engagement and uh

that's something that we've been very deliberate about not uh you know that's a direction that we think is not aligned with the user and we think that trust and alignment are are some of the critical differentiators for us um but yeah in terms of your question on how did we get to this place of creating a lot of value for users um I think part of it is has been a very interesting product challenge not just technically but just also from a vision perspective which is how do you give a sophantic LLM a backbone >> and that's something that our team uh including Mark, by the way, have uh has spent a lot of time on. And it's interesting. I'll read you one uh you know, customer testimonial. It's a public app review that you can check out. Um the the user says, "The app is not nice to you. It is completely impartial. It will tell you the truth.

In therapy before, I felt the humanity of the therapist for better or for worse. Honestly, within 10 minutes of using purpose, I was in tears because I was told things that no human would ever say to my face. [laughter] It's I so that's really the the outcome that we were building for because this form factor lends itself to two brand new kinds of behaviors which is one that the user is going to say things to the AI that they would never say to a human and number two the AI can say things back to the the user that no other human would tell them and that's exactly what you know we we see in this uh user testimonial. So yeah, I'd say the backbone is a really critical thing.

It's very hard to get right because it's hard, you know, you you don't want to be overly abrasive and especially because people might be in a sensitive moment. So, you know, there are folks that, you know, purpose is not right for and and certainly we, you know, are learning from that every day as well. But generally speaking, I think that um having a backbone, having a strong point of view, and then getting the AI tone right is really important. and we happen to have the unfair advantage of having uh an author like Mark in the system actually prompting the AI thousands of times and helping us create a tone that resembles that of a world famous author.

>> Yeah. Well, I think that's a great segue into our next topic, but I'll briefly just say um Dolingo famously has this machine learning algorithm called BirdBrain that it uses to determine how many correct responses a user needs to get out of say 10 questions in order to stay motivated because if the number is too low, they don't actually feel motivated to continue. It's too difficult and they give up. But if the number's too high, then they don't feel like they're actually learning anything.

And so it sounds like there's an analog here where you want to provide enough tough love that people feel like they're actually pushing their lives forward and breaking through the walls that have been holding them back, but at the same time there needs to be enough humor and enough support that they don't feel defeated, especially if they're going through a really difficult chapter of their life. >> So let's talk about the unfair advantage that is Mark as a co-founder. He has this audience of over 10 million readers and and viewers, and that was instrumental in helping purpose get past this cold start problem. Um, most

consumer apps fight for years to overcome that problem, but you all hit 1 million in ARR just two weeks after you launch. So, what did that launch look like and how did you tap into Mark's audience to jumpstart your initial growth? >> Honestly, it was a stunning amount of response that we got from the market. You know, it's always uh a bit uh nerve-wracking to to launch a product and not know is it going to be a ghost town or you know, are people going to love it? But we tried to mitigate that in the months leading up to launch. So simultaneously while our team built the entire product in about 6 months from a cold start and the product had to withstand the amount of traffic that we could get from 10 million people uh that were Marx followers and which is very hard to do right in technology usually scale somewhat on a on a curve rather than in a step function. So while we were doing that our from on the

marketing and growth side what we were doing is basically running scientific tests with small cohorts of Mark's audience um and we would essentially you know try different messaging try different payw walls try different monetization offers pricing every dimension you can think of um and essentially you know fire bullets before we fired the cannonball. So uh that's the that's kind of the the playbook that we ran here. Again, I'm quite familiar with it from from my last company, but uh in this case, we basically decided to speedrun the entire process. A million of revenue in two weeks was uh you know, surprising um to the upside for us. But yeah, just it's not just the the launch revenue, but how that's continued to grow that that has been very surprising to us. Uh and just indicates how much hunger there is for something like this in the market. Um, of course, we had this other indicator that uh that a 100

million people are using chat GPT uh for life advice type questions uh on a you know monthly basis and we think that we're just getting started in helping provide those folks a much better alternative. >> Yeah. Well, to me that's always such an encouraging sign when you see people hacking together other tools whether they're analog tools or digital tools to be able to solve a real problem. And ChachiBT, what's wonderful about Chacht is you can use it for almost anything, but it's certainly not built to give, you know, precise and actionable life advice and it can do a good enough job.

