Harshil Karia, Ranveer Allahbadia and Ayush Anand’s
Level Supermind
was ranked by Google as the best
app
on
Google Play
in India in 2023 on the basis of popularity and ratings. That was a phenomenal achievement for the three, who started work on the app barely three years ago. In a world where every fitness platform spoke about physical fitness and performance, Harshil, Ranveer and Ayush felt not enough attention was being given to
mind performance
.
Mental fitness
, they felt, was just not being made as culturally relevant and widely embraced, even though there was so much ancient knowledge on how to train the mind available across India.
They felt they had to tell the world about the unique solutions India had to offer. A common thread binding the three was their personal experience of meditation. They believed they owed a lot of their success and mental abilities to ancient meditation techniques. What was needed, they felt, was to make these teachings accessible and tailor-made for different people. Thus came the idea of Level Supermind. The app says it delivers ‘better memory, focus and brain performance. ’ With meditation and mind muscle workouts, sleep tools and journals,what they call mind advancement and higher cognition.
Harshil graduated in advertising, media and marketing from Mumbai University, and went on to co-found and be part of digital agencies, and maketing tech companies. Ranveer did electronics & communications engineering from Dwarkadas J Sanghvi College of Engineering, and then cofounded a digital media agency. Ayush graduated from IIT Madras with a dual degree in engineering design in 2021.
Ayush says they used technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to gamify the app to make it fun to use. They worked on localising it, developed an easy-to-navigate user interface, and worked on tech that would allow individuals looking for specific solutions to be shown tailor-made content.
“Our app is designed to handhold users to make their mind better and be calmer. We want to turn meditative practices into daily skills. The app suggests simple actions such as journaling or stretching to improve mind muscle connections. The longer people do these, the sharper their minds get. And through our notifications, they continue doing these – this is what we call ‘maintain the streak’,” says Ayush.
If a user says ‘I’m travelling a lot and tired as a result’ or ‘I’m undergoing a breakup’, the chatbot will tell the person the exact meditation to be used out of the 600 different types, and suggest exercises. AI is used extensively to improve user experience. Ayush says AI reduces drop off by recommending the right solutions. A lot of help came their way through Google. Appscale Academy, Google’s growth and development programme in partnership with ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY)’s Startup Hub, shortlisted them for a course. Ayush says the Google programme provided insights about the look of the app, how to optimise it, distribute it, position it, how to localise it, build more regional content, build for TV and smart watch. These insights proved vital for the founders.
English (US) ·