Melissa Wood Health
Heady built a custom platform for a trailblazing digital wellness brand, setting them up for a dynamic brand evolution and seamless scaling as they make more mindful living accessible for all.
Project Overview
Departments
Product Strategy
Product Management
Product Design
Software Engineering
platforms
iOS App
Android App
Web
duration
Initial Development:
10 months
Post-Launch Optimization & Updates:
Ongoing
Partner
Partner
Founded by wellness leader Melissa Wood-Tepperberg, Melissa Wood Health (MWH) is a digital wellness platform committed to making mindful living accessible and attainable for all.
A motivational speaker, meditation teacher, certified yoga and pilates instructor, certified health coach, and host of the Move With Heart Podcast, Melissa has built a loyal and diverse community over the years thanks to her unique approach to fitness and mindfulness.
An innate digital entrepreneur, she began filming and sharing her workouts from her living room in 2015 using only an iPhone and a simple tripod. Her practical approach to mindful movement and commitment to helping others better their connection to self resonated far and wide, leading to the launch of the first MWH app in 2019.
As MWH grew its audience, it became clear that the brand had outgrown its streaming platform. Being tethered to a third-party platform meant they lacked the flexibility needed to best cater to their members, limiting their ability to scale. It was time to build their very own platform from the ground up, and to grow the brand in a way that would allow them to give subscribers more of what they loved.
Product Strategy
Problem Statement
As a rapidly growing digital wellness brand, MWH had big ambitions and the loyal fan base to match — but they were being limited by…
Being tethered to a third-party platform they didn’t own
In order to better serve their members and be able to scale, the team needed more control and flexibility.
The brand being synonymous with Melissa herself
With Melissa as the sole content creator, MWH was limited in the amount of content it could produce.
Opportunities 
There were two main opportunities for Heady to support and accelerate MWH’s growth as a digital wellness brand.
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First, we needed to give MWH a brand identity that would allow it to stand on its own alongside Melissa as they added new creators and produced more content to satisfy member demand.
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Second, it was time to build a custom platform that would give the brand ultimate control over their content and support future scaling.
Strategic Challenges
A major point of consideration was providing a seamless user experience for MWH members across web and mobile.
Many members take advantage of the option to stream workouts from the brand’s website, so we needed to ensure the app and web experiences matched and provided an overall seamless experience.
Part of providing a seamless experience meant ensuring the transition to the new platform felt as smooth as possible for members. The new platform needed to have functional parity to MWH’s existing streaming platform while also incorporating the elevated branding and improved user experience.
Stakeholder Interviews
Interviewing MWH stakeholders, including Melissa and the brand marketing team, was an important step in the process of understanding the brand's long-term vision, existing pain points, and success metrics so that we could align development of the products with overall business goals.
Insights gleaned from these interviews included:
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Long-term focus on expanding app features in fitness, nutrition, and meditation
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The need to address user experience issues like time-zone mismatches and site crashes
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Primary success metrics would include user retention and personal success stories
User Research
User research was key to ensuring that the apps and website met the specific needs and preferences of MWH's diverse subscriber base, aligning with the brand's member-centric focus.
Our research aimed to uncover pain points in the existing user experience, explore desired features, and assess how the platform could best serve MWH’s community.
USER RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
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Understand users' needs, pain points, habits, and behaviors
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Identify the optimal way to engage with members
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Gather inspiration for new features
USER RESEARCH PROCESS
We conducted moderated studies with 7 MWH members via UserZoom GO, asking questions about their wellness goals, daily habits, perception of the brand, and experience using the MWH platform.
We transcribed the video recordings and assessed the members’ interactions, assembling detailed user personas.
Then we surveyed our notes and looked for patterns, gathering insights that ultimately helped guide the product roadmap.
Product Management
Collaboration
Frequent and transparent communication is baked into every Heady project, and this one was no different:
We worked closely with the MWH team to ensure that their vision was fully translated and applied throughout the product development process.
Fusing our technical know-how with the MWH team’s content creation expertise created a synergy and allowed us to bridge the gap between our respective knowledge bases, ensuring seamless alignment and mutual understanding throughout every project phase.
