Episode #506: Breaking Panic Attack Barriers-Ania Wysocka on Rootd and Mental Health Awareness

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The people who are on HALO Talks NYC have the pleasure of bringing

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from the northern border of Canada, Anya. We

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are gonna talk about rooted. We're gonna talk about dealing with

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panic attacks. We're gonna talk about helping people, through technology

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that is a trend, and she has executed on that effectively.

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So Anya, welcome to HALO Talks. Thanks for having me.

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So, you know, maybe talk a little bit about, you know, what the

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frustration that that was solved, that either you experienced or

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others around you experienced that decided, on your

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end to basically devote this into a full time career and to,

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to start a company and not just a, you know, a self help,

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component to, to helping others on the side? Yeah.

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Definitely. So I was in my 4th year of university when I experienced a

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panic attack. And up until then, I thought that

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panic attacks just meant that people were too stressed out. I couldn't relate. I was

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a pretty relaxed person. And then

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I went to the ER room, and, the doctor

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there, understandably now looking back, but just didn't have enough time

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to sit down and explain everything to me. So I was just basically told, you're

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fine. Go home. And that set off this

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spiral of fear, which is extremely common with panic attacks. If you don't

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understand what's happening when it first occurs to you especially, it can

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get really, really challenging. So that spiral of fear

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set me down, just a lot of, like, negative changes in my life, a lot

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of debilitating changes. So that's where that frustration really came in.

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And it wasn't till I started learning the tools to effectively heal and manage

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panic attacks that I decided that an app needed to exist because

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I have my phone on me at all times. Why not have this helpful solution

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right there? Yeah. So could you just talk, you

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know, it's kind of like a preamble here to the rest of the discussion

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on what is going on chemically in your body when

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you actually have a panic attack? Well, it's a little

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different for everybody, but, essentially your

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nervous system is activated and there can be a number

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of different physical effects from increased sweating,

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blurred vision, heart palpulations,

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dry mouth, seeing stars. You know, those are all, like, the

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physical effect. And then there's the mental effects that have to do with,

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like, really negative thoughts, thinking that something really bad is

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happening. Like, everything in your body is telling you that something's hap

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many people get the sensation that they're dying, and that's why

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1% of ER visits are from panic attacks.

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Gotcha. It's actually a lot of ER visits. You know, I just thought about going

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through an app given that people have different,

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effects and different severities, you know, how did you go about

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building the app in order to kinda take you through

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the sequencing that either majority of Pete have or it kinda,

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like, takes you through, you know, the the the life

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cycle, of the panic attack? And is this used now as

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kind of, like, not dial 911, like, go to the app, or explain

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to us how the usage is? Yeah. So when I was

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first creating it, it was definitely modeled off of what I needed.

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Right? Because I wanted to create something that I knew very

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well. And that's why even today, when people come to me, they say, hey. Why

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don't you make this for depression or for ADHD? I say, you know, I

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really wanna focus on what I know well, and I wanna execute on

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that very well. So, that was sort of the

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premise for building rooted and the different tools within the

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app. And then, Pete to answer the latter question, you know,

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it is used for immediate relief. So if you are in the moment

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experiencing a panic attack, you can pull out the app. It's based on

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cognitive therapy, and you're able to walk

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through whatever you're experiencing. There's 2 different options. You can

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either face the panic attack head on, which is very healing,

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or you can use these prompts to sort of keep

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it at bay. You know, activating that parasympathetic nervous system, that's

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the one that calms us and gets us back to,

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feeling stable again. Got it. And is there any kind

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of well, first, talk about, like, the the

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name of the of the apps of Rooted. Like, what what was the genesis of

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that? Yeah. So with Rooted, it the idea is being grounded in the

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ground like a tree. You know? You have big roots. When there's a big

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storm and you look at a big oak tree, it's not toppling over. Right? It's

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handling that storm. So the idea is for everybody to get as

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rooted as possible to build those roots themselves, and they don't feel like they

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need to call for help or or, you know,

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topple over when those horrible feelings come.

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And so from a total, you know, if we were looking at this from, like,

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a venture capital standpoint, you'd say, okay. K. Anya, what's the total

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addressable market? How how many people get panic attacks

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annually in North America? Yeah. So about 4%

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of adults get panic attacks. Wow. And that

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yeah. Exactly. Like, depending on how you look at it, it's a huge number. Right?

