QuitGenius: Building a Science-Backed App to Help Users Quit Smoking

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.

Elsewhen teamed up with QuitGenius to build a scientifically proven digital coach, to help people quit smoking for good.

outcomes

Helped more than 30,000 people quit smoking
4.8 Stars on the AppStore
Funding from Wayra and Y Combinator

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.

The results
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.

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