Communication Touchpoints
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MWH x Heady Slack channel with Heady product team and all MWH stakeholders
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MWH x Heady x Endeavor Streaming Slack channel with Heady dev and product teams, MWH product team, Endeavor service team
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Endeavor Streaming Slack channel for live event management
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Countless Slack DMs between MWH, Heady, and Endeavor Streaming
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Weekly check-in meeting with MWH and Heady product teams
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Weekly check-in meeting with MWH, Heady, and Endeavor Streaming teams
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MWH x Heady shared Figma file for designs
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Shared Google Drive for documentation and assets
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As-needed design review meetings
Solutions Overview
Constrained by an out-of-the-box solution from their streaming platform, MWH’s user interface faced an absence of distinctive branding elements as well as a lack of advanced features.
To elevate the user experience, together we honed a vision for a newly branded responsive website and custom iOS and Android mobile apps. Key enhancements for this project included:
Migration to a New Platform
Expanding Content Offerings
Adding New Creators
Unifying Around the MWH Brand
Product Roadmapping
With a looming launch date, it was crucial to have a crystal-clear product roadmap for all teams to align around.
A shared roadmap document tracking each feature along with its respective priority and current status ensured both MWH and Heady teams had a mutual understanding of development timelines.
Product Design
Collaboration
Close collaboration with client teams is an essential ingredient in every Heady project, but it was especially important when it came to the design phase for MWH. As the brand experts, their team provided vital insights to shape the look and feel of the products and their features.
Branding 
BRANDING DELIVERABLES
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New color palette
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Typography palette
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Textures
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Icons
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Logo design & usage guidelines
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Graphic asset library
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Proposed applications for print, signage, social media, billboards, ads, apparel, packaging, stationery
Before we could delve into product design, MWH needed fresh branding to support its evolution. We dove into a rigorous discovery process kickstarted with an all-day workshop with the MWH team, focusing on alignment around the brand's voice, purpose, mission, values, and vision.
Drawing inspiration from our workshop insights as well as Melissa's Instagram, shared Pinterest boards, and user personas, we crafted a brand identity that reflects MWH’s heart and resonates deeply with their audience. We emphasized scalability and flexibility in the branding to suit various platforms and functions, rigorously testing it across multiple applications to ensure its versatility.
Design Approach
Systems Thinking
Systems Thinking guided us through every facet of the MWH design process. This approach was reflected in all three primary design components:
#1:WEB
#2:MOBILE APPS (iOS and android)
#3:design systems
By viewing each element through a Systems Thinking lens, we created a unique yet consistent member experience across all platforms. While the core functionalities remained largely similar, we tailored each product to its respective platform by leveraging platform-specific features, like iOS notifications, to enhance user engagement and experience.
We took a holistic view of the entire project, considering not just the individual design elements but how they harmonized within the broader MWH brand identity and subscriber ecosystem. This approach allowed us to balance innovation and familiarity, ensuring that each design element resonated with the brand's evolving identity while staying true to its core values.
Design Process
Mapping user flows was fundamental to the MWH design process. To create an intuitive product with a smooth user experience, we must first map out the path a user will take through a product to complete a particular task (for MWH, this might be searching for a beginner-level, abs-focused workout or viewing the latest recipes).
While the MWH app and website are relatively simple in terms of functionality and features, ensuring these simple features operate smoothly and intuitively was anything but: We mapped out multiple user flows, as well as user journey maps, for both products to create the most intuitive and frictionless experience possible for MWH members.
Design System
Following the launch of MWH’s evolved platform in November 2022, we embarked on a Design System initiative to facilitate streamlined workflows and accelerate new feature adds.
What Is a Design System?
A design system is a dynamic framework that serves as the backbone for design and development of a digital product. It creates a unified language and visual coherence within a product or across multiple products.
Creating a design system for MWH helped us achieve three goals:
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Unification across mobile & web platforms to ensure a cohesive user experience
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Creation of a shared design language and a single source of truth to streamline collaboration for internal and external teams, including devs
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Optimization of workflows by granting the ability to make global design changes almost instantaneously
We Built a Dedicated Design System for MWH 
See the Case Study
Usability Testing
Following the launch of the new MWH platform, we used usability testing to test the efficacy of designs and ensure the best possible user experience for MWH members.
At Heady we rely on usertesting.com, the industry standard for gathering user insights.
MODERATED INTERVIEW
- Explore MWH users' interactions with specific features, content, and overall platform usability.
- Encourage MWH users to share detailed feedback, thoughts, and suggestions during the interview.
UNMODERATED INTERVIEW
- Capture natural user behaviors without direct facilitation, allowing users to navigate the platform independently.
- Collect quantitative data on user interactions and preferences for specific features, and content.
