Comcast Ventures (CV) invests in seed to late-stage companies across the media, consumer, enterprise and infrastructure space. Today, we’re proud to highlight our seed investment in Shine, a daily text service that provides self-fulfillment and encouraging messages to millennials. With the goal of providing professional advice for those looking to live more intentionally, the Shine co-founders and former DoSomething.org co-workers, Marah Lidey and Naomi Hirabayashi, capitalized on the 98% open rate of text messages to engage and send positive vibes to their community.
Hear more about Shine from this impressive duo.
What is Shine?
Marah: Shine is a daily text message experience that makes it easier to live a more intentional life. Most people want to live more intentionally and take steps to improve their work and personal lives. We’re here to help. Every morning, Shine sends users a different SMS experience around confidence, happiness, mental health or productivity to help them make the most of their day.
Tell us a little about yourself. What inspired you to start the company?
Naomi: Marah and I became close while working at DoSomething.org over four years ago. We quickly became friends, helping each other process work and life goals with vulnerability, trust and accessibility.
We’ve always been passionate about empowering young professionals to be their best self. For years, we would talk over happy hour around working together on the right project. What we didn’t realize at the time was the scale of the problem we were trying to solve and that the solution would ultimately be something we knew best: text messaging. We’ve used the daily tips from Shine to build Shine. Pretty meta, right?
How do you see Shine filling a need in the market?
Marah: If you want to find career and life advice you have two choices: you can pay for a high-priced career or life coach (typically starting at $250/ hr) or you chase after generic content online. Millennials are looking for bite-sized content, that they can consume on-the-go and that ges the tone and style in which they communicate. And this hunger isn’t going anywhere. A quick look at any search analytics platform will tell you that young people searching for products around "intentionality" and "mindfulness" is at an all-time high.
What advice would you give to fellow entrepreneurs?
Naomi: If the timing and circumstance of your brilliant idea is totally inconvenient and not a part of your plans, that’s called life. There is no right time or right way to make the jump and go after your dream. The only time is now. Oh and once you get there, only work with people you trust immensely.
For more information or to sign up, go to http://shinetext.com/.