As the wellness industry grows, so does Shine Text turning its wellness advice into a text from a BFF.
By Kristina Bustos
Photos by Kim Li
“Obsessive” is the word that Naomi Hirabayashi and Marah Lidey would use to describe their process of launching Shine Text, sounding like what you’d expect it takes to start a mobile app that sends free daily motivations to it users via text messages. In order for them to focus in on this work, Hirabayashi and Lidey said they had to be obsessive about what they were building and the mission behind why they were doing it.
“To get a company off the ground, you have to take the thousands of things that are in your head to get done and distill them into the most impactful ‘to-do’s each day,” Hirabayashi and Lidey explained.
For these two founders, that process has paid off. Since its launch in 2015, the Brooklyn-based startup has expanded— from employees (Hirabayashi and Lidey have added five other team members) to the community of users (Shine has reached more than 1 million users in 189 countries). Countless articles have been written about Shine, with pieces ranging from Teen Vogue to CNN, and most recently Lidey was part of Forbes’ 2018 30 Under 30 list in the Consumer Technology category. But through all of the media attention, Hirabayashi and Lidey have successfully created a close community with Shine.
“What moves us the most is when we get to have one on one calls, hangouts and dinners with the Shine community,” Hirabayashi and Lidey shared. “Hearing the role that Shine plays in their day-to-day— carrying them through major life events like divorces, miscarriages, growing families, new jobs— is incredibly powerful.”
Hirabayashi and Lidey’s engagement with their users also inspires what they send out to the Shine community. The duo shared that Shine content is based on user feedback as well as data on the most popular themes and what is happening in the world that intersects wellbeing. With this kind of connection Shine has with its users, it isn’t surprising that 93 percent of users apparently “report feeling more emotionally balanced after ten days.”
And Hirabayashi and Lidey have taken the Shine experience in a more meaningful direction by launching the Shine App back in December. With the app’s “Mindful Moments,” users can listen to mediations that, as the pair describe, “sound like they’re coming from your best friend and cover real-life issues like ‘how to deal with Tinder fatigue’ and ‘help, I have a toxic friend.’”
I asked Hirabayashi and Lidey about their inspiration, representation efforts and more to find out about their journey with Shine Text.
Kristina Bustos: What inspired you to start Shine?
Naomi Hirabayashi and Marah Lidey: Our friendship and our expertise inspired us to create Shine. We were friends and coworkers who led marketing and mobile as CMO and Director of Mobile Product and Messaging at one of largest youth organizations in the country. We scaled the organization from 0 to 5 million members via text message and became fast friends and would lean on each other for support around life’s daily struggles. Building on our expertise, we were inspired us to “scale our friendship” to make wellbeing accessible for all—faster, cheaper, more representative, easier.
KB: So you both were working full time before Shine’s launch. What was the deciding factor that inspired you to work solely on Shine?
NH and ML: The feedback from the community. Early on, we were getting feedback that Shine was fundamentally changing the course of people’s days. We knew that Shine and what we were building was bigger than us. To make it as big as we knew it could be, we took the leap to go full time on Shine and raised a pre-seed round.
KB: What has the experience been like as two women of color working in the tech industry that is often criticized for lacking diversity?
NH and ML: We’ve been lucky to have solid and supportive investors that understand how our experience is our power, but we realize that’s the exception to the rule. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but a big motivation for us working as hard as we do is knowing we can be an example for young women of color who haven’t yet seen themselves in ‘successful tech co-founders.’
KB: With that said, you bring representation in the tech industry. But how is representation being met within your Shine community?
NH and ML: Everything at Shine starts with inclusivity. We do an inclusivity check on every single piece of content that we share—making sure our messaging isn’t preachy, privileged or presumptuous in experience or resources.
KB: Wellness is very popular these days with the focus on taking care of yourself holistically. How do you think the Shine app can fit in one’s wellness ritual?
NH and ML: Our members describe Shine as their older best friend with a psych degree. We cultivate a unique relationship with our users by talking to them like a friend who gets them. It’s pretty easy to see why people want to spend time with our products every morning.
KB: Lastly, what can we expect from Shine in 2018?
NH and ML: Growth across the board —from the team, to the community, to the content.
Kristina Bustos is a contributing writer to The Riveter – a Filipina feminist raised in the Midwest, who now calls New York City home. When not writing about food and women of color stories and their representation in pop culture, she’s leading cultural studies course for older adults in the non-profit sector. You can find her other work on Paste Magazine, Digital Spy and Essence. Holla at your girl at @krisbustos.
