Longtime engineer and product designer Michael Sayman has been constructing apps since he was a child, touchdown him roles at Facebook, Google, Roblox and, most just lately, Twitter, the place he’s typically been tasked with creating merchandise aimed toward a teenage viewers. Sayman was solely 17 when he joined Fb, however had already constructed a number of apps — an expertise documented in his e book “App Kid.” Through the years, Sayman contributed to high-profile merchandise like Instagram Tales, WhatsApp Standing, YouTube Shorts and the Roblox Graph, amongst others. Now, Sayman is seeking to leverage his understanding of what customers need from their apps with the launch of his new startup, Friendly Apps.
The startup’s thesis is that his technology, Gen Z, understands that most of the social apps which have been constructed to this point will be poisonous to customers’ well being and might forestall individuals from undertaking their true targets. Pleasant Apps’ mission is to create a set of apps with a distinct set of values which might be focused towards serving to individuals with each their bodily and psychological well being in new methods.
Previous to beginning Pleasant Apps, Sayman was working at Twitter. In actual fact, the founder had just joined Twitter in March, the place he meant to help the social community by constructing out new product experiences for teenagers through its 0–>1 staff.
However after the Elon Musk acquisition deal was introduced, inside product improvement efforts slowed down, he says. That state of affairs gave him a push to lastly get away of Huge Tech to work on his personal factor.
“It takes a billionaire attempting to amass an organization that I labored at for me to lastly go and do that,” Sayman says, with fun.
The thought for Pleasant Apps is one thing he’s had at the back of his thoughts for years as he’s seen how tech firms developed their merchandise.
“Loads of social media merchandise use retention techniques that slowly deteriorate the well-being and psychological well being of their customers due to the way in which they’re designed,” explains Sayman. The businesses inspired the mistaken behaviors from their customers, and have turn out to be well-liked as a result of they’re addictive, he says.
“They’ve techniques to maintain individuals coming in.”
He suggests the issue lies not solely with the product design, but in addition with the inner targets and metrics firms pursue.
“The constructions and the incentives inside quite a lot of these social media firms will not be arrange in a strategy to encourage longer-term considering across the well-being of the person who’s utilizing the product,” Sayman notes. “If any individual is just not doing nicely on the platform…in the event that they’re feeling anxious, depressed or insecure, over time, they’ll cease utilizing the product. They’ll attempt to discover different avenues or different methods of speaking or connecting with the individuals they care about by means of another means,” he says.
Picture Credit: Michael Sayman (opens in a new window)
Sayman desires Pleasant Apps to be totally different. Though the startup will take the learnings from social apps and merchandise he’s helped create for teenagers, its apps received’t be solely aimed toward Gen Z customers.
As for the apps themselves, they haven’t but been created. Regardless of that truth, the startup raised a seed spherical of $3 million in a few week’s time. It appears lots of people have been prepared to wager on Sayman, beginning with Weekend Fund’s Ryan Hoover, founding father of Product Hunt.
“I’ve identified Michael for eight years. It was clear that he would finally begin his personal firm. He has a really uncommon means to deeply intuit human conduct, translate his concepts into clear design and construct rapidly,” says Hoover. “We dedicated to take a position pre-product, pre-deck.”
Sayman does have a number of totally different product concepts, nonetheless. He envisions one app might be centered on serving to individuals obtain their bodily health targets — even when they’re not an everyday gym-goer or runner, or another form of hardcore health advocate.
One other app may assist individuals bear in mind to prioritize their real-world relationships and encourage them to spend time with individuals they care about within the bodily world.
“Everybody’s doing so many issues that we don’t truly find yourself catching up in particular person for some time,” Sayman says.
As time goes by, friendships can deteriorate as individuals know much less and fewer about one another, which may affect psychological well being. At this time’s social apps don’t assist — they solely additional isolate us, he explains. As an alternative, we find yourself experiencing relationships by means of “a bit tiny window of filtered images,” he notes.
“We didn’t evolve to reside that manner — like all of us do proper now,” says Sayman. “So I believe quite a lot of the psychological well being points that we begin seeing, specifically with youthful generations, come because of quite a lot of that isolation and that ‘tiny window’ view of the world.”
The founder additionally plans to carry his worldview as a second-generation Latino immigrant into Pleasant Apps’ product experiences, seeing the potential to assist deal with particular hurdles that new immigrants to the U.S. may have to beat.
Picture Credit: Pleasant Apps
However these types of ideas might or will not be among the many first apps to launch. As an alternative, the startup plans to check a set of merchandise, experiences, options and even varied design parts earlier than bringing something to the general public.
Sayman can construct apps rapidly. However as a sole founder, he’ll nonetheless want a while to get the merchandise off the bottom and examined. He hopes to have one thing launched to the general public in round six months, he says.
Seed buyers in Pleasant Apps embody BoxGroup, Weekend Fund, Shrug Capital, Day One Ventures, Betaworks Ventures, SRB Ventures, 305 Ventures and CoreVentures, plus founders and operators from Snap, TikTok, Instagram, Meta, Google, Tesla, Issues and others.
The corporate additionally desires to incorporate the views of these exterior Silicon Valley, Sayman says.
One angel investor, Hayley Leibson, informed TechCrunch she was “extraordinarily pleased that Michael prioritized bringing onboard womxn angel buyers like myself, and others together with academics, moms, college students and immigrants from numerous backgrounds.”
“The tech trade doesn’t actually collect quite a lot of buyers from locations that aren’t the tech trade,” Sayman factors out. “If we’re desirous about the way to make merchandise that assist individuals’s psychological well being and assist individuals’s bodily well-being…I believe we will have opinions, suggestions and enter straight from individuals who aren’t within the tech world.”
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