But we've talked about >> how sicopantic it can be and and the pitfalls of of that approach. And so I'm not surprised that your product was able to strike a chord so quickly. But one of the things you talked about was how quickly you started running these experiments and AB testing your way to better and better outcomes. You can only do that once you hit a certain critical mass of usage. And so that's where having Mark as a co-founder and bringing his audience into the fold to get to that 1 million in AR so quickly was was

so important. But let's talk a little bit about the trade-offs because it's unusual for a startup to partner with a celebrity co-founder right off the bat. And I'm sure that there are many opportunities that come with that. We've already talked about some of them and also some challenges. So, so what do you see as the pros and cons of having Mark as a co-founder? and and related to that, how are you already starting to think about how to take this initial spike that's come from Mark's audience, but then, you know, parlay that into sustainable long-term growth?

>> Yeah, I think it's a it's a it's definitely a great question and it's my first time having a a celebrity co-founder. Uh, so it's it's it's come with a lot of learnings. You know, of course, one one thing right off the bat is that the the uh audience that Mark has, which he's worked super hard over 20 years to build, um you know, the bigger that that audience gets, the better it is for purpose, but that also is a separate business that, you know, Mark has kind of on a pre-existing basis. So, I'd say from challenges perspective, uh you know, having the right balance and really good communication to to be able to kind of load balance between the two businesses for that founder, I think is is really important. Um I was very deliberate and and as was Mark upfront to uh be very selective about the folks that we work with including each other. uh which means that you know I kind of I did like

an audit on Mark's history of seeing okay what products has he has has he promoted what kind of companies has he affiliated with and it actually turns out that Mark is you know has an incredible track record and a huge amount of trust um that he's not one of these influencers putting his name on a hundred different products and diluting it you know super thin where that endorsement doesn't mean anything so you know we wanted to make sure this is not endorsement not an adviser relationship but truly a co-founder relationship uh you know of for us both being in LA is is helpful and conducive for that. Um, but yeah, so that's that's a challenge.

I'd say on the uh plus side, it's really interesting because really a company is only as good as the people in it. And you know, I think that AI gives us so much leverage as an AI native company to get to take our best minds and then scale that idea to the level that we can actually realistically bring it to a billion people. And that's where Mark, I think, has been uh working with Mark and and having the celebrity as a co-founder has been super helpful because for example, Mark has courses that have driven tens of millions of dollars of lifetime revenue. All those courses have been migrated into purpose and are exclusively available in Purpose. So, you're getting >> tens of millions of dollars, you know, of of revenue that the market has validated and said, not only is this the right content, but people love it, people are willing to pay for it and get value from it already. And then being

able to migrate that into purpose uh just allows us to start at a level, you know, it's like playing a video game and you don't you're not starting at level one, it's like you're starting at level 12 or 15 every time. Uh the downside of that of course is that it is much harder than level one and that you know we are uh again like the speedrunning comes with some some headwinds as well um that even though our company may only be a few months old uh it's facing problems that maybe a 3 four 5year-old company would normally face.

>> Yeah the pros and cons of speedrunning but all else being equal it's good good set of problems to have. This episode is brought to you by Paddle. Today's fastest growing apps are multi-channel. More teams are using web checkout to improve margins, control pricing, and build stronger customer relationships. But external payments bring new complexity from tax and compliance to fraud, disputes, billing support, and entitlement logic. That's why Paddle launched the 2026 web monetization playbook. As the merchant of record for apps including Runna, Goodnotes, Codeway, and HubX, Paddle handles the complexity so you can focus on growth.