After we conducted interviews, we summarized feedback obtained through observations, participant comments, and post-task interviews, grouping similar feedback to identify any recurring themes or issues.
These insights were then used to shape future feature additions and other post-launch improvements.
Development
Backend & Frontend POV
Frontend
Backend
Technical Challenges
Migrating everything to MWH’s new custom platform presented a major technical challenge.
With more than 100,000 members, it was essential that the mapping and process of moving subscribers over to the new platform was executed correctly.
The previous streaming service did not provide us with a manifest of members who had subscribed on iOS, so we had to build in a way to restore iOS purchases upon a user’s first login into the app. Because there was no way to test this solution ahead of launch, meticulous planning was needed to ensure uninterrupted access for a significant segment of members.
Technologies & Partners
Evaluating and selecting partners was a pivotal component of the MWH project.
We set out to pinpoint the right pieces of technology that would suit MWH’s current needs and also be able to scale with them over time.
This is part of what we call the Heady Difference: We utilize our deep technical knowledge and experience to evaluate a wide range of potential partners and select the ones that position our clients for long-term success, not quick fixes.
selected for MWH:
After evaluating several different video over-the-top (OTT) providers, we determined Endeavor Streaming was the best choice to support MWH’s evolution due to the platform’s reliability and flexibility. While their core business is out-of-the-box solutions, we were instead creating a custom, headless solution using their platform, building a frontend on top of their backend.
Endeavor Streaming Capabilities:
- Hosts and streams all video assets: Endeavor Streaming serves as MWH’s central hub for all video, with the MWH team uploading all video and metadata (tags, graphic assets, descriptions) to the ES backend
- Video & content management: The MWH team can group related videos, tag content for playlists and filtering, and create the weekly schedule in the ES backend
- License and subscription management platform: Integrated with Stripe and Paypal, the platform enables turnkey license creation and payment support
- User management platform: Self-serviceable tools allow platform users to view a member’s subscription status, track their activity on the platform, and grant VIP access as needed
- Promo code creation and management for web users: The team can create discount codes as needed for special events or promotional campaigns
- Business & analytics reporting: Reports can be generated on subscriptions and all user activity on the platform
- Development partner: Endeavor Streaming guides us on the best implementations for our custom front end and can provide new implementations as requested
The content migration was mostly handled by MWH and Endeavor Streaming, but it was up to us to set them up for success: We put the necessary systems and tools in place to facilitate the migration and ensured all teams had the appropriate access to accomplish it.
Contentstack 
Similar to the process of choosing a streaming platform, we evaluated several different platforms based on the MWH team’s requirements and ultimately recommended Contentstack as the best CMS to fit their needs.
As a headless CMS, it would enable the brand to manage existing content and add new content without constantly pushing out new releases.
One of our Engineering leads on the MWH project went on to become Contentstack certified, facilitating a robust implementation that leverages as many of the CMS’s offerings as possible.
Why Contentstack?
- Headless CMS that houses and serves all frontend assets (imagery, copy, iconography) and organizes videos, blogs, and other web pages
- Allows for review of assets and layouts in lower environments before publishing to production; versioning and records what/who/when something was published
- Enables MWH team to independently manage content and control modular web layouts without developer involvement, using the Contentstack interface
- Facilitates continuous development of new features on the platform
Iterable
We identified early on that MWH’s existing solution for subscriber communications eventually wouldn’t be able to scale with the business, so a better solution was needed to integrate with the newly built platform.
MWH wanted to keep things simple and streamlined when it came to onboarding partners, and that’s why Heady recommended Iterable: As an industry-leading, all-in-one customer engagement platform, it was geared to support MWH's long-term plans for personalized, cross-channel communication including crafting email journeys and using in-app messaging and push notifications.
Learn More About How We Put Iterable to Work for MWH See the Case Study
Additional Technologies & Partners
Firebase & Crashlytics
Events and crash tracking
Algolia
Search / filtering on the platform
AMS
Forced updates, CI/CD pipeline, etc.
Pubnub
Live event management
Sentry
Logging system
Branch
Deeplinking
Disqus
Commenting
Solutions & Features
Heady built custom iOS and Android apps and a responsive website that gives MWH members an intuitive, easy-to-navigate central hub for all their wellness needs, from daily streaming workouts and guided meditations to recipes.
The apps and website are supported by a reliable and flexible streaming video service, a migrated billing platform, and a headless content management system that stores all platform assets as well as their newly expanded nutrition and lifestyle content — and it’s all united under one roof to create a streamlined member experience that’s simpler for the MWH team to manage internally.
