I want to take you on a journey—one that shows you exactly why I started this app. So, settle in and let me paint a picture.
At one point, I was living the dream. My invention, an LED bottle sticker, was flying off the shelves all over the world. I had big names like Lolë and Fiji Water clamoring for my product, and I was also supplying nightclubs in Vegas, Monaco, Italy, Montreal, and New York. Everything was falling into place. My relationship of seven years was thriving, and I was getting ready to propose to what I thought was the love of my life. Life felt like it was straight out of a movie.
But then, in the blink of an eye, everything came crashing down. It all started with a lawsuit—a patent infringement claim on a product I had created years ago in my basement when I was just 17. It felt like someone had pulled the rug out from under me. After sitting down with my lawyer, they told me I had a 99% chance of winning my case. But then came the dreaded question: “How much is your budget?” I had money, but not “lawsuit-winning” money. My lawyer closed all my files and looked me straight in the eye: “You’re young, you’re smart, find your next idea. You won’t win this.”
If that wasn't enough, my relationship ended, and I plummeted into a deep depression, masking my pain with humor while battling suicidal thoughts each night.
That was it: I'm a Failure!
On the outside, I tried to mask my pain with humor, cracking jokes as if nothing was wrong. But every night, as I lay in bed, the darkness would creep in, and I’d be overwhelmed by suicidal thoughts, feeling like there was no way out. I was drinking a lot, smoking pot, eating junk food—I couldn’t care less about taking care of myself. I felt completely broken, and this went on for over a year.
For that entire year, I was stuck in a relentless loop of negative thoughts, with self-doubt gnawing at me constantly. It was like being trapped in a black hole, where no light could reach me, and I couldn’t see any way forward. My relationship turned to shit, my business went to shit, and I was utterly discouraged. I felt like a failure. I was sure I couldn’t start anything else—I didn’t have the energy. I had put four years of hard work into my business without paying myself, reinvesting everything I had, only to end up with nothing.
Then, one evening, I found myself on the couch watching TV. I was munching on chips, watching Friends—my go-to comfort show—and there was Chandler Bing, trying to quit smoking by listening to positive affirmations. I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it, but something about it struck a chord. I thought, “What if I tried that? What do I have to lose?”
That night, I grabbed a pen and a notepad, and I wrote down all the things I still dreamed of doing—traveling the world, running a successful online business, living without fear. The next day, I went to the dollar store and bought big cardboard sheets to write my quotes on, so I could see them all the time. I even bought fake movie money and put it all around me to make myself feel like I had it all already. I took a deep breath, recorded 20 affirmations, and started listening to them on repeat. At first, it felt ridiculous, like I was trying to convince myself of something that wasn’t true. But I kept at it, because deep down, I knew I needed to change something.
Slowly but surely, things began to shift. Within weeks, I noticed a subtle change in my mindset. The darkness that had consumed me started to lift, and for the first time in a long time, I could see a glimmer of hope. I began to believe that maybe, just maybe, things could get better. I had energy.
I can do it!
Fueled by this newfound positivity, I threw myself into a new venture. I created Booster, a digital product designed to boost sales for online marketers. To fund my product development, I took a job as a door-to-door salesman selling telecommunications services during the summer. Every paycheck I got was reinvested into developing Booster.
On November 3, 2015, I finally launched Booster with no money left in my pocket. I was $7,000 in debt on my credit card, and I had no cash left. But I convinced two people to buy my product for $99 each—a guy named Yan Blais and another customer. Both contacted me the same day, asking for refunds. “Your product is shit,” they told me. “I just lost sales because of you.” I refunded the first guy, but I convinced Yan Blais to give me a week to solve all the problems with my product.
This chapter should be called: The moment I realized how powerful this is!
I knew I couldn’t fix all the bugs on Booster by myself—I needed a team. I asked for quotes from a ton of agencies to solve all the issues within that week. The prices were sky-high: $8,500, $9,000, $12,000, and timelines of two to three weeks. But I didn’t have that time—I had only until Friday to deliver the product to Yan Blais. Then, I found a team from India who seemed super confident they could fix everything. They had a clear plan and promised a one-week turnaround. The cost? $4,000.