download the playbook at paddle.com/subversive. And and I want to relate what you said back to something you mentioned earlier, which is it's difficult to teach LLMs new things. It's becoming increasingly difficult with every new model release, >> but at the same time, the context layer has really become the source of competitive advantage for a lot of AI powered companies because the underlying models are so powerful. And so that's where having a corpus of knowledge and coursework and philosophies towards life like Markx >> is so powerful in making an LLM providing life advice much more effective than a vanilla chatbt rapper might be. So, as you've grown your

purpose audience, which includes members of Mark's audience, but also your own new users that you've acquired organically, how have you gone about making sure that you're converting those users into subscribers and then retaining those subscribers over time? Like, are there specific AB tests that you and your team have been running on the core product experience, on the payw wall, on life cycle marketing communications just to make sure that you're you're building sustainable momentum for the long run? you know, we start, of course, at the the near the top of the funnel just thinking about what messaging is going to actually resonate. And again, AB testing has been super helpful for us to understand. For example, one thing that, you know, we've been telling a lot of folks, which contrasts purpose from Mark's own work is that self-help books don't text back.

So that's why we built purpose and and you know that that kind of messaging really resonates with folks because a lot of our users have previously tried these self-help books or therapy or other kind of DIY type of options. So um that's been super helpful and then you know once we monetize I think you know payw wall testing including some of the work that you know we've done together I think has been uh incredibly helpful. Um and I think our general approach in the market is uh something that you know I learned from my previous company is just stand on the shoulders of giants right like people have figured this stuff out so we really try to focus you know we try to like copy you know what is working for for folks in in the space as much as possible where it's not our core competence but in that narrow zone where we think that we are uh able to deliver something much better than anyone on the

planet that's where we go all in And uh yeah definitely retention um you know one of the things that we've seen is that the amount of um sharing that that we get from the user right like so one person might talk about relationships one person might talk about finances then matching what they talk about with the content that we have inside the app and then also then matching it into the the kind of life cycle uh touches that we have that in itself I think you know really helps us deliver a personalized journey. Um, I think part of the thesis for for purpose is that even therapy, which is of course bespoke and, you know, one-on-one, relies on tools that have been tested on large populations and that it's basically one tool for a cohort of the population at a time.

Whereas, we think that on purpose, um, you know, given that we're not dealing with any any clinical issues, we're only helping kind of people who are already doing well go from good to great. um that we can actually deliver a completely personalized experience for the very first time using AI. So that we think is what is contributing to our above median retention and uh you know I think that we also see the potential in this kind of product category for the very first time. uh that instead of the normal LTV of three years, four years and and kind of that type of relationship that we expect that if we do everything that we set out to do that people will stay with purpose for 10, 20, 30 years at a time because you know this thing knows everything about you and it's a secure private space that's fully aligned with you. We we're not going to do ads, you know, we're not doing data selling or anything else like

that, right? If you want to tell Sam Alman about your personal uh issues and your relationship problems only to get ads on it, you know, go go for it. But, you know, purpose is a space that's more more secure and and and uh you know, trusted than that. And that's something that we think is going to result in these super long-term relationships in the world that you might have. If you had a coach that was the top 1% in the world and is perfectly suited to what you are trying to do, you'll probably stay with them for 20, 30, 40 years as long as they'll have you. And we think that the purpose is going to take that same kind of uh space.

>> Yeah, there are a few things you said there I really want to emphasize. Um the first one was how self-help books don't text back to use your words. And it reminds me a little bit of the transition from web 1.0 to web 2.0 a couple decades ago, right? Web 1.0 was one way. It's like you go to a website and you can consume it, but there was no way to upload anything or interact with that content. So then you get to web 2.0 and it becomes interactive and that just unlocked a whole new set of use cases and opportunities for innovative startups to to come improve the lives of of consumers and of businesses. Um the second point was um just how you are thinking about ways to hyperpersonalize the experience for every individual user. And this is a theme that has come up on many of these podcast episodes over the last couple years because I think AI is taking personalization to a whole different level. But there are

