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  • I spent all of middle school and high school days not knowing how to deeply connect with anyone, not even my closest friends. It was very isolating. I would just sit and wonder… how the hell can you build strong relationships.
    • So when I went to university, my top priority was to get better at that because I truly believed that bonding and connecting with others is the most important aspect of life

    • In that journey, I learned so much about what it takes to build real, genuine, long-term connections with people. I can talk about everything in another video if you’d like me to.

    • But a quick TLDR, 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. Most of the time, it’s something that revolves around social anxiety, which is what I faced. But you need to dig deep and figure out why you’re facing social anxiety. 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

  • Now, despite overcoming my personal struggles with connecting with people, I realized that there’s an even bigger problem that all of us face, no matter the age.
  • 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 kind of apps that can help with that:
    • a PRM (Personal Relationship Manager)
      • like a CRM but for normal human beings. 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. Every app I could find, but none of them really solved the problem at hand
  • So I started thinking from first principles. I asked myself, “What actually 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
  • It’s the secret sauce to really 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’ll link something below for more info
    • I won’t go too deep into this right now, but TL;DR: Noobs tell (teacher meme), pros ask (alpha male)
  • And with that, I made it my mission in 2024 to build the app that is made to solve that exact problem
  • 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 Exo is finally out on iOS and android
  • 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 this girl that you like that you’d like to get to know more to see if she’s the right one.
  • Since it’s someone you like, you’re probably very curious about them and you think about them every now and then. Instead of just keeping all that information and curiosity in your head. I write these questions down in the app to ask them whenever you meet up or bump into them.

Example usage 2

  • Now let’s jump to that situation where you are with them. You would have their profile open in the app for 2 reasons:
    • to see the list of questions that you have for them and
    • to easily add questions as you go through the conversation.
  • This is especially useful when they’re explaining something very complex and you don’t want to interrupt them when you come up with a question you really want to ask.
  • I made sure the process of doing that is so simple and frictionless so that you can continue to focus on the conversation and what they’re saying.

Example usage 3

  • It is tied to the previous example, but I take it an extra step further.
  • Whenever I have a long interaction with someone I make sure I reflect on that interaction.
    • Usually, I do it right after, like when I’m walking home.
  • I go over how the conversation went, what they said, how they reacted to certain things, how I felt during it. All of that.
  • Because just like when you’re rewatching a movie, you realize things you haven’t noticed in the first watch
  • you can catch all these subtle things — ideas, insights, little personality traits they reveal. And from that you can store them to remember for later and also come up with questions to ask the next next time you meet.
  • I promise you, if you do that, you can never run out of things to talk about.
  • These deep, meaningful conversations carry so much value in them, and unfortunately a lot of us don’t take some to look back and reflect on them
  • Not only do you learn so much about other people in that process, but you also learn more about yourself, your values, your differences, and what kind of person you are in contrast to them.

Outro

  • So this is how I envision Exo can help people. It’s just a tool that makes it easier for people to do the things that improve your ability to bond with people.
  • And this is what I like about Exo, 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:
    • Integrations with other note-taking apps like Notion & Obsidian
    • personalized AI assisted question-asking
      • I got so many ideas in that aspect that I wouldn’t wanna share to the public yet🤐
    • Proximity-based reminders (when you’re close to your friend you have questions for). I spent over 30 hours on trying to get that to work then decided to just implement it if people actually would find it useful
    • Become more of a personal relationship managing app (RPM) where it would be more focused on improving your conversations in real-time
    • One thing I might add is having a note for each person where you can add random thoughts you have mid-conversation or things you’d like to remember about them
  • So let me know in the comments or our discord community, which of these do you see yourself using the most or find the most useful. Which of these would you actually find value in? Which of them would you pay for?
  • Before you click off, make sure you hit the like button so that the algorithm finds the people just like you who actually find value in Exo because It has been a struggle to find these people so liking the video would really help with that. And of course, subscribe and join our Discord community if you’d like to be part of this journey of turning an app I use & love into something other people use & love