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On the other hand, there's Talks, anxiety disorder. And

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so over the years, because I was also experiencing anxiety, we've

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put in a number of different tools that also address anxiety in general. So

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there's, sleep support. There's visualization. There's

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journaling to help those sessions with the therapist be more effective

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because you can go back and really easily realize,

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okay. What was I doing before the panic attack or sensation of anxiety

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occurred? And so there's these other tools in addition to the lessons

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and the panic attack tool that really help with anxiety.

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And the number of folks with anxiety is just staggering now. It's one out of

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every 4 adults in North America will experience

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some. Gotcha. So you have 2,000,000 users.

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Talk about how that how that evolved over time. And

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are you specifically targeting,

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you know, talk about, like, your market penetration strategy. How do people find

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out about Rooted? And is it also as an add on

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question there, are you aligning with doctors and

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people in the profession, or is it or they view it as like a

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disintermediation of their services? Yeah. So

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we're actually at 3,000,000 users. I think it's that Got it. We've been kind of

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hooked this podcast for a while, so we actually had a, yeah, a

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1000000 more users in growth there and, primarily

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organically. And what that means is, like, we don't do word-of-mouth,

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people sharing it with their friends and family after using it with their community.

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You mentioned doctors and relationship with doctors. Doctors are huge

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referral source for Rooted therapists as well Mhmm. Clinicians.

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And, yeah, the, like, app store

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optimization is something that I really focused on. So making sure that if people are

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searching for something like Rooted, Rooted pops up.

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There's a number of things that go into that from, you know,

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user reviews and user ratings is huge. So we have a 4.8

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out of 5 star, rating, and we have over 50,000

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reviews from people now. So, that is, like,

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super huge and being credible and, you know, getting to that, you

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know, to that search spot that we wanna be at. And that's

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where most of the growth comes from.

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This is Pete Moore. I wanna let you in on a little secret. There's this

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company called Promotion Vault, and what they do is they give out rewards

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from retailers that allow you to incentivize your

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members without having to do 0 down and 1 month

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free or giving away shakes or giving away t shirts. What

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you want to do is build a rewards program that lasts, that

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people value, and that doesn't discount your own products and services.

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So here's the deal. There's something called rewards vault. The rewards

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vault is going to allow a member to set up their own profile.

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They are going to answer questions. You are gonna get those answers. You're gonna be

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able to target those members, and you're gonna reward them inside your

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club, inside your spa, and outside of the club, and outside

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of the spa to get them to become loyal, to get them to pay

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their monthly dues, and to be rewarded properly for

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the actions. A lot of companies are cutting back on rewards. You shouldn't

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be. Promotion Vault's your answer. Trust me. This is real.

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You know, when when you started the business, what kind of,

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did you do any any any outside research or say, look, you know,

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some of the best companies are built off of

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personal frustration or personal experiences like you articulated at the

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beginning here. Was there a need for you to basically, like,

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validate that, hey, I can get the 3,000,000 users one day? Are

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you, you know, equally, you know,

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kind of excited about where how this has grown organically,

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with without actually having to spend, you know, $20,000,000 in marketing?

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Yeah. So, yeah, I had no idea what would happen when I first

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launched Rooted. I had no idea. I just knew that I wanted to get it

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out there. I did not I don't have an MBA. You know? I don't have

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a background in business. So for me, the frustration

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and learning that, you know, some of the best products are created out of frustration,

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it it wouldn't have mattered to me at the time because it was just like

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I was so I had, like, horse blinders on with what I was experiencing and

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what I was doing, and I didn't do, like, you know, competitive

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analysis or any of that, to be honest. So getting to 1,000,000

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users was such a huge, huge, bewildering number. It

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was just like, wow. I can't believe that happened. So, yeah, the

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rest sometimes feels like a dream. You know? It's a

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but, you know, looking back, I would never wish panic attacks

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on anyone, and I would wish that I hadn't experienced them. Even

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though I'm so happy that now Rudas is there for so many

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people, and the user reviews are a testament to that for sure. But, you

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know, it was a horrible time. So I like, when I was experiencing it myself.

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So, you know, I wouldn't, you know, wish that on

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myself or anyone. Gotcha. You know, when you think

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about separate the the people that you're helping

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and and and the usage and the fact that people feel like they have a

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support mechanism basically, you know, on on their phone. You

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know, how do you think about from an entrepreneur building a

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business and say, well, what is this app worth to

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someone? I mean, it's worth 1,000 of dollars per potential

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episode. Right? You probably couldn't even quantify, like, what this is worth to

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someone. How do you think about pricing an app or having

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a a freemium type of model? And also say,

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like, there's a point that I am comfortable with as an

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entrepreneur to provide this service to someone with

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technology. And I'm not going to look at this as if it's

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like, you know, a drug company Square they say, like, hey. What's the

