How This Company Uses Astrology to Make Business Decisions

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. Last year, Inc. 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 company. 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. 

“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 open 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 astrology content creator, explains on his series 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 already looking at the planets 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 notes on its website, 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 (or not) on the celestial dance floor 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, as well as writing a book that came out in January 2020, and designing workshops 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 a deadline, an astrologer advised against it, Nicholas explains, citing a period of planetary turmoil in September 2020, which is 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. 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, information, and technology, Nicholas says.

So—kind of the perfect date to launch an astrology app focused on collective healing, one of Nicholas’s core brand messages. 

It proved to be a good choice. 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 leverage this strategy when the astroweather (a term Nicholas often uses to explain astrology) is stormy, too, Mohamed explains. The Chani team might choose to launch content in the app designed for emotional support during 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 invested and uses the charts 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 to astrology to find a good period for a launch, look not just at one particular date but at 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,” Nicholas advises. One 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,” she adds.

Hiring by the stars

As Passi explains, the date that they use for determining the astroweather 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 sixth house—which is the house of employees and employment. 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, says 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 in the app for other business owners someday? Short answer: yes. “We want everyone to be able to do what we’re doing,” Mohamed says.

Those who want to experiment on their own might try something low-stakes, Nicholas suggests. For example, she says, picking a good chart for a meeting might involve looking at the third house of communication or the seventh house of relationships. I’m wondering whether she elected the time for our meeting and interview, 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.