Unleashing the transformative powers of tech
A new client comes to ASMBL and we evolve together
We love Day One with a new client. There's a palpable rush of exhilaration in the discovery phase as we plunge into their origin story, goals, expectations, and challenges.
The stoke level was already high when we began working with RisexShine, a concept channeling the positive attributes of digital technology into an app that shapes holistic skill sets and promotes improved mental health practices with youth.
To fully understand why we're so excited about working on this project, at this time, let's start with a deeper look at RisexShine. It has the potential to be transformative technology.

RisexShine's Origin Story
Let’s start with a meeting of two successful athletes: The company's co-founder and CEO is Neil Stevenson-Moore, a British Columbia product who played college hockey at Princeton and professionally in the United Kingdom. Through a mutual friend, he connected with Jay DeMerit, a Wisconsin native who played college soccer at the University of Illinois at Chicago and then, rather famously and against long odds, went on to be an MLS All-Star, a member of an English Premier League team and the US Men's National Team that played in the 2010 World Cup. DeMerit's story was chronicled in a 2011 documentary, "Rise & Shine: The Jay DeMerit Story."
Stevenson-Moore has been in the tech industry for more than two decades and was looking for the "next thing" when he and DeMerit met. They discussed the social interactions of young athletes and realized that it was far different today than it was when they were playing, mainly because technology had altered post-game hangouts from chilling at a friend's to heading home and putting on headsets to play video games.
DeMerit, RisexShine's co-founder and Chief Growth Officer, was running camps for underserved communities with high-level mentors. The camps would feature soccer games one day and something like interfacing with the chef of a Michelin-star restaurant, a high-profile DJ, or a business CEO the next.
Then it hit them: What if they leveraged the interconnectivity afforded by technology to gamify mentoring? What if they took elements of video games and social media platforms like TikTok and blended them with parts of MasterClass online classes?
Aware of mounting evidence that social media has detrimental effects on mental health, could they reshape the online experience into something that gives kids a healthier, more engaged way of interacting?
Enter ASMBL
Stevenson-Moore and DeMerit pitched the concept to Electronic Arts, the publicly traded video game behemoth started by former Apple employee Trip Hawkins. Electronic Arts fell in love with the idea: The company is listed as a "Founding Partner" on the RisexShine website.
Buoyed by the Electronic Arts buy-in, Stevenson-Moore reached out to people he’d worked with on previous projects, including Hailey Clark, CEO of ASMBL. Initially, he wanted to "run something by her," but the two quickly realized ASMBL could add value to the project.

The relationship was struck at an important time. Stevenson-Moore and DeMerit were looking to raise additional funding for the project and needed a more polished prototype to woo investors.
What ASMBL delivered did exactly that. With the mobile app prototype ASMBL’s engineering team built giving life and proof of concept, RisexShine was able to secure another $2 million from various investors.
ASMBL was brought on board and tasked to create an app with these components:
- Filled with powerful, polished content.
- Combined elements of social equity with a growth-mindset philosophy.
- Operated on solid technology that could go head-to-head with other popular social media platforms.
“When I started on it, I found it a fantastic way to create a more positive online experience for younger kids," said ASMBL's Ethan Grebmeier, the lead developer on this project.
At the outset, ASMBL deployed a 4-person team on the project, each member keenly aware that RisexShine needed the prototype to be functional and fantastic enough to entice seasoned investors.
"They can learn life skills that are exciting and active and in ways that might get them excited about future career paths. The goal is to disrupt screen time in a useful and mindful way."

Allowing ASMBL to Shine
The RisexShine project allowed us to maximize our core competencies. What sets ASMBL apart from other digital agencies is how we purposefully set out to connect Data Activation, Business Optimization, and Experience Design to unlock the power of technology and create something full of potential.
Among the services we delivered on RisexShine are:
Data Activation
- Data extraction and ingestion
- Experiment design and analysis
- Data enrichment
- Generative AI
Business Optimization
- Business process reengineering
- Sustainability process optimization
- Workflow automation
- Change Management
Experience Design
- Branded storytelling
- Human centered design
- Data visualization
- Creative technologies
As Grebmeier and his team of engineers worked on the beta version of the RisexShine app, ASMBL was moving toward redefining its own guiding principles. As it turns out, there is a considerable overlap between RisexShine's vision and ours.

While it is not a prescription, our engineering teams approach each client and project with these concepts:
Radical Candor
Telling stakeholders what they need to know, including being upfront about truths about costs, risks, and performance limitations, now or at scale.
Harmonized business architecture
Converging agendas of users and stakeholders, using each stakeholder's mental load as our performance measure.
Technology as a craft
We apply solutions that fulfill people's potential, whether through disruptive new options or by streamlining what's worked in the past.
Conscious resourcing
We build to sustain. We assess options with an eye to the impact on people and planet, optimizing for scalability and longevity. These principles overlay perfectly on a project that seeks to leverage technology as an educational tool that promotes problem-solving skills, encourages positive self-growth, and connects the next generation in a way that builds online social equity.
What's next?
The RisexShine app remains in the developmental stage. Currently we are refining a digital design strategy as the founders continue to add to the $2 million raised in the initial round of funding. “There are still additional features that need to be fleshed out,” said Grebmeier, “but the concept and what we’re developing is pretty inspiring.”
ASMBL’s engineers continue to build functionality and features into the app as it moves closer toward public release and attracts additional interest from investors.
RisexShine’s leadership is actively forging new relationships – looking to work with national youth organizations who have millions of members that represent the ideal end users of the app.
At ASMBL, we thrive on extracting motivation from projects like RisexShine – where we’re able to channel the power of technology to liberate humankind’s potential.
We live to create digital solutions that foster deeper connections and enrich lives. We want to build technology that enables people to ascend to their peaks of their potential, and when they get there, we want them to dazzle, shimmer and shine.
One of ASMBL's core beliefs is that tech can improve the world – that's been part of our company's DNA since our founding – and a project like RisexShine not only illustrates the power of that belief, it inspires us.

Transformation is our business. Let’s work together.
To learn more about how we can deliver true transformation for your business, get in touch.