#6. How Apps Can Change the Habits of People - Yves Benchimol (WeWard)

Yves Benchimol is the CEO and co-founder of WeWard, an app on a mission to make walking a more rewarding part of people’s lives. In this episode, Yves and Tommy discuss the three pillars of motivation that WeWard uses to inspire people to get outside and take a walk: gaming, social, and rewards. You’ll hear the strategies behind their success in helping 20 million users increase their number of steps on average by 25 percent.

WeWard is a free mobile app that converts steps into digital currency, which can be redeemed for offers, coupons, products, or cash. Yves has a master's in engineering and entrepreneurship and lives in New York with his family. 

Questions Yves Answered in this Episode:

• How did you become the CEO and co-founder of WeWard?
• What’s one business you find inspiring?
• Why did you start WeWard?
• How does your app motivate people to walk more?
• Of the three pillars, which impacts your consumers the most?
• Do you have any examples of features that didn’t work that you thought would?
• How did you decide when it was time to expand into other countries? And how did you decide what countries to expand to first?
• Does the U.S. present unique challenges or rewards to WeWard’s expansion?
• What approach did you take to amplify your rewards system, and why was that important for WeWard?
• What’s your favorite walk of the day?

Timestamp:

• 3:06 Yves’s background
• 7:14 WeWard’s origin story & the beauty of walking
• 11:11 The 3 motivational pillars
• 13:38 What motivates people the most?
• 18:58 Deciding when to kill a feature
• 22:35 How we decided to expand to other countries
• 31:05 Amplifying our reward strategy with games
• 36:04 The BEST walk

Mentioned in this Episode:

• Yves Benchimol’s LinkedIn
• WeWard