Somewhere in 2019, a digital technology services company felt the need to take care of the mental and overall well being of its employees, besides their existing wellness programmes. That company is Noida-based To The New. One of its co-founders and chief marketing officer, Raman Mittal, is also an avid meditation practitioner for the past 15 years and had always wanted to promote mindful meditation to a larger audience. Being in the IT industry himself for the past decade, he had experienced the benefits of meditation for a working professional.
To The New designs, builds and runs digital products and platforms for enterprises, SaaS, and consumer tech companies. By the end of 2021, when everyone had experienced the ill-effects of the pandemic, the company decided to explore existing mental health apps in the market, but none of them worked. That is when the idea of Idanim came into existence.
Idanim means ‘Now’ in Sanskrit. “It was conceived and created, primarily for our internal staff. Combined with the decade-long meditation experience of our co-founders, Idanim was tailored to offer meditations to working professionals. The vision was to spread awareness and help people lead healthier lives,” says Mittal.
Help for all emotions
After receiving an excellent response within the company, Idanim was launched for the public in July last year, offering meditations by world renowned experts to all the working professionals out there. Idanim is a mindfulness app that has over 1,000 meditations spread across 40+ categories including learning to meditate, stress, productivity, compassion, etc. It boasts of a select team of teachers with deep experience in meditation as well as the corporate world.
“Our meditation experts have helped professionals better manage stress, anxiety, insomnia, relationships at the workplace and emotions like grief, anger, fear, etc. Meditation is for every professional. We target businesses primarily to be able to help professionals in any industry, field to be able to practice meditation and live healthier lives,” says Mittal.
According to him, Idanim was originally conceived for a group of employees, and has a natural B2B appeal. “We have partnered with some leading organisations who have given free access to Idanim to their employees. Based on the reviews we have collected, their employees have shared positive feedback for the app, especially regarding the meditation categories for professionals,” he adds.
Mittal believes that meditation is an individual journey and the app focuses on making that journey as personalised as possible for each user. “This has helped the app gain tremendous traction in the B2C market as well. It has garnered over 50,000 downloads in less than a year of its launch, and over 5,000 people use it to meditate every month,” Mittal points out.
Tech plays a vital role
Idanim is led by a strong and cross-functional tech team with experts in UX, frontend, backend, DevOps, data engineering and product management. “We follow agile methodologies (combination of Scrum and Kanban) practices for software development. Our tech stack includes Java, Spring Boot, MongoDB, SQL, React Native, and React. The app is available on both Android and iOS. We’ve integrated Sign in with Apple, push notifications, in-app purchase, app groups and associated domains,” he adds.
TAPPING INTO THE MIND
- A mental wellness and meditation app
- Has over 1,000 meditations spread across 40+ categories
- These include learning to meditate, stress, sleep
- Teachers provide guided meditations and live sessions
- Available on both Android and iOS, garnered 50,000+ downloads in a year