I looked at my finances: $7,000 in debt, no money left. I thought, “This is it. I failed again. I can’t spend $4,000 to satisfy one customer who paid me $99.” But for the first time, another thought entered my mind: “You can do this! Fuck it, let’s do it.”
I borrowed the $4,000 from my bank and hired the agency to fix all the bugs. On Friday, I received the file back and sent it straight to Yan Blais without even looking at it.
For the whole weekend, I kept my phone off—I was so stressed. But on Sunday, I couldn’t take it anymore. My heart was pounding as I turned my phone back on. And then, I heard it: the “Cha-ching” sound of online sales notifications exploding on my phone.
$Cha-ching$. $Cha-ching$. $Cha-ching$. $Cha-ching$. It kept going.
I opened my dashboard and saw $10,000 in sales in one day. Yan Blais had tripled his sales with my product and had shared his success with a community of 42,000 online sellers. People were buying my product like crazy.
For six years, Booster was my lifeline. It allowed me to travel the world, working from my laptop while exploring new places and meeting incredible people. But no matter where I went, one thing remained constant: I realized that everyone, no matter who they were or where they came from, battled with that same inner critic, that nagging negative voice...
Since then, I immersed myself in positive affirmations, and they became the foundation for realizing dreams I once thought were out of reach. But here’s the thing—it wasn’t the first discouraging thought that was replaced. It was the second one, the thought that came right after, that truly held the power. Negative thoughts still come up for me, just like they do for everyone. The difference now is that when they appear, they aren’t the final word. They're powerless. Instead, they’re quickly countered by something new: “I can’t do this…” almost immediately becomes, “Why wouldn’t you? Of course, you can.” And that’s the real magic of Innertune—empowering that new, uplifting thought to emerge every time negativity tries to take hold.
No one stays positive 100% of the time. Life has its ups and downs—sometimes it rains, sometimes it shines. But what’s crucial is to keep moving forward, no matter the weather. Affirmations have helped me reprogram my mind to generate those new, positive thoughts in the face of negativity. It’s not about perfection—nothing ever is—but rather about finding the imperfectly perfect balance in life.
At some point, I grew tired of using the same background beats with my affirmations and manually editing audio files on my computer. It was tedious, and any time something didn’t feel right, I had to redo the entire process from scratch. A friend suggested trying YouTube positive affirmations, so I gave it a shot. That’s when I hit a wall of frustration. I couldn’t preview the affirmations, and about 15 minutes into one audio, I heard, “I prioritize my business over my family and friends.” I was like, whoa, wait a minute—I don’t want to be that guy at all! I often ended up with messages that didn’t resonate—or worse, ones that were downright negative.
It was frustrating hearing phrases like “I don’t do this” or “I don’t do that.” Who listens to that? Whatever someone tells me not to do, it just makes me want to do it more. It felt like more harm than good. And then I saw these affirmations had millions of views. People were listening to “I don’t,” “I never,” and “I can’t” affirmations. Are they nuts?
Why isn’t there a ‘Spotify’ for positive affirmations? I just wanted to create my own playlist, choose my beat, and record my own affirmations without the headache.
That’s when it hit me—Innertune. “Tune” like melody, “tune” like adjust, “Inner” like inner self.
That realization changed everything. With no experience in the app market at all, I decided to go all-in. I sold my previous business, Booster, and invested everything—my savings, my gains, and my passion—into creating Innertune. It was a huge leap of faith. Justin, my business partner, and I kept repeating, “Burn the boats! Let’s do it.”
Our platform is designed to harness the power of positive affirmations to help you master your thoughts. With Innertune, you can build personalized playlists, choosing affirmations and beats that truly resonate with you, ensuring every session is perfectly tuned to your unique vibe.
All along, I wanted to make a difference, but I didn’t know where to start. The answer was right there, woven into my daily practice of positive affirmations. Too many people don’t believe in themselves or the limitless possibilities life offers. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that what we think, we become. And I’ve never seen anything more powerful for changing our thoughts than listening to positive affirmations. Repetition is key—it’s how our minds start to believe and embrace these truths.
Today, we’ve grown to over 500,000 members, with tens of thousands of reviews from people whose lives have been transformed by Innertune. Join us on this journey. Together, we can make a real difference.
Cheers, love y’all 💛
Marc Oliver
Founder of Innertune