Three app creators shaping the future of education, fitness, and health

EM: At Boddle, we understand that every kid learns differently and at their own pace, so we’re using machine learning to tailor content to kids’ levels and help identify learning gaps through fun and interactive gameplay. We also provide teachers with the tools to be able to support their students, giving them access to kindergarten through sixth-grade assessments and videos in math and English, and a host of grading and reporting tools.

JX: We noticed that in other fitness experiences, people who were faster or more fit were often rewarded for how fit they were, so others would be intimidated. Run Legends uses core location, core motion, and accelerometer data on the Apple platform to detect how fast somebody is going and adjust the gameplay based on that. So if you want to play at a 20-minute walking pace or at an eight-minute running pace, it’s all the same. There’s actually no advantage to going faster or slower through our game. There are quite a few walkers who play the game and say that the game’s gotten them to go from walking to eventually going faster and moving up to a jog.

Finding Support and Mentorship

JA: Entrepreneur Camp was amazing, meeting so many like-minded entrepreneurs and making friends with them. I do stay in touch with some of the cohort who are in similar fields. The campus is so beautifully designed, and to learn Apple design principles within that environment was like a dream come true. We had design sessions with Apple team members who helped us understand how to position Wysa, and today, we are one of the top-ranked apps in our space.

JX: When we attended Entrepreneur Camp, it was very early on in Run Legends. We didn’t even know necessarily what the game would look like. We got this opportunity to talk to the design team, who knew what was working on the App Store and would do deep dives on our app. One example was our onboarding experience — our rep told us, “What happens if a player isn’t ready to run or go outside? You would lose so many people if you didn’t provide an alternate experience that could be played indoors.” So we changed our entire onboarding flow because of that feedback and realized after launch that almost half of all players used the alternate experience.

Building More Immersive Experiences

EM: Boddle is more than just a game for math or English. We’re creating a learning metaverse with different game experiences. If kids love basketball, they can jump into a basketball game. If they’re into pets, they can check out our pet-battling game. The cool part is they get to pick what they want to play, and their learning goes with them wherever they go in Boddle’s world. They’re in charge of their own learning adventure, picking what they want to do and learning along the way.

JX: In Run Legends, we use Spatial Audio so that when you turn your head, it sounds like the battle is actually happening around you. If you turn to the left, you might hear the monster snarling at you, but if you turn right, you could hear your teammates cheering you on. You feel the haptics as you charge up your attack and as you sprint, and you feel like the battle is happening right there. That feeling gets people to work out longer and harder. Players often tell us they’ve done the fastest walks or runs in their entire life through it, and it’s because of that interactive audio experience.

JA: What has truly been unique about Wysa has been how we iterated the product. We did not start with a clinical workbook and turn it into a chatbot. We took evidence-based techniques that worked, and then listened to users about what they needed and where some didn’t work for them. We then worked with clinicians to create models that worked for users when they tried to help themselves. This created a power balance between users and clinicians, powered by AI and analytics, which had never been possible before.

Creating Innovative Solutions to Real-World Problems

JA: We wanted to make access to mental health permissionless — something you could reach out to on your phone at 3 a.m. and continue to use as often as you needed. Research shows that people are 3x more likely to open up to AI than even a human therapist. This creates an opportunity to create psychological safety, but also must be followed through with privacy-first design and proven, measurable outcomes. We were able to show impact with adolescents as well as older adults with chronic pain, with blue collar workers as well as tech professionals.