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maximum amount I could get someone to pay for this pill that's gonna

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solve x? So how do you think about that? Maybe share that, you know, for

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our entrepreneurs here that look at, like, the price to value

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proposition. Obviously, it's off the charts, but I just wanted to understand how you think

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about it. Yeah. That's a important topic,

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I think, especially because Rooted is a social impact business. And when I was

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starting Rooted, social impact businesses weren't even taken

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seriously. There was, like, very few venture funds for social impact

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businesses, and it just wasn't considered, like, you

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know, profit and helping people. They just weren't considered,

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like, mutual. And so that has always been a

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challenge. I'd say that the reason why freemium resonates with me is because,

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you know, with over 66% of people who experience panic attacks

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don't actually look for the treatment they need, often due to barriers

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like stigma. A huge one, though, is also financial.

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So if you experience panic attacks, you might know that it can be so

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debilitating that, understandably, many folks, like, aren't able to

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work. And so it was really always important for me to have that

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free component, And it did make me sort of butt heads

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with potential investors and with, like, judges of different

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competitions that Rooted was in, because they

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were under the impression that, you know, you shouldn't have that much free content. On

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the flip side, however, that's really how we grew organically. Right?

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People sharing it with their friends. There's no, like, hard paywall. You can go and

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you can get value from it. So it's kinda like the chicken and the egg

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with that. And then in terms of the actual price, that has a

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lot to do with, you know, what is out there for

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other health and wellness apps on the app stores and

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and looking at that. And you're right. For some I mean, we get

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testimonials from people saying that they're able to go back to work because of

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Rooted. So, like, it is really hard to put a price on that. Right?

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But we just sort of go on what is sort of like the market standard

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for apps. Not necessarily healing panic attacks, but just for an

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app. Mhmm. So so as you think about,

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I used to run a software company Academy my partner,

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he was on the product side. And, you know, he was always selling the

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next version. And I felt like the the app and the and the web

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platform that we built was always like a a web painting. And and

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it always had more work to do. So as you think about

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going forward, do you go deeper into, you know, panic

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attacks? Do you kinda say, hey, if you have a panic attack, you

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know, and now it's 25% of the market or or, you know,

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adults have have anxiety that I'm basically gonna take

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on the anxiety side of it because the foundation is

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basically, like, an ongoing, you know,

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subtle earthquake at, like, 4 point o instead of, like, at 8 point o.

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How do you think about building the business? Or do you say, look. I'm gonna

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stay in my lane, and it's my lane. And I

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don't have to, you know, I I don't have to talk

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to investors about what I wanna do. This is my company. I'm gonna run the

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way I wanna do it. And that's the voice you listen to.

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Yeah. I'd say I would've, like, definitely stay in my lane part.

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I am, trying to build a happy life alongside working on

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this. And Mhmm. Yeah. I think in figuring out

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my values and learning more about myself over the past 5 years, I think

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that doing it this way has been beneficial

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and is how I'd like to continue. Great. And and

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from a standpoint of, you know, build you know, work life balance or if

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that really exists, It's it's a it's a nice,

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cliche. But anyone building a business, you know, it's it's top of

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mind all the time. And, you know, I've, I I talk in my

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sleep so some, you know, my significant other would tell me, like, hey, I think

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you were talking about business, you know, in the middle of the night based on

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what you're talking about, you know, because you told me a story recently about this

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deal you're working on. So when you say, like, creating a happy life,

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like, what what does that mean to you? And and what are some of the

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things or guardrails you would you would advise other entrepreneurs

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to take that maybe you learned over time, that weren't

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self evident? Sure. Yeah. I'd

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say one component is sort of managing my

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own time. So like you said, for most entrepreneurs, your

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business is always top of mind. We don't really get weekends. That really wasn't a

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thing for me at all. My first few years of the business, like, I

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didn't take any days off at all. And, I think that at

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the time, there was, like, a desperation. I needed this product to exist.

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I needed to get it out there. I needed for people to see the value

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of it as well. And now that all of those have been those

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goals have been met, I'm able to actually relax a bit more. Right?

