Alarmy: You've Been Making an Alarm App for 10 Years? What's Next?

Alarmy's mission and vision (+ a mission skeptic's struggle to define them)

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Are a mission and vision really necessary?

I have a confession to make: back in the early days of starting the company, I was highly skeptical about missions and visions. Maybe I just lacked the experience, but no matter how many articles I read or people I talked to, I just couldn't agree on why a mission and vision were necessary.

A mission and vision for a startup that's frantically trying to find PMF (Product-Market Fit)? They say missions and visions shouldn't change for a long time, but does it even make sense to set them at the very beginning when you know nothing? Is this really suitable for a lean startup? If so, are a mission and vision absolutely necessary? Why do other companies define them?

Many people I talked to said a mission and vision were essential, but it was hard for me to grasp how companies actually used them and what benefits they reaped. I heard answers like "It helps with decision-making" or "It helps motivate everyone," but the more we talked, the more it sounded like abstract nonsense, often devolving into something that felt like a cliché school principal's speech.

The thought constantly circling my mind back then was, "Do we really need a mission? And if we do, what kind of mission and vision should it be?"

Alarmy's Mission

Alarmy started without any defined mission or vision. At first, it was simply a personal side project I built to help myself wake up better, which gradually grew into a business; it wasn't something I started to change the world's mornings from day one.

Most of the early days were spent solving problems for users who struggled to wake up, and we improved the product while riding the high of user feedback like "This app changed my life." Along the way, as revenue grew and the number of users increased, it evolved into a service that impacted a whole lot of people.

As the service grew to a certain size and our growth rate started to plateau, debates flared up about which direction we should take among many options and what features we should develop next. Opinions began to splinter regarding the scope of users we should target and which value-adding features should take priority.

Teammates developed different perspectives on the product's direction, and most importantly, this became a massive roadblock to moving forward in alignment. In the midst of this, the question "What is the essence of our service, and what value should we ultimately deliver?" naturally arose.

Come to think of it, Alarmy started from the question, "How can I wake up more completely?" The better we solved that problem, the more satisfied users became, and the more the company grew. The essence of an alarm wasn't just telling the time; it was making sure people started their day at the exact time they wanted. Ultimately, waking people up completely was the value our app provided and the direction we needed to focus on.

"Wake people up, fully and completely"
(Let's wake people up completely and fully)

Once the mission became clear like this, our product direction sharpened, the essence of the product in each member's mind naturally aligned, and inefficient communication began to drop off. For example, the stopwatch & timer features offered by many other alarm apps were things we didn't add because they simply didn't align with the goal of "waking people up completely."

Through this process, we learned that a mission represents the essence of our product and is exactly what we need to focus on. Ultimately, defining a mission is both the process and the result of a startup—an entity that inherently requires choosing and focusing—defining exactly what it should focus on. And for Alarmy, that is Wake people up, fully and completely.

Alarmy's Vision

If a mission is "What kind of company are we?", a vision is "What do we ultimately want to achieve?" It's a statement describing what Alarmy will ultimately look like in 10 years, playing a crucial role in showing us exactly where we are heading.

Historically, an "alarm" has just been a tool that makes a noise when it's time to wake up. In the past, this was a rooster's crow or a clockwork bell, and recently, an alarm app plays this role. For a very long time, the purpose of an alarm was simply "telling you when to wake up," and the alarm paradigm really hadn't changed much at all.

In fact, until Alarmy came along, the goal of countless alarm apps was nothing more than making a noise at a designated time. Alarmy shattered this paradigm, expanding the alarm's scope of responsibility to "taking responsibility for actually waking you up." So, what paradigm does Alarmy want to change next?

We believed the role of an alarm should go beyond just waking you up; it needs to take responsibility for a successful morning as well. We wanted to shift the meaning so that using Alarmy implies waking up completely and starting the morning successfully, which led us to establish the following vision.

"Make people's morning successful"
(Let's create a successful morning for everyone)

What does a successful morning mean here? It can mean a variety of things depending on the person—sleeping well on time and waking up exactly when you want, waking up feeling refreshed, or starting the day with your desired morning routine.

In the process of achieving this successful morning, the alarm's scope of responsibility naturally shifts. If legacy alarms only focused on the wake-up time, we consider Alarmy's scope to extend from the evening before you sleep, all the way to the morning after you wake up.

We believe this shifted scope of responsibility creates a huge difference from legacy alarms, both from a product and business perspective. Simply put, we are repositioning ourselves from the utility category into the wellness category.

Much like this transition, we hope that 10 years from now, with Alarmy paving the way, the paradigm around using an alarm app will naturally equate to waking up completely and starting the morning successfully.

We believe that redefining the concept of a service like this can naturally change people's behaviors and habits, and ultimately, it allows us to achieve Zero to One.

How Do Our Mission and Vision Impact the World?

Regardless of the country, an alarm is a service with a universal need that everyone requires. Countless people try to wake up at a set time for various reasons—commuting to work, going to school, self-improvement, etc. However, waking up at a designated time every morning isn't easy, and failing to wake up when you want can negatively impact not just your morning condition, but your entire day. This is exactly why getting people to start their morning on time is so important.

Alarmy is striving to make sure you wake up completely at your desired time and start your morning successfully. It might seem trivial, but just changing the way you wake up in the morning can change your day, and as those days add up, it can change a week, a month, and your entire life.

As of May 2020, becoming the first alarm app globally to surpass 1 million reviews while maintaining a high rating of 4.8, and seeing countless sincere pieces of feedback, we genuinely feel that we are slowly making an impact on the world (reference case).

We believe that by granting successful mornings to people all around the world every day, and helping them gradually design the lives they desire, we are making an impact—both big and small—on the world.

Wrapping up

To sum it up, based on the value of waking people up completely, we dream of gifting everyone a successful morning. We went through a ton of trial and error to settle on this seemingly simple mission and vision. Looking back, I realized that for a mission and vision to actually work, what mattered wasn't a flashy, well-packaged sentence, but rather taking the time to deeply reflect and discuss with our members about the true meaning and goal behind the work we do.

Finally, let's think about Alarmy in the context of Amazon's Jeff Bezos, who famously said you should bet on things that will still be valuable 10 years from now.

Amazon's example of betting on values that won't change even after 10 years

Even 10 years from now, people will need to wake up, alarms will be necessary, and people will want to wake up completely at their desired time to have a successful morning.

Starting with Alarmy, we want to redefine the concept of an alarm into 'a wellness service that helps you successfully start your day,' and we dream that 10 years down the line, people will be setting their alarms in anticipation of a successful morning.