very few categories where personalization is as important as something like life coaching and advice because every individual user has such a nuance set of challenges they're trying to navigate and a nuance set of values and personality traits that they're they're using to navigate life. And then the last point is around worldass retention and the fact that a typical consumer subscription app maybe has an average retention of 6 to 12 months for a monthly subscription or 2 to 3 years for an annual subscription. But in your case, because the product fundamentally gets better the more you use it. It reminds me a little bit of Evernote, which was the canonical example of this, you know, 10 or 15 years ago in a professional context where the more notes you put into your Evernote, the more powerful and smart it becomes. And so the more you're going to use it and so you actually see this smile curve uh

in the retention cohorts that's very rare and that that that it investors uh tend to to look for wherever they can find it. I could see that same thing applying to you all in in the non-professional setting in in your

personal life. Um, so let's talk about the growth loops and channels that you expect to use to bring this vision to life over the next 5 to 10 years. You've done a brilliant job with Mark of getting your initial audience off the ground, getting to that point of critical mass where you can AB test things and you can really iterate and turn this into a science, but his audience is finite. And so you've already started to take steps to move beyond Mark's initial audience and put these growth loops and channels in place that will drive the next chapter of growth. Um what are what are some of the the growth loops or channels that you're most excited about and why?

>> I'll I'll start just by saying that Mark and I before we even incorporated, you know, that we talked about this topic of Mark's audience, you know, being this huge blessing up front and then could potentially be a ceiling, you know, down the line. So, we were really deliberate in architecting purpose to be a much larger brand than Mark to, you know, essentially welcome Mark's uh fan base and and his followers into the the the fold, but also to make sure that we are making purpose available to a billion people and uh you know, really keeping that kind of mission in in mind here.

So, uh the growth hopes I'm most excited about um are paid uh advertising, which you know, has been uh excellent and already accreative for us. So, uh, that's something that, you know, we we think is is going to be very scalable for for this, uh, uh, kind of play. Besides that, the word of mouth that we're seeing, um, you know, within the the, uh, user base already is really excellent and and really exceeds our expectations even though we haven't really done much in that space. So, we think that there's a lot more kind of lowhanging fruit there. And then separately the I think there's also a great content engine uh you know that that of course Mark has a brilliant you know world-class content engine going uh for his own content we think that you know that expertise can also generalize uh within purpose so you know as we grow I think having more user stories we have incredible testimonials people literally

not only you know people that report crying themselves when they're using purpose but our team will get you know have tears in our eyes like reading these testimonials like these real people that didn't get uh as much done in 10 years of therapy are, you know, feeling like they got more out of purpose in one month. So maybe it was just not the right fit for them. Maybe that therapist wasn't the right fit. You know, whatever the reason, we think that that um those stories, that content engine is just going to be uh incredible as more people find out about what purpose is. Again, we're only a few months into the journey. Um but already, you know, seeing a lot of places to grow here.

>> Yeah, I mean it it is really impressive. even if it's a small subset of the user base that's saying they're getting more out of a product like Purpose in one month than they got through 10 years of therapy is really impressive for two reasons. I mean, one is the speed at which they're able to get to breakthroughs that they weren't able to get through with a human coach or therapist, but then two, you brought this up earlier, like it's a fraction of the cost. You'll pay the same amount of money for a a year-long subscription to purpose that you would in an hour or less with even a mediocre therapist. Y and so, you know, even if it's only a couple percentage points of the user base, that's really really powerful that you're that you're able to do that and it and it means that you're going to be able to expand the market much like Uber did in in the taxi market, right? Just cuz it's it's such a a more compelling

value prop and in a more affordable price point. Um, let's talk a little bit

more about how you stay aligned to your core mission because you've talked about how it's not just your customers but your own employees that get emotional looking at the impact that the product is already having pe on people's lives less than a year into the company's uh journey. Um, but obviously a product like this might lend itself towards growth metrics that relate to time spent on device or how many times per day can we get somebody to log into to purpose or how many minutes per session can we get them to stick on the app. And at some point that becomes counterproductive because you got to go out and live your life in the real world if you're going to make real progress.

