How Mindbloom Turned Self-Help into a Game—and Inspired a Wellness Revolution

The untold story of the startup that made personal growth fun before “gamification” was a buzzword.

In 2008, long before wellness apps became a default app store category, a small startup in Seattle was quietly building something radically different. The company was called Mindbloom, and its mission wasn’t just to help people live better lives—it was to make that journey feel like a game worth playing.

Mindbloom’s founders came from worlds where engagement was everything: Chris Hewett, a game designer who understood flow states, and Brent Poole, an early Amazon executive who knew scale. Together, they asked a powerful question: What if personal development could be fun?

The result was Life Game—a digital platform where your life was visualized as a tree. You grew it by completing small, meaningful actions in real life. Meditate? That’s sunlight. Take your partner on a date? That’s water. Check in with your goals? Your tree flourishes.

It was one of the first true examples of gamified wellness, and it worked. Users set over 1.3 million intentions through Life Game’s playful, animated interface. Big players took notice. In 2012, Aetna partnered with Mindbloom, offering the app free to its 36 million members. Life Game wasn’t just engaging—it was clinically effective enough to be used in corporate health plans.

The Blooming Ecosystem

Life Game wasn’t a one-hit wonder. Mindbloom followed up with a suite of apps that turned daily habits into interactive experiences:

“Gamification Done Right”

Mindbloom was featured in VentureBeat, Lifehacker, GeekWire, and highlighted on the Apple App Store. But what made the apps stick wasn’t just their polish—it was how personal they felt. Your “Life Tree” wasn’t generic. Your Bloom slideshows used your photos. Your Proof challenges came from your circle of friends.

The experience wasn’t prescriptive. It was participatory.

As co-founder Chris Hewett put it: “We don’t want to be another thing you have to do. We want to be the best part of your day.”

By 2013, the company had built a devoted user base, formed multiple partnerships with health providers, and proven that people really would build better habits if you made the process playful and rewarding.

The Next Chapter

In 2014, Mindbloom was acquired by Welltok, a fast-growing health optimization platform. The move brought Mindbloom’s behavioral design chops into large-scale wellness initiatives, and the apps were eventually sunset as part of that integration.

But the impact didn’t disappear. Today, when you log a habit in an app and earn a streak badge… when your smartwatch gives you a gentle nudge to breathe… when wellness is more about games than guilt—you’re feeling Mindbloom’s influence.

They were ahead of their time. Maybe too far ahead. But they left behind a blueprint:

Design with joy. Engage with intention. And grow something real.

Bloom let users create “digital inspiration”—personalized slideshows using photos, music, and quotes. It was like carrying a mood board in your pocket.

Juice helped users track energy and uncover the real reason behind burnout. One reviewer wrote: “It’s like having a sleep coach, dietitian, and motivational speaker… all without being annoying.”

Proof introduced social accountability. You’d set a goal (like doing 50 push-ups a day) and prove you did it with a photo or video.

Momentum flipped the gratitude journal concept into a daily balloon ride—literally. Every happy moment you recorded kept your digital hot air balloon afloat.

Each app played with different facets of behavior design. They used visuals, feedback loops, social dynamics, and intrinsic motivation in ways that predated (and in some ways, surpassed) today’s habit trackers.