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It's no longer from this, like, place of desperation. It's more of like

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a, okay. How do we keep making it better? How do we keep getting the

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word out? But it's definitely not as intense and stressful

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as it was at the beginning. So that's been a huge part of it, just

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managing my own time. I think I think it was, like, Morgan Housel,

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the guy who did, the psychology of money, that book. He said

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that time will be more valuable of a commodity than money

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in the future. And I can see that personally for me. Like, my time is

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is precious. Like, I I really value it. So managing it is a huge part

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of happiness for me. And then, yeah, I

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think, you know, financial security is important,

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and I think deciding, like, when enough is enough for you is

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a huge component too. I see, I'm, you know,

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fortunate I'm able to interact with a ton of awesome entrepreneurs. I see some of

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them, like, extremely, extremely wealthy and still very unhappy. And

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so it's, like, pretty cliche, but, you know, money doesn't buy

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happiness. It provides security. And I think understanding

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where your enough is is a huge part of that. And so I

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guess rooted is more so based on,

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like, steady growth versus, like, growth at all costs. And that's

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another component for happiness. Gotcha. When

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when you take a look at

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marketing and doing any any kind of, like, speaking engagements or

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you know, you're out there basically bringing more and more awareness,

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to panic attacks. Have you seen

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a cultural shift, you know, related to obviously, everyone in the

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US is talking about mental health. It's okay to, you know,

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talk about how stressful you are. It's okay to talk about how you

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feel. It's okay to say, I wanna take some time off from playing

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tennis because I'm not in the right frame of mind, which, you

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know, before it used to be deemed a weakness, and now it's just

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basically I'm human. So so how is that kind

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of propelled you and giving you confidence to have this as a as

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a a lecture? Or, like, hey, we can talk about this. There's nothing,

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you know, you know, there's no full power about talking about panic

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attacks Square there might have been, like, something that was under the rug before.

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Totally. Yeah. It has completely changed since I started Rooted.

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So I started Rooted in 2018, and

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panic attacks just weren't talked about. It's just not something that you would want to

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even associate with yourself. I had trouble putting my own

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face on the brand. I also thought, you know, it's not about me It's about

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the app, but I remember yeah the first few

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articles that I participated in they would ask for a headshot and I would send

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them the app mascot Ron, because I just wasn't

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comfortable. And I didn't wanna just be known as the anxiety girl or the

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panic attack girl because there's so much more to me, and there's so much more

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I wanted to do with my career too. So, yeah, I'd say

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it's like night and day, and I think, COVID was a huge part

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of that. I think a lot of people opened up to the fact that they

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were really struggling during covid. And a lot of large

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institutions and government organizations were just

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starting to talk about mental health, and, you know, that does really play a part

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in destigmatizing. So I think it's, yeah, like

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night and day since when I first started. It's a lot more talked about now.

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This is Pete Moore. Here's the last tip for you of the podcast.

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00:20:30,855 --> 00:20:34,375
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and sweating, and the recovery should be just as good as the workout.

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And and one other question Pete, and maybe a couple of follow-up questions, but

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you started off just as a a b to c app in the App Store.

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Correct? Yes. And you you referenced that there's some

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b to b relationship here. Can you talk about, you know, maybe on a

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00:21:51,980 --> 00:21:55,785
no names basis, you know, who's first

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in line to basically say, hey, I need to make sure that my

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employees or my members have access to this just in

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case? And then is this been a big push

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into corporate wellness programs where they say, hey, here's all the

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here's all the apps and here's all the services that we

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wanna provide to our employees, and this is a, you know, mission

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critical part of that app suite or just talk about the b

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two b side because everyone tries to sell into b Pete b on the corporate

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wellness side. And, obviously, it's a very long sales

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process typically, and there's a lot of groups out there.

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But there aren't as many groups that go as deep as you've gotten into a

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specific, you know, modality or search, you know, specific

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circumstance that I would think, yeah, this is mission critical.

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We should have this on here. So can you talk a little bit about the

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00:22:46,825 --> 00:22:50,585
b Pete side? Totally. And I think, you know, since you said

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there's entrepreneurs potentially in the audience, I'd say one important distinction

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is that I started off with b Pete c, and that traction

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allowed me to approach the b to b. Traditionally, you'd get venture

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funding, build out a team, a sales team, and then go after b to b.

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So that's, like, an important difference there. But, yeah, when I first

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started the b to b component, it was from getting

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comments and testimonials from users saying, hey. I actually can't even

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work right now, or I can't afford this because I'm out of work, and could

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my employer you know, I'm on on leave. Could my employer

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not pay for this? Could my government not pay for this? You know? A lot

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of testimonials like that. And so that's sort of what it

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started that. And I started off with just working with other start ups

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actually, who their goal would be to reduce turnover

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and increase performance of employees. And they were

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like, hey. We actually do have turnover from mental health issues. Let's see how

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this would work. So we did some pilots, and the pilots were positive,

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ended up working with, you know, retail, the

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restaurant chains, and and eventually, yeah,

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with therapists themselves. You know, during COVID,