This is something I know you and Mark feel very passionate about. And so what are some of the ways that you've approached even like your fundraising strategy and how you're building the product and how you're measuring success to make sure you stay true to that core mission? >> You know, the mission is paramount and protecting that at all costs is is super important. You know, there's that famous saying that uh you should design your company uh so it could be run by an idiot because at some point it it might just be um [laughter] without taking it too literally. uh but you know I I still think that it's really important to consider what happens in 50 years or 100 years after the founders may no longer be present and and how do we make sure that purpose continues to deliver this promise uh to its users even you know after um uh after the founders may not be involved. So I think structuring the

company uh Mark and I have been very careful about uh being only founder funded up until here. Um and you know uh we've been very selective about the kinds of investors that you know we'll converse with and and and may uh work within the future. Um so I think that number one just making sure incentives are aligned for the entire team as well as uh you know internally I think is important. Uh separately from that uh we've also been very deliberate about the kind of team that we assemble. Um, and you know, culture fit and mission fit are extremely high up in our interview process. Um, and you know, we've got folks from companies like Headspace, uh, you know, folks that have helped design some of the best social products on the planet as well. and then made sure that they understand that our mission is not to engagement max and not to just have people stuck in this dopamine casino that every single app

seems to be trying to pull you into, but actually to be the answer and a response to those um and to help you get off your device if that's what you want to do and get more exercise and call your mom and you know make more friends. Those are the things that we think matter to people and uh so we've really oriented our mission around outcomes and then you know help uh protect that in the best way we can. >> Yeah. I mean obviously much easier said than done but you're already making decisions that feel like they're steering you in that direction. The first and most obvious one being the way you've you know calibrated the AI to make sure that it's giving real guidance even even when that comes in the form of tough love rather than just telling telling the user what they want to hear.

Um, so last question before we get to

our lightning round. The self-help category has existed for a long time and Mark has predicted that every major self-help brand like a Tony Robbins is going to launch an app if they haven't already and many have. So in a [snorts] field that's already getting crowded, how will you continue to differentiate Purpose over the long run? >> I touched on this a little bit earlier, but to expand on it, I think the outcomes uh, you know, orientation I think is is something that's very different about Purpose. Um, we've of course played with every single app out there, you know, in the space and I think a lot of them tend to be very light as far as the the, you know, influencers involvement or the celebrities involvement. A lot of times it's it's a name and some content that has been added to the the mix, but it's not authentically different or meaningfully differentiated even from from a chat GBT or something because of

course everyone knows you can just go into chat and say, "Hey, be like this person." and then give me advice as as as that person would, right? So, um we think that it's bigger than just, you know, one person and their kind of style. Uh we think that, you know, the the Quest component where we've got scientifically validated frameworks under the hood. Uh I think that that's that's a big differentiator long term. And uh generally um I think alignment with that user and then making sure that every every part of the company down from the capital stack all the way to the individuals that are operating the business uh is in full alignment with the user and um you know not looking to harvest data or serve ads or engagement maximize. I think those are the things that that will keep us uh differentiated and and protected long term.

>> Yeah. Well, it's great that you already have such a clear northstar vision and purpose for the company. you know pun intended and uh you know the best companies with maybe a handful of exceptions I think have managed to stay true to that original mission and that's part of what allows them to stand the test of time versus just generating a bunch of revenue with meta ads and then eventually getting stale and and going going the way of the dinosaur. Um so

let's get to the lightning round. I'm going to ask you a handful of rapid fire questions. I would love to just get your quick responses to them. And I always ask the same question first and it's particularly fun asking it to one of the founders. uh that is what is the best part about working at purpose and as the CEO what's one thing that you're actively trying to change? >> I love this question. Uh I'll start with the the thing I would actively change which is that I don't think enough people know about purpose. Part of that of course is just having been in market um for for very little time. But I'm excited to change that so that the best talent on the planet can uh can come find us and and work with us. Uh the best part uh is definitely the mission and the love that we get from customers um that are experiencing the benefit of not paying $200 an hour but 10 cents per hour effectively for the for you know

