Kate Gurieva

I recently launched my first wellness app, Momentia, a mindful journaling app designed to help people check in with their moods quickly. It s been a rewarding (and humbling) experience, and I wanted to share a few lessons that might help other makers in this space:

1. Simplicity wins. People don t want a complicated system when it comes to journaling or mental wellness. Small, consistent actions matter more. I discovered this both in my own wellness journey and from early test users.

2. Community > marketing spend. The most valuable traction so far has come from engaging with communities like this one, not ads.

3. Your own habits matter. I ve found myself becoming the best test user using the app daily gave me insights I d never get from wireframes or specs.

4. Feedback is gold. Early testers and even casual users often highlight things I would ve missed as a builder. Just the other day, an early adopter gave me unsolicited feedback in a casual conversation and it turned out to be incredibly valuable.

Launching something in the wellness space has reminded me how important it is to keep things human and approachable. Momentia started as an idea to help me, and I can only hope it helps others, too.

I recently came across a post by the founder of Chatbase, who described the situation: "If you want to make your business visible, you have to be a popular founder."

It's true that many companies have now taken off thanks to the cult of the founder (Jenni AI David Park, Cluely Chungin "Roy" Lee etc.).

Not long ago, books/video tapes were the only way to learn. Then video entered the picture: courses, tutorials, and lectures made knowledge more accessible than ever.

Now? The internet is overflowing with millions of courses, books, and resources on every imaginable topic.

So the real question is: