When life gives you lemons and pep talks: How theatre stars Elise McCann and Lucy Durack amassed 10,000 users for their wellness app Hey Lemonade

A stress management and wellness app created by two stars of Australian theatre has revealed plans are underway to introduce the program into Aussie schools. 

Hey Lemonade provides quick-three-minute evidence-based pep talks delivered by a range of well-known Australians to help people deal with modern-day problems. 

Founded by theatrical stars Elise McCann and Lucy Durack, the wellness app was only launched to the public in November 2022 and has already been downloaded close to 10,000 times. 

Both McCann and Durack spent the first year on their mission to activate people’s optimism while dealing with life’s lemons by developing the content for the app, working with a team of psychologists, writers, and voices, and testing the app to make sure it works — something they say has really paid off as users are seeing amazing health benefits.

The founders then kicked things up a notch by applying to be part of a Kick-Start collaborative research project with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). 

Dealing with life’s lemons

McCann says back in 2020 both she and Durack, like most Australians, had been handed some lemons.

“Life was pretty stressful and we were both looking for additional support for the things that weren’t ‘serious’ serious but were serious to us,” she tells SmartCompany. 

“We turned to meditation and wellness apps but we found them too woo-woo, we weren’t sure if we were ‘doing it right’, we often didn’t respond to the voice and they required large amounts of time we didn’t have. 

“We went for a walk and had a chat: and thought, this is what we need – a quick talk with a friend to quickly nip that stress in the bud, and kick us into action. We tried to find that in app form, but it didn’t exist so we decided to make it ourselves!”

McCann says the response to the app has been incredible.

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“We all need support at times, be it to increase confidence, get motivated or diffuse stress,” she says. 

“Some days you need a psychology session, some days you can take 20 minutes to meditate or go for a run, and other days, (let’s face it, most days) you only have five minutes and really need a quick pep talk. 

“So with Hey Lemonade we are focusing on that situation — and users are really responding to that tailorable, flexible, alternative way to attain support and build resilience.”

Hey Lemonade has now been tested by the CSIRO and findings published show that the pep talks on the app can generate positive health outcomes for the mood, stress, and emotional wellbeing of participants, including a 50% increase in calmness, a significant increase in vitality and a significant decrease in the perception of daily hassles.

McCann says the goal was to provide a stress and motivation management tool to quickly deal with modern problems in a practical, solution-focused way.

“We aim to be as specific to the issue our user is facing, and as pragmatic as possible when providing solutions, so that there is a sense of normalising the challenge and universality of these stresses that we all face,” she explains.  

“We don’t position ourselves as the sole solution to everyone’s problems, we think Hey Lemonade is an important piece of an individual’s mental health tool kit. It is there to help calm you down, shift perspective and help you pull it together so you can keep going with your day.

“There are dozens of meditation apps in the market but the field is crowded and the practice doesn’t work for everyone. In fact, many people are triggered by the words meditation and mindfulness. 

“Motivation apps are a developing category but most are habit trackers or goal setters, they can be confusing, broad, and require lengthy sign-ins. So we are really trying to fill the gap for users looking for pragmatic, efficient, tailorable, relatable, evidence-based support.”

Backed by CSIRO

To scale the Hey Lemonade app, Elise McCann and Lucy Durack successfully applied for the CSIRO Kick-Start program, an initiative for innovative Australian startups and small businesses.

The CSIRO program provides matched funding support and access to its research expertise and capabilities to help grow and develop businesses. 

In 2021, Hey Lemonade began working with an all-women team of scientists and after 12 months developing the study, they commenced the trial in July 2022. 

The study sought to test the benefits of Hey Lemonade pep talks on users’ mood, stress and emotional health, and wellbeing, and quantify whether engagement with the app was effective in providing positive health benefits for individuals in real-world settings.

McCann says the study was a huge success.

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“Despite the hundreds of wellbeing apps on the market, there is very little published evidence to prove that they legitimately generate positive health outcomes for users,” she says.

“We really only wanted to make Hey Lemonade if it was going to be useful! So from day one we focused on research and ensuring we had a really strong evidence base. 

“We utilise techniques from sports and organisational coaching and motivation; we brought on a team of psychologists and solution focussed coaching experts so that everything is really purposeful, and then we thought, let’s take it a step further and put it to the test; so we applied for a CSIRO Kick-Start collaborative research project.

A study like this for a month-long, peer-reviewed project had not been done before, says McCann.

“There is a lot of research into the benefits of pep talks in sports and organisational/ corporate arenas relating to performance and motivation, but there has never been a study into the effects of pep talks on individuals or its impact on everyday stress and motivation.”

“Overall the findings discerned that listening to Hey Lemonade ‘pep talks’, over a four-week period, can improve mood, stress and ability to cope with general life hassles,” she adds. 

“Those using the app over that period reported a 50% increase in feelings of calmness by week four, compared to participants in the control group who went without any intervention over the same period.  

“Additionally the study saw a significant increase in feelings of vitality (aliveness and high positive energy) and a significant decrease in reporting of daily hassles (like managing family, bills, appointments, work, commuting), which is a strong predictor of overall wellbeing and health status in other research. 

“Participants say that the app and talks left them feeling ‘motivated and more positive’, ‘inspired, calm, armed with practical advice to get through tough times’, as well as ‘clear minded and refreshed’.”

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“The results of the trial were published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research in April this year. Having this body of evidence is now our point of difference to many other wellbeing apps available that are more generic in nature.”

Next stop for Hey Lemonade: Schools

McCann confirmed the founders are currently working on a program for schools.

“We know that adolescence is a critical time for delivering prevention and intervention strategies for mental health and wellbeing as health-related behaviours established during this period are often carried into adulthood,” she says. 

“So, Hey Lemonade is working in conjunction with the NSW Department of Education and the NSW Government to trial an innovative incubator program across one school term designed to support our youth – we are calling it Hey Lemonade High. 

“Hey Lemonade High is proudly funded by the NSW Government as part of the NSW Education Department’s Student Wellbeing Innovation Fund. 

“It will trial across year 9 and 10 cohorts in 15 schools throughout the state over the course of Term 4 this year.

“We also have many other exciting plans for content, voices, collaborators, other unique demographics and ways we can find more innovative alternatives to infiltrate existing barriers for help through offering technology-driven, independently accessible, private, bite-sized support.”