A new app called The Way aims to help people explore the deeper aspects of meditation through a single, structured path guided by a certified Zen master. Founded by uncle-nephew duo Henry and Jack Shucman, The Way wants to guide people beyond the modern mindfulness practices offered by popular meditation apps like Headspace and Calm, and towards a deeper understanding of the teachings of millennia-old meditation traditions.
Henry, one of five certified Sanbo Zen masters in the world, had to pivot to teaching meditation online during the COVID-19 pandemic. He was able to create a digital infrastructure for his meditation practice and found that people responded positively to it.
One of his students was Kevin Rose, a technology founder and partner at True Ventures, who came up with the idea to build a meditation app that incorporated Henry's teachings. Henry didn't have any CEO candidates in mind at the time, so the idea was shelved.
Around the same time, Henry quit his job after 10 years in investment banking and consulting and started talking to his nephew Jack about meditation. Jack, who initially thought meditation was a waste of time, began to embrace it and realized it had a positive impact on his life.
“Henry went from being my boring Uncle Henry to being the person I turned to for guidance and advice,” Jack told TechCrunch. “My uncle is not only a meditation teacher, he's actually a Zen master. It was an honor, but at the time I was also looking for the right tool and I was trying different meditation apps but I just couldn't find anything that would help me develop my meditation consistently in the long term.”
Jack increasingly turned to Henry for guidance and wanted to share the clarity and reassurance he found from his uncle with more people.
Image credit: The Way
The two decided to develop the app in 2022, and The Way has now closed a $1.4 million seed round of funding led by Rose and True Ventures, with participation from several angel investors.
The idea behind The Way is to give you the experience of learning with a Zen master every day for a year, as if he were sitting next to you. When you open the app, you'll be greeted by Henry, sitting in his Zen school, giving you an overview of how the teachings work and how they progress. From there, you'll have access to a series of daily guided meditations interspersed with several talks.
Unlike popular meditation apps like Calm and Headspace, The Way focuses on a linear, step-by-step approach when it comes to meditation.
“Our bet in the UX design was to have all the content presented in a linear, step-by-step way, so that the user doesn't have to make a choice,” says Jack. “This was inspired by user research we did at the start of the project, where we spoke to meditators who use different meditation apps. They all reported that to some extent they feel indecisive with the apps they already use. Because all meditation apps on the market use what we call the Netflix model: you open the app and you're presented with thousands of options – different teachers, different courses, different styles – and it can really be overwhelming.”
Image credit: The Way
The Way strips away all of that and guides you step-by-step through a Henry-led curriculum that takes you into the deeper aspects of meditation.
The duo believes that apps like Calm and Headspace are great for introducing people to a basic level of meditation, but that The Way will help people graduate from that introductory level and take the next step to deepen their practice.
“A lot of modern mindfulness is focused on reducing stress and finding a state of calm and balance, which is great, of course, but it's not just about that,” Henry told TechCrunch. “It's like it's about discovering this amazing interconnectedness that we're all involved in. It's about finding that flow state, where time quiets down during meditation, it doesn't feel so effortful, it becomes so easy, it's so fulfilling to just be there. So it's those deeper discoveries that come from the practice that we really wanted to capture in the app.”
The Way offers the first 30 meditation sessions for free. Users who want access to the entire curriculum can subscribe for $9.99 per month or $74.99 per year. People who are interested in the app but can't afford the subscription fee can apply for The Way's scholarship program.
This app is available for iOS and Android.