Why we Invested: Wishroute

The allure of becoming a better version of yourself is powerful. We all have something that we would like to improve such as losing weight, learning a new language, adopting mindfulness, gaining financial independence, and more.

However, change is hard and factors hardwired into our brains are constantly working against us. Motivation starts strong and wanes, priorities shift, deadlines distract, goals are abandoned, and so many people are left wondering “What if I stuck with it?”

Businesses face an uphill battle in changing their users’ behaviors. The average app loses 90% of users within a month. This deprives human advancement on a large scale and adds up to a staggering ~$60 billion in lost revenue every year.

Enter Wishroute. The Boston startup helps companies reduce costly user drop-off and increase engagement and retention through AI-enhanced human text message conversations. They sit between the end user and the app, acting as a motivational partner during that critical trial phase and other high-cost churn points.

Clients can now deliver a branded SMS experience with judgement-free, encouraging two-way conversations that help improve user motivation and drive engagement back to the product at key points in the customer journey.

Compared to most apps that rely on noisy automated one-way push notifications and email strategies to attempt to keep customers engaged, Wishroute is refreshing and effective. Current clients are seeing 10-point increases in free trial conversion, 90% customer engagement, and sustained engagement 11x higher than industry average — and it is still early days.

We invested in Wishroute because we believe that solving a user’s #1 problem and a company’s #1 problem in the same ecosystem is particularly powerful. Wishroute’s ease of implementation and compelling ROI will continue to scale both in the wellness sector as well as across other verticals, and their world-class leadership team is the best crew to take this vision to the highest levels (pictured below).

We are excited that 19 members of TBD Angels invested in Wishroute’s oversubscribed round, alongside Techstars, NeuVentures, and value-add angel investors such as Nicole Stata, Liz & Jeremy Hitchcock, Neil Wainwright, Greg Rublev, Le Zhang, and Daniel Serfaty amongst others. Onwards and upwards!

Rich Palmer (Twitter | LinkedIn) is a member of TBD Angels, and co-led the opportunity alongside Yu Chen (Twitter | LinkedIn)