Maya Watson and Lexi Nisita, cofounders of a brand new social app known as why?!, met after they each labored at Netflix. They’d a kind of pleasant co-worker relationships, the place they laughed, and simply vibed.
They have been on the streaming big’s model and editorial groups and located that their abilities complemented one another. “We’re additionally each from Minnesota,” Watson stated. “We simply go collectively.”
The duo moved on to Clubhouse the place Watson was worker quantity 13 and Nisita was worker quantity 20. There in addition they constructed out the social platform’s editorial and model groups, however greater than a 12 months into the job, they left to change into co-founders.
“The office simply began to really feel extra uninteresting, empty, and fewer fulfilling,” Watson stated. They needed to repair that.
The result’s why?!, a brand new dialog app that’s half messaging app, half networking app, and half relationship app. The founders introduced on Wednesday that they’ve raised $1.65 million in a pre-seed spherical, led by Charles Hudson, managing accomplice and founding father of Precursor Ventures.
The app comes within the midst of what specialists are calling America’s “loneliness epidemic,” during which folks have come to really feel extra remoted and disconnected from the folks round them.
Why?! seeks to assist folks join.
“We’ve interviewed and labored with some therapists and psychologists that helped us perceive a number of the key elements of closeness,” Watson stated, saying that folks wish to be in reciprocal, deep, and reliable relationships.
There are already so many social media apps in the marketplace, however why?! hopes to face out from the pack with its “simplicity and its intimacy.” It’s at the moment in non-public beta mode with plans to formally launch within the fall. It options query card video games that may be performed by customers in non-public chats; a each day query on the prime of the house feed; a Facetime-like characteristic for folks to talk; and a weekly immediate that asks folks what they’re at the moment as much as.
The title concept got here from the app’s head of engineering. “We have been in search of one thing that felt like an open-ended query,” Nisita stated. “The most typical and profound query you’ll be able to ask anybody is … why? After which ask it once more, and once more.”
Watson additionally stated the fundraising course of was “oddly pleasant” with no horror tales. ”Our cap desk is wonderful,” Watson stated. “As ladies and a founding father of coloration, we really feel tremendous lucky and privileged that we have been in a position to entice buyers that we like, we belief, we really feel secure with, who every deliver distinctive knowledge and perspective.”
She stated at this stage, buyers are betting on her and Nisita as founders. They’d considerably of a rolling pre-seed spherical and began gathering capital formally final summer time. They met Hudson, the investor who led the spherical, by way of a buddy who’s in Hudson’s portfolio. Barclays Black Basis managed by Zeal Capital Companions, Virginie Raphael from FullCircle, and Mohammad Almalkwai, the CTO of Clubhouse, additionally participated within the spherical.
Being a founder is a good distance from the company cushion of a 9-5. Watson known as it an journey, “the last word quest and expedition.” For them, working at Clubhouse was like getting a PhD in startups, they stated.
“There was a lot consideration and competitors on the time that a number of the most necessary classes we discovered was to tune out the noise, reduce exterior distractions, maintain your head down and focus in your customers and your mission,” Watson stated, including that Netflix taught them the significance of making an excellent working setting. “Usually startups don’t take into consideration tradition this early, however due to our time there, we prioritize it now. We wish to construct the correct situations for achievement.”
Proper now, there are 4 full-time folks on the firm and they’re hoping to rent extra engineering assist because the app formally launches and grows its consumer base.