MWH members can now choose different experiences on web or mobile based on their preferences: Those who want guidance have a dynamic Weekly Schedule that shows them exactly what to do each day based on their ability level, or they can access a personalized recommended playlist based on their watch history. Members looking for more of a choose-your-own-adventure experience can use search filters to pinpoint the exact kind of workout or meditation they want, such as a 20-minute arms-focused workout for beginners with Melissa (or any of the other eight diverse creators of their choice).
The MWH mobile and web experiences are loaded with user-friendly features to optimize the member experience. Here are a handful of our favorites:
3-Level Weekly Schedule
Posted every Sunday, the weekly schedule gives members a day-by-day workout plan for the week ahead customized to their skill level (beginner, intermediate, or challenging). The weekly schedule gives structured guidance to help members feel confident they’re working towards their wellness goals.
Continue Watching + Favorites Playlists
These features provide a seamless and personalized experience for members by allowing them to pick up right where they left off and have their favorite workouts or meditation sessions right at their fingertips.
Creator Profiles & Collections
To support MWH’s expanded content offerings, each Creator has an individualized profile where you can get to know them and access their full range of streaming offerings. Whether it’s Sculpt with Kim or Yoga with Neeti, Collections make it easy for members to find workouts by their favorite creator.
Filtering
With more than 750 videos in the MWH arsenal, robust filters make it simple for members to find exactly what they want. With filters for pre/postnatal friendly, body part focus, level of difficulty, creator, and duration, finding a 10-minute abs video by Melissa is a snap.
Additional Features for
Initial Launch
- Onboarding survey
- Member Testimonials
- Lifestyle blog content
- Live event support
- Nutrition/recipe blog content
- Shop and Gift guide (web only)
- Workout + Meditation collections
- Cross-modality search
(classes and blog posts) - Commenting
- iPad-compatible iOS app
- Registration/subscription flow
- Membership management
- Profile settings
Results & KPIs
MWH has evolved from a single powerhouse influencer to a full-on digital wellness platform with a diverse lineup of creators, offering members more than 750 streaming options for fitness and meditation plus lifestyle and nutrition content.
They now have an owned platform that gives them greater flexibility and ultimate control over their digital future.
The brand’s mission is to help members strengthen their mind and body by consistently committing to wellness, and the new setup greatly enhances their ability to do so while giving members more of what they love.
The brand is also now fully positioned for growth from a tooling perspective, equipped with the partners and technologies necessary to facilitate future growth and enhancements.
Critically, the new evolution of MWH has been almost entirely driven by feedback from the brand’s members, strengthening the community bonds that are at the heart of the brand.
APP STORE REVIEWS
“Easy to use app. Flows are effective and there is a list to choose from. Love it!”
“App works great! No bugs or errors, easy to navigate.”
“Workout app that makes you fall in love with working out!”
Lifecycle Management
MWH’s new custom platform launched in November 2022, but our collaboration was just getting started: Since then we’ve collectively been hard at work on numerous feature additions and enhancements to give members the best experience possible.
FEATURE ADDITIONS SINCE NOV 2022
- Commenting for iOS
- Streamlined, single page sign-up flow
- Nutrition / Lifestyle / Shop redesign
- Chromecasting
- Deeplinking
- Programs by day view
- Weekly Schedule redesign
- Props icons on video detail page
- Customize Featured carousel to support all platform content
- Download to watch later
- Recommended playlist
- Watched state/completed video
checkmark - Design system
- Support for a combined nutrition, meditation, and workout program
The Heady Difference
At Heady, we’re more than just a development team; we're strategic partners deeply invested in your project's success.
Our collaboration with MWH exemplifies this, as we combined their content creation expertise with our technical knowledge and development resources. Standing in as both their de facto CTO and in-house design team, we fostered a relationship based on mutual trust to guide long-term, brand-enhancing decisions.
Many brands may think they can’t do what MWH did without having a full-fledged in-house technical team and CTO, but this project’s outcome is evidence of what can be achieved with the right tech partner. Heady’s involvement in key operational aspects, such as assisting in the recruitment of MWH’s Head of Product and in-house software talent, demonstrates our commitment to integrating with and elevating our clients' capabilities.
At Heady we pride ourselves on being thought partners, not just a dev shop. Our goal is to deeply understand the big picture of our clients’ business challenges in order to deliver custom solutions that not only address their current needs, but position them for long-term success in the digital landscape.
