Because we can all relate to this feeling of not knowing what to say and how to carry a conversation
And I was one of these people. But over time I managed to drastically improve my social skills and overcome my social anxiety
I spent all of my middle school and highschool not knowing how to deeply connect with my friends. I would just sit and wonder… how the hell can you form strong friendships
4 years ago, back in highschool, I felt very lonely. I craved human connection that I struggled to get.
I just didn’t know how to connect with people
But I decided that during my time in university, I wanna be the kind of person who can do that. In that journey, I learned so much about what it takes to build real, genuine, long-term connections with people. I can talk about that in another video if you’d like me to.
But a TLDR on how to actually transform yourself and overcome your social anxiety or whatever that’s stopping you from deeply connecting with people
The solution, in very simple terms, is to find the root of the problem. Everyone has their own reasons for not being able to connect with people. You need to first find that thing that’s stopping you then start working on overcoming it. In your pursuit of finding that root problem. You will learn so much about yourself. So not only the journey is rewarding, but also the destination
But I wanted to switch things up during my time in university
Clips of me when I was young
Now, despite overcoming my personal struggles with connecting with people, I realized that there’s an even bigger problem.
People don’t know what to talk about or how to reach a point where the conversation gets deep and personal
insert simpsons meme
Which made me wonder, why are there so many apps that help you meet people (like dating apps which are extremely flawed) but no app that helps you grow your relationships with people?
I found 4 potentially useful kinds of apps that can help with that:
a PRM (Personal Relationship Manager)
like a CRM but not for sales people trying to get you to buy something from them
a todo/task manager app
a notes app like Notion
a conversation topics app
I tried all of them, but unfortunately, none of them are really specialized in solving that problem.
So I started thinking in first principles. I thought to myself, “What makes a good conversation?”
There are several things of course, like listening, being curious, but these are things that technology can’t really help with. But you know what it can do? It can help you ask the right questions at the right time.
Let me mansplain to you why this is the most important aspect of communication
Asking questions is the secret sauce to
getting to really know someone and forming a deeper relationship with them
But it’s also useful in the business context. Like leveraging the Yes Ladder technique, which borrows an idea from social psychology called Foot In The Door.
I’m not gonna go into detail about the power of asking good questions in this video, but a TLDR: Noobs tell (teacher meme), pros ask (alpha male)
And with that, building this app became my top priority for basically all of 2024. I would spend all my free-time on it. And now, after 510 hours of learning and building with react native and dozens of other technologies that I regret using, I am proud to announce that the app is finally out on iOS and android
I decided to build an app that sort of combines all the useful features of these 4 apps into one simple app
You will come to notice that it kinda combines all the ideas of the 4 apps I mentioned and puts it into one simple app built for the sole purpose of helping you have better conversations with people, with now the main feature being the ability to store a question and connect that question to a certain person, a group, or a topic. Here’s an example of how you would use it in your day-to-day
Example usage 1
You’ve got a crush that you’d like to get to know more to see if she’s the right one? Brainstorm questions for her to ask her once you meet up with her
This might offend some of you guys but if you have time to have deep conversations through text, but I might be prioritizing this relationship over your own life
You might say
Then when you’re with them, you go to their page to see the list of questions you have and easily add questions as you go through the conversation. Doesn’t especially useful when she’s explaining something very complex and do not want to interrupt her we also came up with a question you really want to ask. The app makes it so easy for you to add that question to make sure you don’t forget it which helps you continue to focus on what they’re saying
See what I like about Exo is that it’s not needy. it doesn’t bark at you. It’s just a tool that enhances your conversations and relationships with people. It’s still in its early stages, but I’m exploring different pathways that I can take for this app. This is why I need your help to have a better understanding on what the world needs. Here are some ideas that I have that I’d like to get your thoughts on:
Formbricks
So let me know in the comments or our discord community, which of these do you see yourself using the most. Which of them would you pay for? If it actually fulfills the promise of helping you have better conversations