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Would you share the pages of your journal with a bunch of strangers, because thats the idea behind social wellness app Exist. The new iOS social wellness app wants to turn journaling into a social experience. Originally designed with Gen Z in mind, Exist unexpectedly found its audience among middle-age users, with the average sign-up age landing at 40. Seeing this, the founders pivoted to focus on this group, creating a space for real, raw conversations about lifes challenges. Exist calls itself the edgier cousin of Calm and Headspace, but instead of solo meditation, it puts social journaling at the center of its mission. The app is built on the idea that healing happens best together, not alone. Users can track their moods daily, explore guided meditations, and engage in audio exercises, but the real draw is its community. In terms of its interface, Exist functions like a TikTok for mental health, offering a swipeable feed of videos and text-based public journal entries. Users can respond to daily prompts, share their thoughts, and interact through comments, creating a space for support and real conversations. The biggest feature that makes us different is the community side, cofounder Alicia Waldner told TechCrunch. Headspace and Calm proved that theres this audio-based market, but people still feel very alone in those experiences and in real life, people meditate and then they journal, but thats a solo experience. And what we did was make that a social experience. So instead of journaling all your thoughts and feelings at home and putting it underneath your bed at night, youre sharing it with the world, and people are commenting back. Exist also offers an AI-powered question feature designed to push users to dig deeper into their thoughts and feelings. This tool encourages a more reflective and thorough journaling experience. While the community and social journaling features are free, users looking for guided audios and meditations can unlock them with a $5.99/month subscription.
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E-Commerce
Cultivating a loyal fan base is every brand’s dream. So why not take a page out of the book of companies that have made fandom the foundation of their business? Earlier this month at the Fast Company Grill at SXSW, executives from Weverse, Crunchyroll, and Wattpad/Webtoon spoke about how their companies cultivate and serve their diehard fandomsand how you can apply that approach to your customers. For Joon Choi, president of Weverse, a platform bridging fans to artists, fandom always starts with authenticity, particularly with the artists on the platform. He recognized that “special” and “happy” experience of being in a fandom. So if an artist isn’t authentically connected to their fanbase, then a platform like Weverse just isn’t for them. And that idea, he said, goes for companies trying to connect with their consumers. Aron Levitz, president of Wattpad Webtoon Studios and co-president of Wattpad, noted that part of defining yourself as a brand is figuring out who you are in different channels.“Have you ever looked at Build-a-Bear’s Instagram? It is not what you think it is. Go read it. It is unhinged,” he said. “But they decided that in that channel they can talk about themselves in a different way than they ever would in a store.”The key is to be true to a persona and be ready to experiment to get to that persona, especially on social media where there’s a constant churn of content. “You can think like a tech company and do some A/B testing to really understand what could your brand be,” Levitz said. For Gita Rebbapragada, chief operating officer of anime streaming service Crunchyroll, it’s about identifying the nuances within your fanbase. “When [you] think about a specific fandom as a monolith, you will fail,” she said. “The beauty of being focused around one specific fandom is the diversity in it.”She also mentioned that fans are highly adept at sniffing out inauthentic ploys for monetization from a company. But that there are indeed opportunities to engage with fans in a financial way if it’s “well-aligned” with the community. “A lot of times we think of monetizing a fan base as kind of an uncomfortable thing to talk about,” Rebbapragada said. “[But] if you love a story or a game, you want to engage with it in so many different ways. And a company or a brand that gives you a cool product that you want to have in your home or put on your shelf or wear, that is creating value for the person that loves that particular thing. It’s really about understanding what the motivations are.” Watch the full panel below:
Category:
E-Commerce
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. National home prices have risen by 2.1% year-over-year from February 2024 to February 2025, according to the Zillow Home Value Index. That’s a deceleration from the 4.6% year-over-year rate last spring. However, not every housing market is seeing rising home prices. Among the 300 largest metro area housing markets, 42 markets are seeing falling home prices on a year-over-year basis. Thats up from last month when just 31 of the nations 300 largest metro area housing markets had falling year-over-year home prices. While home prices continue to rise in regions with tight inventorysuch as much of the Northeast, Midwest, and Southern Californiasome housing markets in states like Texas, Florida, and Louisiana, where inventory has now surpassed pre-pandemic 2019 levels, are experiencing modest price corrections. These year-over-year declines are evident in major metros such as Austin (-3.8%); Tampa (-3.6%); San Antonio (-2%); New Orleans (-1.7%); Phoenix (-1.6%); Jacksonville, Florida (-1.5%); Dallas (-1.4%); and Orlando (-1.4%). The markets seeing the most softness, where homebuyers are gaining leverage, are primarily located in Sun Belt regions, particularly the Gulf Coast and Mountain West. These areas saw major price surges during the pandemic housing boom, with home price growth outpacing local income levels. As pandemic-driven migration slowed and mortgage rates rose, markets like Tampa and Austin faced challenges, relying on local income levels to support frothy home prices. This softening trend is further compounded by an abundance of new home supply in the Sun Belt. Builders are often willing to lower prices or offer affordability incentives to maintain sales, which also has a cooling effect on the resale market. Some buyers, who would have previously considered existing homes, are now opting for new homes with more favorable deals. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}))}(); Will this softening continue this year? A key indicator to watch will be active inventory levels. If weaker markets like Tampa continue to see substantial increases in active inventoryalready above pre-pandemic levelsit may signal ongoing softening, potentially creating more opportunities for homebuyers.
Category:
E-Commerce
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