Elsewhen

The brief

Building a scientifically proven digital coach to help you quit smoking for good.

QuitGenius is the first app that uses cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and game mechanics to help people quit smoking. We were asked to bring these ideas together in a personalised journey of animated videos, audio sessions and interactive exercises aimed at helping people reflect and overcome their smoking addiction once and for all.

The challenges

70% of smokers want to quit but only 3% succeed

Over 70% of the one billion smokers around the world want to quit smoking. Sadly, the long-term success rate is just 3%. The QuitGenius team believe this is because most people don’t have access to high quality therapy. We had little over a month to design and build an MVP that could be taken to clinical trials. The trials would be used to validate the hypothesis that a CBT driven experience would in fact help people quit more effectively.

Our approach

5 weeks to go from concept to clinical trials

Our MVP had to answer several questions – does this kind of experience resonate with people, would customers use it and does the approach actually help more people quit smoking?

Working closely with the founders and CTO of QuitGenius we managed to release our first version of the product in just five weeks. We worked across brand, design, product and development to validate this was a business worth investing in.

30k quitters and counting

After successful clinical trials, the team received further funding and acceleration from both Wayra and Y Combinator. They took the product to market in 2017. Since then they have been featured as Editors Choice on the Apple AppStore and more importantly they have helped almost 30k people quit smoking.

I tried out this app and was so surprised! It is like no other smoking app out there. QuitGenius helps you change the way you think about smoking so you can really quit.
AppStore Review

The outcomes

Backed by Y Combinator and Apple QuitGenius are making incredible progress on their mission to help 100k people quit smoking for good.

4.8/5AppStore rating
27,193Quitters to date
Y Combinator2017 cohort

Get on Appstore