THE BREAKTHROUGH THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
The Unexpected Path
to a New Creative Medium
In 2017, we were expanding ELM—a digital school for life. Think TED Talks meets MasterClass, but for the inner world.
At the time, there were no elevated, design-forward spaces for content about mental and emotional wellness. And what did exist, felt like very Chicken Soup for the Soul-like.
We built beautiful courses. Thoughtfully produced. Visually stunning. We even designed the tech to support them.
But we saw an opportunity to make behavior change more accessible and integrated into everyday life—so we took it further:
The Experiment:
Around the same time, chatbots were having a moment. Messenger had just opened its API. But most bots were built for one thing: sales.
We saw something else.
What if chat wasn’t about automation—but activation?
What if we used the interactivity of chat to educate? To connect? To tell stories?
So we took a few of our top courses, chopped the videos into bite-sized clips, layered in prompts and questions—and dropped the whole thing into Facebook Messenger.
No new app. No login. And no PDFs.
Just one click—and you're in.
Then we shared it in a few Facebook groups to see what would happen.
Put the Story in Their Hands. Literally.
What happened next surprised us.
With $0 ad spend and no PR, 10,000+ people from around the world joined.
But they didn’t just start.
They stayed. They answered. They came back—again and again.
We thought we were testing a new delivery format.
Instead, we’d stumbled onto something bigger:
A bridge between thought leaders and their audience.
A new way to build trust and connection—at scale.
It was also a signal.
People don’t just want content.
They want connection, reflection, and responsiveness.
Meet People Where They Are—and Make It Interactive
The Breakthrough:
Don’t Send a Message.
Start a Conversation.
Interactivity changed how we thought about content.
When you ask people questions—they answer.
When you follow up with care—they come back.
It was simple: Talk to people like they’re people.
Not as users. Not as leads. But as humans with curiosity, feelings, and agency.
The more we leaned into that truth, the more powerful the outcomes became.
The Limitations Sparked Our Tech
And Our Framework
Building these experiences wasn’t easy. The existing chat tools were built for support teams—not storytellers and marketers.
Clunky logic. Robotic tone. No emotional nuance. And barely any usable data.
But people were paying attention.
Brands and creators saw what we were doing—and wanted in.
We had a waitlist of over 200.
So we built what didn’t exist:
Software to deliver content through 1:1 interactions.
A new method of conversational design.
This was the start of everything that followed.