advice that is really helping unlock something within them. >> Yeah. I I can't imagine many companies that would be more rewarding to work for from a mission standpoint. And so it's cool that you have that as a constant source of of motivation. What's one important lesson from your first company that you apply every day as the CEO of purpose? >> It's a common pattern with a lot of postexit founders. I have a big network of uh of friends like that where the first company tends to be product first and then their subsequent companies tend to be distribution first. So that's a it's a big lesson as a product guy as a you know AI native person for 12 years now. I love leading the product, but I've uh for purpose we really did including you know partnering with Mark uh start with okay how do we get this in the hands of a billion people and then kind of work backwards from there.

>> Yeah, I think it's so smart and distribution has been a bottleneck for a very long time now. Obviously, 15 years ago when the app stores were first getting started, they were much less crowded. And so, as a as a consumer app, you could find your first thousand users if you had a compelling and differentiated enough product just by putting an app store page out there and doing a little bit of ASO. But those days are long over and with AI now, anybody can build a product so quickly that distribution has increasingly become the name of the game. So, um, that makes a lot of sense that you started there and obviously having Mark as a co-founder is is a huge part of that. So, that brings me to my next question, and that's what is one thing about working with a celebrity co-founder like Mark that you didn't expect?

>> I am very frugal as a business operator. Uh, some might even say cheap, but [laughter] you know, I think the best companies uh always watch their costs, you know. Um, and Mark on the other hand, having come from the influencer space, he's much more about the vibe and he doesn't mind wasting a few thousand dollars. He's like, you know what? We're not gonna shoot this video today because the vibe's not right. And I love that.

This has been such an education for me. Um because you know we are so kind of heartfold and and mission aligned in purpose every single person is with the with the mission that I've started to appreciate just how much you can kind of put love and and the right vibe into something and have that actually play out for the user. So uh that's been a a great lesson for me. >> Yeah. Well, it's another example of where yin and yang can be so productive in a co-founder relationship. And I'll also say I I think I've I've been on either end of that spectrum at various parts in my own career uh including my my entrepreneurial ventures and it's important to be frugal and it's important to be disciplined. But I've also found that when you think about >> the breakthroughs that really lead to exponential growth whether that's at a tech company or as a podcast host or whatever the case may be, they tend to

be very nonlinear. And in those cases, spending a little bit of extra money or a little bit of extra time or even a lot of extra money in time ends up being well worth it because >> you know that the difference between a single and a grand slam in tech is just massive. And so it's great that you have both of those perspectives. If you weren't building purpose, what other AI company would you start today? >> Wow. That Okay. Um I would say I love making the invisible visible. It's something I've played with uh you know in code and in in animation and all that for for decades now. So if it wasn't for a purpose probably I just wouldn't be operating a company. But >> if I had to pick uh an AI company that I I would work on maybe something in data viz or some other kind of you know visualizing maybe even with music um that kind of thing.

>> Oh that's really cool. I I I'm sure you know the AI music company that's the category leader right now. Uh, I had Mikey the the founder and CEO there on the podcast a couple months ago and it's so cool what they're building and I you know I'm not a big music guy, my brother is. I haven't gotten to use the product much myself, but uh music is just one of those things that uh enriches our lives in so many ways and so that that's cool that that's something that speaks to you as well.

>> It's another type of medicine. >> Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely it is. So this last question, I'm going to make this a two-part question. So you spent all this time traveling the world after you sold your first company. Uh you said you went to 24 different countries and you studied all these different coaching and philosophy practices. So two-part question. First, what what was your favorite country that you went to out of those 24 countries? And then second, what was the single most important piece of life advice that has really stuck with you?

