Alumnus places third at Global Wellness Summit

During his college days, alumnus Mikey Ahdoot had bad habits when he was a USC student; he often went to bed at 4 a.m. and woke up at noon. It was a cyclical routine he couldn’t get out of. But one day, Ahdoot decided to do something about it.

“I knew it was something I wanted to improve on,” Ahdoot said.

He began researching ways to improve his habits, but soon found it was hard to find much of the information he was looking for. However, Ahdoot eventually created a solution to his problem: an app, Every Damn Day, that placed third at the 2017 Global Wellness Summit’s Shark Tank of Wellness competition earlier this month.

Ahdoot heard about the Shark Tank of Wellness through Blackstone LauchPad USC, an entrepreneurship program that helps provide students with the resources to build successful startups. The Shark Tank of Wellness is a unique global challenge giving university students the opportunity to submit innovative, impactful ideas for the wellness industry.

Of the 60 entries submitted, Ahdoot’s app was one of three selected to attend the Global Wellness Summit, an invitation-only international event that brings together leaders and visionaries to positively shape the future of the global wellness economy. The summit was held in Palm Beach, Fla. from Oct. 9 to Oct. 11. This year’s theme was the business of living a life of wellness.

Ahdoot graduated from the USC Marshall School of Business in 2014 and started his work in 2016 when he created a service that matched people with similar goals together as “accountability partners.” He then built the Every Damn Day app, a habit tracker and accountability resource.

Due to the high cost of building the app, Ahdoot and his partners now offer a physical journal, the Morning Sidekick, through their company. The Morning Sidekick journal has the same functions as the app, but in a paper format. It claims to help users become laser-focused on morning productivity and happiness in just three minutes every day, and even promises to heavily impact their lives.

“Habit-building is such an effective way to increase the quality of our lives,” Ahdoot said. “We build the journals to be straightforward, simple systems for doing this.”

According to the Habit Nest website, the company’s goal is to provide users with the information, motivation and accountability they need to enact changes through simple solutions they can implement immediately.

Professor Paul Orlando accompanied Ahdoot to the Global Wellness Summit, and the two met through the incubator Orlando runs at USC.

“[Ahdoot] is incredibly passionate about his work, seeks out ways to help other people and [is] a tireless founder,” Orlando said in an email to the Daily Trojan. “He’ll find a way to get things done.”  

On the last day of the summit, Ahdoot had the opportunity to pitch his startup to a panel of judges who considered project innovation, visual appeal and design, relevance to wellness, business viability and quality of project presentation. Ahdoot was named second runner-up and received a monetary award.

Although the Every Damn Day app has not been released to the public, the Morning Sidekick journal is available online. Ahdoot and his partners plan to release a series of journals in the coming months.

“[Ahdoot] believes in reaching people in the most effective way rather than following the herd,” Orlando said. “As a result, when he found better results from his print products he doubled down there. He’ll return to the app in the future.”