383
00:24:03,230 --> 00:24:06,450
there was, like, such long wait list for therapy. So

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those that, really did wanna help, they just offered these other

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tools that folks can rely on. You know? Even when you have a therapist,

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like, you can't necessarily call them in the middle of the night. Right? So,

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that's when Rooted is there. And, yeah, it's meant to be a symbiotic

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tool, but it is, yep, definitely recommended and used by

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those groups. So that's the b to b component. Yeah. And then just

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one other question or comment on the b to b side. As people

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renew annual contracts for their corporate wellness

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initiatives, a lot of times they'll look and say, hey. What's the usage

393
00:24:40,630 --> 00:24:44,230
bit? Right? And if it's like a fitness app or if it's a data

394
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tracking app or or what have you, the number is usually very

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low, from an employer providing services to

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an employee that they actually, you know, 20 or 30%

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of the employee base take advantage of. In your case,

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is it viewed more as, like, this is an emergency type of

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app? And therefore, even if it's 1%, like,

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that's 1% versus 0, you know, and

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and that turns potentially into, like, a huge catastrophic issue.

402
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Have you had had any conversations on a b to b side where they ask

403
00:25:17,510 --> 00:25:21,270
you how many people have used the app? And it might be low,

404
00:25:21,270 --> 00:25:24,684
but that low number is, like, almost irrelevant

405
00:25:24,904 --> 00:25:28,664
because it was only a couple Pete. Like, that's those

406
00:25:28,664 --> 00:25:32,410
are important people, you know, in that moment

407
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of time. I just that seems to be like a distinction to me that

408
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could benefit a recurring component of your

409
00:25:39,850 --> 00:25:43,615
business or anyone that's in, like, this mission critical, you

410
00:25:43,615 --> 00:25:47,295
know, Square? Did can you comment on that? Because I feel like some

411
00:25:47,295 --> 00:25:51,090
people may need to think about that when they answer a question on what's

412
00:25:51,090 --> 00:25:54,630
your usage. Yeah. So I'd say it completely

413
00:25:54,850 --> 00:25:58,390
depends on how that business calculates the value

414
00:25:59,105 --> 00:26:02,945
of Virta. Right? So Right. If we look at, Virta being

415
00:26:02,945 --> 00:26:06,620
offered as one of many tools that, you know, a company

416
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might be offering to hopefully prevent, you know, turnover,

417
00:26:10,440 --> 00:26:14,039
that's a different type of calculation than when you look at, okay, every ER

418
00:26:14,039 --> 00:26:17,784
visit is costing us $27,000. Wow.

419
00:26:17,784 --> 00:26:21,485
Gotcha. If we're spending a couple $100 on rooted

420
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and it prevents even just a couple annually, then that's already a

421
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win. So, you know, it totally depends on how those

422
00:26:28,649 --> 00:26:32,250
businesses look at it. Yeah. Awesome. Happy to say we've had happy

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customers. So Yeah. It's great what you're doing. It's also great

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that you didn't think about, you know, doing it in a

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traditional fashion of, you know, putting together a business plan and, you know,

426
00:26:43,030 --> 00:26:46,390
saying, hey. I hope there's a Moore. And here's, like, research because I feel

427
00:26:46,390 --> 00:26:49,930
like the best ideas come from solving your own problems.

428
00:26:50,054 --> 00:26:53,815
Yeah. And and, you know, kudos to you for, for executing

429
00:26:53,815 --> 00:26:57,015
on that. And then the last thing is you got any quotes that you live

430
00:26:57,015 --> 00:27:00,860
by or any quotes for our our quote library that you like to

431
00:27:00,860 --> 00:27:04,620
reference? Oh, I think this too

432
00:27:04,620 --> 00:27:08,405
shall pass. This too shall pass for a minute. Shall

433
00:27:08,405 --> 00:27:12,245
pass. Very relevant for panic attacks, obviously. Sure. Sure. Any life

434
00:27:12,245 --> 00:27:15,880
events. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks for

435
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:19,720
coming on. You know, please let us know how we can help you in any

436
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:23,435
of the, you know, whether it's business, if you

437
00:27:23,435 --> 00:27:27,275
got relationships with groups like Gympass or Fit Reserve or any of the,

438
00:27:27,755 --> 00:27:31,550
the corporate programs that are, you know, fitness based that are always trying to add

439
00:27:31,550 --> 00:27:35,390
more, to their, ballot work of of services. Happy to do

440
00:27:35,390 --> 00:27:39,135
that and, and thanks for what you're doing for people. Awesome. Well 3,000,000.

441
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Thank you.