Understand the Root Cause of Anxiety

‣ Company: Simply Rooted Media
‣ Founder: Ania Wysocka
‣ Mission: To give immediate relief to anyone living with an anxiety disorder
‣ App launched: 2017
‣ Team size: 5
‣ Most-used emoji: 💪

Ania Wysocka was a university student when she experienced her first panic attack.

“It came completely out of the blue, and my instinct was to look for an app that could explain what was happening to me,” she says. She wanted simple explanations, and she wanted them fast.

But the answers she was looking for weren’t in the hypnosis and therapy apps she downloaded, so she decided to create one to speak to her specific needs. Rootd has a simple, targeted mission: to demystify panic attacks and provide in-the-moment relief.

With the help of a cute monster who resembles a blue potato, the app offers a primer in the biology of anxiety, as well as breathing tools, journal prompts, daily affirmations, sleep support, and guided visualizations narrated by Wysocka herself. “The whole concept of Rootd is to befriend your fear. It’s to help you face it head on and not be so afraid of it.”

We caught up with her to discuss her own history as well as the power of perseverance.

What’s your personal experience with panic attacks?
I was in my fourth year of university and hanging out at a friend’s house when I experienced my first one. My heart started racing and I felt overcome with feelings of doom. As a young, relatively healthy person, it was terrifying and confusing. My doctor said everything was OK with me. I said, “Then how do you explain what happened?” They were quick to move on to the next patient.

What did you do to track down the explanation?
I looked in academic journals, but they were all written in medical jargon and not very approachable or comforting. Eventually I ended up seeing a counselor and reading the work of Claire Weekes. Dr. Weekes wrote several books on anxiety and panic disorder and emphasized that it’s a behavioral response, and not a permanent condition. That gave me hope.

How did you figure out how to turn that insight into an app?
It was years after my first panic attack, when I’d collected enough information and started feeling much better, that I went for it. I’d thought through the wireframes, design, and marketing. I worked with a developer I’d known from a former job to create the first version of Rootd. It took a lot of trial and error and required a lot of perseverance. Things kept falling apart, and we needed to just rebuild.

After you launched Rootd, how did you get the word out?
One of my key learnings launching Rootd was that you don’t actually need to spend a ton on advertising, or put ads on buses. Rootd helped people immediately, and the feedback and referrals those first users gave was what kept propelling us forward and getting Rootd into the hands of more users. My main marketing strategy early on was App Store keyword optimization, which I learned about by reading articles online. The keywords that go into the body of the product description are like gold—you want to make sure you’re using all the space as strategically as possible.

What was your intention behind the app’s simple design?
When you’re in a state of distress, you need something that’s focused, simple, and calming. As someone who has dealt with anxiety firsthand, the color palette, layout, and approachability of Rootd was extremely important to me. The idea behind Rootd’s name is that Rootd can help us grow roots and feel grounded. You know how a huge oak tree in a storm barely moves? Our goal is to help users feel as rooted as the oak tree.

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Simply Rooted Media is a part of the App Store Small Business Program. If you are a developer and would like to learn more about the program, follow the link below.