Live 1:1 Guidance App & Marketplace

Sanctuary

A personalized astrology app that helps users deepen their self-reflection practice while providing access to a network of more than 200 expert advisors for private 1:1 readings.

Sanctuary did for astrology what Headspace did for meditation — transforming it from fringe curiosity into a digital wellness contender with a $1.5M seed round that paved the way for others to follow.

Sanctuary is about more than astrology — it’s about creating a community grounded in connection, self-reflection, and humor, where people feel seen, supported, and part of something bigger.

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I designed the bold brand and intuitive interface that made Sanctuary a viral brand — with App of the Day accolades, $1.5M in seed funding, over 1.5M+ followers, and major press. But the real test was proving it could generate revenue.

This project focuses on validating the paid live-reading model.


Speak to success of Live Reading revenue model specifically.
Designed the bold branding and intuitive interface that helped Sanctuary become Apple’s App of the Day four times, secure $1.5M in VC funding, scale to 1.5M+ organic followers, and land features in The New York Times, Wired, Vogue, and more. Great to build a popular brand, but that means nothing if the business isn’t making money. One of the key tests to prove was our paid live readings model.

THE SOLUTION

Live reading MVP tested in city’s most popular NYC subway lines

We fast-tracked a 1:1 live reading MVP through a one-day hackathon, refining it directly with users in NYC’s busiest subway stations. Leveraging MTA Wi-Fi allowed us to test, learn, and iterate in real-time with our core target audience.

THE CHALLENGE

Popular, but unpaid

Within 4 months, Sanctuary built a highly rated iOS app and a devoted community of over 24K+ organic Instagram followers, but its business model was still untested. We needed to prove users would pay for live, 1:1 astrology readings — the key to our revenue model.

4.7 / 5.0 App Store Rating
2,588 Reviews

24K+ Organic Instagram Followers
Within 4mo of Rebrand

100–2,800+ Avg. Comments
Per Insta Post

Tasks Page Design

Over 50% adoption within 2 months—proving demand for a clearer entry point.

• Modernized Tasks Page in Figma: clear hierarchy, dense info made scannable

• Ensured permission parity and responsiveness (aligned with existing media queries)

• Focused interactions: checkable tasks, accordion tables, and making next steps obvious

Prototype

Fine-tuned a tabbed navigation, created scannable tables that can collapse from view for users to focus, and added kabob interactions to the Publication Tasks list for Managing Editors to clean up all of their projects in one, centralized location.

Positive Feedback
& Future Requests

After launch, we added a banner linking to a Typeform to collect anonymous feedback for future iterations. Responses were overwhelmingly positive—users praised the Tasks page’s clarity, scannability, and helpful look-ahead, with a few suggestions to improve it further.

Post-Launch Results
& Metrics

Within 7 months of launching paid 1:1 live readings, Sanctuary hit a $1M annual revenue run rate, cut conversion time from 41 to 0 days, and reduced labor costs per reading from $19 to $8.

$1M Annual Revenue Rate
Hit within 7 months of launch

41 → 0 Days to Convert
Registration-to-Purchase time cut by 41 days

$19 → $8 Labor Cost per Reading
Operational cost reduced by 58%

It continued momentum with 3 more App of the Day accolades, continued VC funding, over 1.5M+ followers today, and more major press coverage.

Key Learnings
& Next Steps:

First trust, then transaction.
Build connection first, conversion second.
Community first, conversion second.
Community first, commerce second.

This captures what we did with building a brand that people got to engage with before we were generating income.
Trust your team (and the subway Wi-Fi).

1. Build Trusted Brand, Paid Follows: By creating a brand people were excited to be part of, we built trust and community that made paid conversions easy.

2. Tiny-but-mighty teams FTW: Only a united, trusting team would agree to (and pull off) the insanity of live testing a core feature in NYC’s busiest subway stations.

3. Learnings on WiFi, User Confusion, Astrologer Management/Insights into needs – entire team dropping knowledge, me whipping up designs/feedback and talking with Eng if it was easy enough to implement (or a faster way while maintaining quality).

4. Next | Price Experimentation: We explored a variety of promotions, pricing structures, and gated features to see what worked best for our users and the business.

5. Future | Expand Advisor Network & Marketplace: The insights gained from paid readings validated that users wanted to choose their reader and expanded curiosity outside of astrology into realms of tarot, mediums, etc.

Other Projects with this Company:
Onboarding User Flows · Comprehensive Brand Guide · App Styleguide · Interactive Birth Charts · Advisor Marketplace · Custom, Personalized Content/User

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