Behavioral Change as a Product: Why is Marie Kondo Raising a $ 40M Round with Sequoia Capital?

Do you know such a book, “The Magic Cleaning” (Eng .: “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up”) by Marie Kondo? This is an extremely popular volume among housewives (but not only) about behavior change, disguised as a set of essays on cleaning and organizing your home.

In a nutshell, Marie stomps to throw all unnecessary out of your life. But unlike the minimalists, who decided to hell out of things due to career burnout, Marie has a clear method of organizing her life: start with clothes and things, then do it with objects, furniture, books, telegraphs, train stations and more by the list. The key idea: to throw out from life that which does not bring joy, and organize the rest so that life turns out to be more harmonious, collected, gracious.

A couple of months ago, Marie launched the eponymous super-popular show on Netflix. This is a big milestone: coverage of the Internet giant - over one hundred million viewers. In her show, Marie shares tips on organizing life, and although her focus is always at home, Marie does not stop at household issues.

I would say this: the idea is that in an era of constant distractions it is very difficult to find your centering practice. For many people who are not ready to hire a coach or go into spirituality, Marie fills a niche with something accessible and simple: working on her own environment.

This week it became known that Marie is raising the round, the lead investor is Sequoia Capital, this is about $ 40M. Surprisingly, we are talking about a personal brand, about the history of one person who decided to scale his practice. Most likely through technology.

This is not the first time that people use a personal brand to scale their ideas and create a product to change behavior. A couple of years ago, Arianna Huffington announced that after leaving the Huffington Post she opened her startup Thrive Global , aimed at introducing a more conscious and healthy lifestyle in the corporation. In total, Arianna raised $ 50 + million .

Another story is about ABC News channel anchor Dan Harris, who once became so angry that he experienced a panic attack during a live broadcast. After that Dan, a terrible skeptic, thought for a while, meditated and called on his friend, the well-known mindfulness practitioner Joseph Goldstein, to create together the company “10% Happier” (with the book of the same name , the appendix and all the things).

Harris directed his influence and fame to teach meditation to complete skeptics - those who would never dare to sit in the lotus position and begin to focus on breathing. In total, Harris raised $ 5 million in venture capital money. According to AppTopia analytics , self-help apps are growing by leaps and bounds: Calm and 10% Happier have grown 80% from 2017 to 2018.

Where is all this going? It seems to me that we have come to the point from which it became obvious that without a qualitative change in how we live our lives, things only get worse. Hashtags: stress, anxiety, depression, general loss.

It is gratifying to see that thought leaders like Kondo, Huffington, Harris, and many others are trying to change something with technology. Guys like me do it 1: 1 through coaching / behavioral change programs, but there is a huge interest in the possibilities of making it massively accessible in the community of professional coaches.