Kadie Okwudili started Agape Wellness Inc. to help people spark meaningful conversations.
While that focus hasn’t changed, the startup is branching out from catering to romantic partners, especially those who are long distance, to more types of relationships.
“We’re not trying to replace the benefits of in person, but when people have people they care about who they aren’t able to see as often as they like, we’re trying to give them a way to connect,” said Okwudili, who’s based in Rochester.
She and her team of five others work remotely.
The startup, founded in 2018, was originally named one of the winners of the 2022 43North pitch contest. It was later announced the business would be replaced with London-based Twipes. Okwudili declined to comment on the change.
Agape, founded in 2018, is launching this month an updated version of its app, which uses personalized questions to spark meaningful conversation, which will work for all types of relationships, like romantic partners, parents, siblings and friends.
Now, when users sign up for the app, they can invite multiple people to connect with them using Agape and they indicate what their relationship is to each of those people. The business’ algorithm will send a personalized question a day based on that type of relationship for both parties to answer.
She expects this user model to help the already growing business scale more rapidly. Now, instead of one user bringing one other user, a partner, on the Agape app, one user could bring multiple people onboard to use the app.
The startup in February surpassed $1 million in annual recurring revenue and has over 200,000 active daily users on its app.
Okwudili’s goal is to hit 1 million active daily users within the first three months of launching the updated version of the app.
“I’m excited for this year,” she said. “I think this will be the year for optimization.”
Since last fall, the startup has also completed a pilot program, where workers use the Agape app to spark meaningful conversations, with 3 companies with 120 total employees. Agape for Workplace Wellness, which is what Okwudili is calling that business product, now has a few paid contracts with organizations that total about 500 employees.
Once the broader version of the app for friends, family and partners is launched and growing, she expects to refocus on the workplace wellness product.
“All our (internal) one-on-ones we use Agape questions,” she said. “I learned a lot about my team, the types of things they value or what types of issues they really care about. It sounds very simple, but it’s very impactful for most organizations. I think there’s potential there.”
Agape has established product market fit and spread the word through content marketing and research, a strategy that Okwudili plans to continue.
The startup’s Instagram account has nearly 34,000 followers and also uses TikTok. The business does not pay for social media marketing.
“If you spend enough money, you can get users,” she said. “It makes you feel like you have product market fit when you don’t. This is the harder way, but I think it’s the better way.”
The key is creating content that is interesting and valuable, even if your business’ product or service didn’t exist. In other words: show, don’t tell. Okwudili said Agape’s social media will show the value of the app by, for example, showing a meaningful question and asking the viewers how their partners would answer it.
The startup also does research to show how and why its methods work. The team did a research paper on the efficacy of Agape that valuable expects to get published this year in a psychology journal.
“It’s important to me that … I can confidently say we are achieving the mission and value proposition we set out to solve,” she said.