>> The favorite country, honestly, it's impossible to pick, but uh I will say uh the city uh the cities that I I that come to mind immediately are Kyoto >> and Porto [clears throat] and Portugal. Um, Portugal just, you know, I've grown up, uh, I grew up in India and then, you know, uh, spent, uh, since I was 12, I've been in LA. So, you know, having the West Coast, seeing the sunset over the water is it just feels like home to me. And Portugal, the West Coast there, uh, is is the only other place that I really felt like, okay, this this feels just like home. Uh, and Kyoto just has this like incredible >> class to it. It's got this like ancient uh, you know, just the spirit of of the whole city, even the culture. you know, they're very polite. Oh, some say even too polite. But, uh, uh, it's it's it's very interesting to to see a world uh, in Japan that is so different from the West, but also seems to work quite well,

at least at the societal level. Uh, you know, there's there's, uh, some some really good lessons to be had there. >> In terms of what I learned uh, on my my travels and and through my journey that that has really stuck with me, I'll give you two answers. Um, the first one I think is probably well understood in the in tech circles, which is the map is not the territory, the menu is not the meal, right? Like I think a lot of people kind of confuse the abstractions that we live in day-to-day, especially the ones on our phone, uh, with reality and and it's just it's not the case. Like the real world is the real world and and you know, a lot of the best things come from investing in that. The other one is is a little bit more philosophical, which is um I think Bruce Lee recapped it, but really I learned about this in a tauist temple outside of Taipei uh on my travels, which is be like the water.

That you know, you put it into a teapot, it becomes the teapot. You put it into a cup, it becomes the cup. That you are formless and shapeless and and you have to keep an open mind, especially you know at this time with so much changing under our very feet at this point. Um, and also I think there's a a humility to being like the water where water settles in the lowest places um without you know worrying and and in doing all of this water is actually able to cut through the hardest of stone and and the hardest of obstacles because nothing can really stand up to water. So yeah, I think it's uh that that's the one that really sticks with me.

>> A couple things. One, I've always wanted to go to Japan. It's been on the top of my list since I was a little kid and I've never gotten to go there, which is ironic because I studied Chinese in college and I spent a ton of time in China, but I've never been to Japan. So, I'm gonna have to go to Kyoto cuz that city in particular has been has been very high on my list. And then when it comes to the life advice or the life philosophy, I think we've all heard be like water, but I really like some of the more subtle points you mentioned there around water settles in the lowest places and and being comfortable with the fact that life is ever changing more so now than ever and and just being able to go with the flow and adapt to the change around you. It's so much easier said than done. Um but it's something I certainly try to practice in my professional life. I'll say as a father, it's something I try to do all the time

and it's not easy, but when you can do it, it just makes life so much more joyful. Um, so thank you for coming on today, Raj. This has been a really enjoyable episode and I've learned a lot about your company, but I've also learned a bit more about you and your travels and and some of the wisdom you've picked up along the way. Any parting words you want to leave the audience with before we wrap up? >> Yeah, no, this has been a pleasure. Uh, Phil, thank you so much for having me on at Love the Pod. And uh yeah, my message to everyone listening is please check out Purpose. You know, we are brand new in the space, but uh you know, we have a lot of uh folks that love what we do.

And if you happen to be somebody that is an expert at, you know, growing apps, uh you know, engineering, design, any anything like that, uh we tend to hire people who are A+ as we encounter them, not as job postings are open. So even if you don't see an open role, uh go ahead and write me a note. I'm just Rajp purpose.app and, you know, would love to connect with your audience. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, plus one to that. I've I've used the app myself and and really got a lot out of it. And, you know, I'm somebody who's tried a lot of apps, as you know, and and that includes meditation and mindfulness and coaching and therapy. And um there's definitely something unique about the structure and um the the opinionated stance that purpose brings to coaching and and life guidance and and so I think it's something everyone could could benefit from. Um thanks again for coming on the podcast, Raj. It's been a real pleasure.

>> Thanks, Phil. This was great. Thanks for having me. See you. >> Thanks again to RevenueCat for sponsoring this episode. If you're building a subscription app, you can use RevenueCat to deploy native pay walls, run continuous AB tests, automate win back campaigns, and unlock more revenue. I work with dozens of subscription apps, and most of them are already using RevenueCat as their single source of truth to power their businesses. Learn more at revenuecat.com/subversive.