ZENA, An App That Empowers Women Health, Looking to Raise Funds
Women today are changing gears and their lifestyle is very different from the one they saw their mother or grand-mothers in while growing up. For exactly that reason, women today want to be healthy, but tend to fall off the bandwagon at some point. Women are the ones who mostly look out for their families first, and tend to forget about themselves. We have seen enough and more examples all around us.
Women are also 16% more emotional than men and most health issues today are proven to be psychosomatic, which means more women are prone to chronic problems. There are many reasons do so something like this, but one ecosystem where everything is at a woman's fingertips, is just what's needed in a world full of chaos and clutter. The aim is to help create a shift in lifestyle for the people Zena reaches out, to by exploring all aspects of wellness including fitness, diet, mental, physical and emotional health easily and conveniently.
The app aims to be a tool that is predictive and proactive in nature, helping women across the country to live a healthy life by changing mind-sets. Zena is a lifestyle choice, where the app will proactively monitor ones daily lifestyle and habits with its many trackers like food tracker, workout tracker and other trackers to spot a trend if and when needed.
In an interaction with BW Disrupt, Zena's Founders shared details about their venture.
Excerpts:
Zena's Description
Zena is a women centric app which aims to be a wellness ecosystem, or a one stop shop for all wellness centric needs. We are building a community of women, for women to ensure everyone gets safe and credible to refer to when they need, and Zena is also the first to start B2B interactions.
Zena’s unique key features
Health is largely dependent on wellness. Wellness is made up of physical, mental and emotional wellness! Most of the time, women don't even address mental and emotional wellness in a country like India.
Zena is exclusive to women and is working off the entire wellness gamut. Zena is looking to be able to make a positive shift from being reactive in health to being proactive in everyday wellness. We work to help women lead healthier and happier lives. Explore all aspects of wellness including fitness, diet, mental, physical and emotional health easily and conveniently.
This is different from what is being addressed in the market.
We are also different as we are looking to grow through collaborations. We're not looking at working in silos. We truly believe a lot more can be achieved through that route.
Funding & Monetization
We have been bootstrapped till now and are actively looking to raise funds. Our business model had multiple revenue generating sources - but to begin with the dominant ones will be expert and B2B (institutional) affiliations.
Challenges Faced
Providing a bug free app on both platforms simultaneously was a challenge, but we managed! We are a small team that is working overtime to add features and make Zena more personalized and relevant. Convincing experts to participate in the community and getting the Government involved to help to roll out Zena to tier 3 cities and villages have been some of the challenges we have faced till now.
Traction Numbers
We have grown faster every month and have been able to publish more than 1000 articles, establish more than 1100 experts, and draw a community of over 6,000 women in short period of time. We have also had over 12,000 website visits, 3000+ downloads (with little or no marketing) and are present on iOS and android. We are now diversifying and onboarding 1000+ experts across fields like fitness, diet, mental health and more.
Future Plans
We are currently looking for funding and we also aim to reach 1 million active user in the next 12 months.
Learnings so far
One big learning has been that mental and emotional issues are far more neglected that physical fitness. This being addressed, is being appreciated much more than having experts present on the platform. The other thing we have noticed is that there is a huge lack of awareness on a lot of health related issues for women. To site an example, the HPV Vaccine. If taken at the right time, properly, can avoid cervical cancer in women. Most women didn't even know what cervical cancer was or what the HPV Vaccine was and could do.
Market Size
Today, there are over 120 million women who are internet enabled on their smart phones. Their wellness needs translate to a $4 billion + opportunity every year.
