- Shotsy is a first-in-in-what-in-app for keeping track of GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy.
- Software engineer Aja Beckett built the app out of necessity after finding manual note awkward.
- The company now has $ 2 million in new financing to increase marketing efforts and grow its team.
When Aja Beckett started using a GLP-1 medication, she took notes on her phone to follow her doses, side effects and hunger. As her notes were long and unmanageable, Beckett decided, who worked as a software engineer for the Athletic, to build an app instead.
Today, that app, Shotssy, has been downloaded more than 100.00 times and reached a $ 1 million turning run – a projection of annual income based on current sales figures. The app is available for free to download and use and offers additional functions that are accessible through an annual subscription of $ 19.99. Beckett says that the eight -month -old company is profitable.
Investors take knowledge. Shotsy has collected $ 2.25 million in seed financing to increase marketing and grow his team, says the startup Business Insider exclusively. April Underwood from Adverb Ventures led De Ronde, while coalition operators, Springbank Collective, and Angel Investor Esther Dyson participated.
The excitement on weight loss medicines has both Big Pharma and Silicon Valley that pursues the Wegovy Golf. The TeleHealth Unicorn Startup Virta Health recently started to prescribe Ozempic for weight loss in a push to profitability. Omada Health, which works with employers and health plans to provide better care to people with type 2 diabetes, said that the employer’s interest in his weight -witness program lies behind the latest growth spurt. And on Super Bowl Sunday, advertisements for junk food and beer shared time with a controversial HIMS and its place that promoted the version of the popular weight loss medicine.
But even if startups hurry to take advantage of this superized market, there has been no basic app for keeping track of medication use. Beckett knows this firsthand.
Shotsy enables people to log their weekly recordings and keep track of their medicine history. Shot
Beckett, 43, said she was struggling with her weight for years and cycles through diets such as Keto and Weight Watchers. She became curious about Ozempic after reading these drugs in the news. Thirteen months ago she started using Zepbound, an injectable brand to treat obesity.
Beckett kicked her habit of Dr. Pepper almost at night. While she lost weight, a buttocks that bothered her for years was no longer sensitive. She also noticed that she could think more clearly without the ‘food noise’.
She started to follow her weekly injections in the Notes app on her phone. Beckett noted that side effects such as nausea after her shot at a different period of time peaked, and by logging in her doses, she could estimate if she would feel sick and plan it accordingly. She also followed her injection sites to ensure that she rotated body areas and how much weight she lost per shot.
But the notes app let her want. So she built an app and said that her fading obsession with food gave her on nights and during the weekend more energy to cod.
Beckett also became active on a Reddit group for Zepbound users. She invited other members to take the app for a test drive. The excitement was palpable and the feedback flowed in.
“Nobody else gave aids for specific GLP-1 users,” said Beckett. “So it was really exciting for all of us in the community to feel like us.”
Shotsy saw 3000 downloads in the first 24 hours after the debut of App Store.
Beckett still worked full -time and used part of the subscription to hire a part -time designer to improve the app’s look. The app continued to pick up downloads. She felt at ease at her work when the app generated sufficient income to replace her software engineering salary.
“It started to feel that I missed an opportunity to do everything I wanted to do with Shotsy,” Beckett said.
The Swiss bank UBS estimates that the population that uses GLP-1 drugs could reach 40 million people by 2029. Iulia Burmistrova/Getty Images
By chance she came across a friend of an engineer and gave him a demo while traveling through an airport on her return of a developer conference. He asked to connect her with a few investors, including Underwood, the former weak product head product.
Shotssy clicked with the investor for a few reasons. It used in an emerging market that the Swiss bank UBS says it could darken 40 million people by 2029. Shotsy was the first to be on the market with an app consumers, as evidenced by the Reddit love. And it had a founder who solved a problem that she understood from experience.
“She needed it, she built it. It got incredible traction as a side,” said Underwood. “She now has cash in the bank with which she can build a team around her that can expand the possibilities of the app to make it more useful and sticky, to reach more target groups and tackle more needs.”
Beckett said that Shotsy only scratched the surface of the route map of his product, but she did not comment on what that can include. Ashley Mayer, a general partner at coalition operators who led his Shotssy investment, said that the most important thing that Shotsy can do now is a product that users love.
“If you deserve the trust of people and you accompany them on a journey that is life -changing and emotional,” said Mayer, the former communication boss of glossier, “you deserve the right to build different experiences for them or help them in other ways . “