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Astrology—an art, science, or complete pile of baloney, depending on how you feel— is a tradition that goes back some 5,000 years. Proponents believe that the position of the planets influence conditions on earth, and that there’s a right and wrong time for nearly every human activity—including business activities. So naturally, that’s the philosophy that guides nearly all business decisions—from hiring to product launches—at the Chani app. Chani is an astrology app and media company with just over 2 million downloads and an undisclosed number of paid subscribers. Inc., last year, estimated the company’s annual revenue to be around $14 million. Founded by longtime astrological content creator Chani Nicholas and her wife, former Morgan Stanley associate Sonya Passi, the platform provides users with birth chart analysis, as well as insight on dealing with certain astrological events, such as the infamous Saturn Return and the dreaded Mercury Retrograde. Sabra Mohamed, Chani’s director of growth and marketer extraordinaire, wasn’t much of a believer in astrology before working at the astrology app. But when she joined in 2022, she figured, well—as a marketer, you have to be able to sell anything, right? Now, after a few years working at Chani, Mohamed is a believer. Featured Video An Inc.com Featured Presentation “A lot of entrepreneurs will say, it’s hard work, and I was lucky, I was there at the right time,” Mohamed says. “We’re hacking that.” What is electional astrology? Astrology focuses on the idea that the planets’ orbit in relation to each other can provide information about a person, place, or thing, and influence events or conditions on Earth. Here’s one way to think of it: If you check the weather, and you see one day it’s going to be sunny, you wear sunscreen and do a lemonade stand. If the weather forecast is thunderstorms and clouds, you might not launch your lemonade stand that day. Electional astrology, then, is sort of like meteorology. Operating with the belief that certain planetary arrangements create conditions that are favorable or unfavorable for certain activities, one can adjust the timing of those activities to the “weather.” As Chris Brennan, a prominent starwise content creator, explains on his notable The Astrology Podcast, elections began to be used, at least in Western astrology, around the Middle Ages and are almost a natural outgrowth of astrology. If you’re looking at the planets already for good or bad situations, you might also try to plan for more positive or “supportive” astrology for things you want to do. For example, as Chani the company has noted, this method was used to pick the founding date of the city of Bagdad. Brown University’s archeology department archive confirms this. In Greek astrology, this process was known as Katarchic astrology, because Katarchic means “beginning,” Brennan says. That’s how elections work. You pick the date something “starts,” and look how the planets are vibing on the celestial dance floor (or not vibing, as the case may be) in that time period, and that is the “chart” for the particular event or happening. And that’s what they do at Chani: “We elect everything we do at CHANI — yes, every launch, update, and hire. It’s part of our special sauce,” the company wrote in a recent blog post. Using astrology for launches Nicholas began making content in 2010, with a weekly astrological newsletter, then a blog, which evolved into a savvy media empire with hundreds of thousands of followers and other writing projects. For a few years she was the Oprah website’s resident astrologer, wrote a book that came out in January 2020, and designed workshops that were available for purchase, online and in-person. But Passi and Nicholas, who met in 2014 and have been together in life and business since, wanted more—specifically, an app (with paid subscribers). In February 2020, they signed a contract with a developer, and the two entrepreneurs began to hunt for a date to drop Chani the app into the world. Their original launch date was in August 2020, but in addition to being way too ambitious as far as a deadline, Nicholas explains, an astrologer advised against it, citing a period of planetary turmoil in September 2020, when, incidentally, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. The astrologer advised them to look at December 2020. In that month, on the winter solstice, Jupiter and Saturn would be crossing one another, or “conjuncting” in astrological parlance, for an extremely auspicious aspect—the “Great Conjunction,” it was called. This event was going to be visible in the night sky and had been getting a raft of media coverage in the months leading up to December, Nicholas notes. Jupiter represents wealth, and Saturn represents boundaries and discipline, (a good vibe for a slow-and-steady, built-to-last company, they say) and the planets were going to be “conjuncting” at a specific point in Aquarius. Aquarius, as an air sign, has to do with collective energy, communication, intellectual pursuits and information, and technology, Nicholas says. So… kind of the perfect date to launch an astrology app focused on collective healing, one of Nicholas’ core brand messages. It was. They made back the money they had invested, with “just how many people signed up for that one week free trial on the first day and then converted to paid subscribers by the end of that week,” Passi says. They also leverage this strategy when the “astroweather” is stormy, too, Mohamed explains. The Chani team might choose to launch content in the app designed for emotional support during a time like an eclipse, which are considered negative times, astrologically speaking. She cites their “Breakthrough” manifestation course as an example. It allows users to feel like the company is speaking to them at the “perfect” time, she adds. “We’re working with the planets and working with the energy that we’re all feeling,” she says. “We’ve done that in the growth in the marketing of the business, and I’ve seen it consistently land. It’s a bit crazy,” Mohamed says. She’s now fully dived in, and uses it to plan her whole marketing strategy. She’ll have Nicholas look at the company’s astrology chart for the future and start cooking. “I’m like Chani, talk to me, [about] 2026, 2027…” If you’re looking for good astrology for a launch, look not just at the one particular date but for a general period, since you’ll be working before, during, and after that date. “If you pick a good day that is in the middle of a lot of chaos, you have to consider that the chaos will impact every day until you lead up to the rollout.” One good sunny day, amid a storm, might not be helpful, in other words. “When that’s not possible, know that the complicated astrological [weather] will impact the days before and after launch,” Nicholas advises. Hiring As Passi explains, the date that they use for determining the astroweather (a term Nicholas often uses to explain astrology) for a hire is not actually when you post a job or even make the decision. It’s the day the company makes the offer to the person. So, they actually look at the astrology ahead of time, find a good date to make an offer, then work backwards on the hiring process from there, she says. For the more technically inclined, they’ll look for a positively aspected or situated 6th house—which is the house of employees and employment, Passi and Nicholas add. Astrology says that houses delineate sections of the sky relative to earth and each house represents an area of life. The planets’ movement through the houses creates different astrological weather patterns. How they use astrology to hire can also depend on the role, per Nicholas. If the company is hiring for HR, they might look for a hire date with an 11th house, which deals with groups of people and associations, with “good significations.” Positive aspects include trines and sextiles, whereas more “challenging” ones, as Nicholas calls them, can be squares or oppositions. Is there an app for this? Could they make an electional astrology tool for other business owners someday in the app? Short answer: yes. “We want everyone to be able to do what we’re doing,” Mohamed says. For those that want to experiment on their own? You could try something low-stakes. Nicholas mentions picking a good chart for a meeting might involve looking at the third house of communication or the seventh house of relationships. Did she elect the time for our meeting and interview? I wonder, and Passi answers the question before I ask. “We didn’t elect the time for this call,” she laughs. “This was the only 30 minutes I had free today.” So keep that grain of salt handy. Know that no date will be perfect, and don’t get too obsessed with it, Nicholas says. “You can’t sanitize your life of difficulty,” even by using astrology, she says. Sometimes you just have to stand in the rain and hawk your goods.
