From Meeno’s Founder: Australia and New Zealand launch + new product features
From Meeno’s Founder: Australia and New Zealand launch + new product features
Jan 24, 2024
Today we’re launching Meeno: Relationship Advice – for friends, family, romance and work in Australia and New Zealand. This follows our Finland launch in December 2023. Turns out, 9 in 10 young adults in AU/NZ use digital tools like Google, Youtube and ChatGPT to navigate relationships [I], so these countries were prime picks for our next launch.
Incredibly, almost half (41%) of AU/NZ men aged 18-34 use ChatGPT for relationship advice [I] . Now available on the App Store, Meeno can provide all these men (and any other iPhone users) with purpose-built, private and non-judgmental advice on interpersonal issues. We said we’d build Meeno with you, so the changes that I’m sharing below are thanks to keen beta testers from across the world and the many hours Finland has spent on our app. Thank you.
NEW: Actionable Advice – instant tips for any situation
When we launched in Finland, we didn’t offer tips and advice. While this was a conscious decision, you told us you wanted Meeno to provide helpful suggestions. Since December, as a direct result of that feedback, we’ve gradually introduced a balanced mix of advice and self-reflection. Meeno members love it. Give it a try!
That said, the app is better the more context you provide, especially if you stick with Meeno for a while. One of our longtime users calls his experience: “see-where-you-are versus see-where-you-were”. So after onboarding, when Meeno asks if you want immediate advice on your most pressing issue, know that the advice will be less generic and more personalized if you reflect a bit first.
NEW: Star Count – track progress, unlock surprises
Starting today, we’ll reward your commitment to nurturing relationships with a new feature called Star Count. For every day that you spend at least 1 minute on Meeno, either chatting or reading, you earn one Meeno Star. As your Star Count increases, you will unlock secret rewards. That’s all I’ll say for now because the rewards are a SURPRISE.
Here’s what inspired Star Count: once beta testers started to feel the benefits of Meeno, we heard about ways they were trying to hack a routine. One Meeno member set a daily calendar reminder. Another user said “It’s almost like a journal or log to see how I was doing. A big issue for me is feeling like I haven’t done enough [to nurture my relationships]. So I’ll look back two weeks ago to where I said the exact same thing, and I’ll be like, well, I’ve actually done a good amount in the last two weeks.” So, we started to think about ways to make it easy and fun to track progress.
If you watch my Finland launch talk, “Will AI Cause or Cure Loneliness”, you’ll hear me describe Meeno as a flight simulator to practice social situations. One reason I love this analogy is that a pilot’s license is subject to continuous flight training, it’s far from a one-and-done business. Nurturing meaningful relationships is the work of a lifetime, and we wanted our progress tracker to reflect that.
NEW: Face ID – lock conversations with Meeno
Privacy is Meeno’s most compelling feature. Whilst our AU/NZ audience rates Meeno highest for its non-judgmental advice, US audiences across every age group (18-60) consider the 24/7 access to private advice most appealing [III].
So to keep your Meeno chats private, we’ve added the ability to lock Meeno at an app level, with Apple’s native Face ID feature. Meeno is much better if you’re comfortable being truly vulnerable, and this security feature means your conversations are safe. You can enable Face ID when you come back for a second session, or in settings.
We also created a fierce-yet-friendly guardian of secrets, the “Chat Cat”, because our team (the Meenions) loves cats and I love speaking French. Voilà.
NEW: Voice Transcription – talk to Meeno, without typing
Typing out long and maybe sensitive stories on a smartphone can get tiring. That’s why we added Voice Transcription [II] (speech-to-text). Personally, I now mostly talk to Meeno while wandering around the house, or leaving my phone on the table. Tap tap, bla bla. I can ramble to my heart’s delight, and Meeno’s advice is way better when I share more context.
I’d love to hear whether you find our voice feature useful, or if you have ideas on how to make it better. Another benefit of using voice is less screen time, so we want to make speech-to-text really awesome for you.
NEW: Personalized Insights – timely push notes with trends and insights
If you opt-in to receive push notes (during onboarding, or enable it later from settings) you’ll receive insights relevant to your profile. These may be thought starters, like “32% of Australian women your age have regular issues with their mother, and only 20% of men. How's your mother bond?"
If you think you’re alone in feeling anxious about (for instance) the weekly team call, these insights can help you to understand, is is normal to feel this way? We’ll start testing once we have enough data to share insights in an anonymized way, and they will only appear as “trend reports” and “fun facts”.
NEW: App Name and Icon
We changed our App Store name from Meeno: Relationship Mentor to Meeno: Relationship Advice. Calling Meeno a 'mentor’ seemed to cause some confusion and led to Meeno being referred to as a companion. Whilst our product is informed by human relationships experts, Meeno is not a fake friend or person. It exists solely to help you nurture close relationships IRL.
We also updated our app icon to be a star instead of a heart. (We kept the ‘thinking heart dots’ because our advice is crafted with love.) Some early users assumed our focus was on dating because of the green heart icon, when Meeno has been designed to help transform all of your close, everyday relationships: friends, family, romance, roommates, colleagues and even bosses. Data backs this up with 2 in 3 Meeno conversations focusing on existing relationships.
That’s all, for now!
I’ll say it again, we’re building Meeno with you. If you have feedback, questions or suggestions please email: hi@meeno.com
Renate & the Meenions
******
I. January 2024 Survey, 500 respondents aged 18-34 in Australia and New Zealand
II. In case you’re wondering, nothing is stored except the text you send to Meeno. Voice data is processed on your device and converted to text that you’re able to edit.
III. January 2024 Survey, 1500 respondents (of which 811 aged 18-34) in the USA
Today we’re launching Meeno: Relationship Advice – for friends, family, romance and work in Australia and New Zealand. This follows our Finland launch in December 2023. Turns out, 9 in 10 young adults in AU/NZ use digital tools like Google, Youtube and ChatGPT to navigate relationships [I], so these countries were prime picks for our next launch.
Incredibly, almost half (41%) of AU/NZ men aged 18-34 use ChatGPT for relationship advice [I] . Now available on the App Store, Meeno can provide all these men (and any other iPhone users) with purpose-built, private and non-judgmental advice on interpersonal issues. We said we’d build Meeno with you, so the changes that I’m sharing below are thanks to keen beta testers from across the world and the many hours Finland has spent on our app. Thank you.
NEW: Actionable Advice – instant tips for any situation
When we launched in Finland, we didn’t offer tips and advice. While this was a conscious decision, you told us you wanted Meeno to provide helpful suggestions. Since December, as a direct result of that feedback, we’ve gradually introduced a balanced mix of advice and self-reflection. Meeno members love it. Give it a try!
That said, the app is better the more context you provide, especially if you stick with Meeno for a while. One of our longtime users calls his experience: “see-where-you-are versus see-where-you-were”. So after onboarding, when Meeno asks if you want immediate advice on your most pressing issue, know that the advice will be less generic and more personalized if you reflect a bit first.
NEW: Star Count – track progress, unlock surprises
Starting today, we’ll reward your commitment to nurturing relationships with a new feature called Star Count. For every day that you spend at least 1 minute on Meeno, either chatting or reading, you earn one Meeno Star. As your Star Count increases, you will unlock secret rewards. That’s all I’ll say for now because the rewards are a SURPRISE.
Here’s what inspired Star Count: once beta testers started to feel the benefits of Meeno, we heard about ways they were trying to hack a routine. One Meeno member set a daily calendar reminder. Another user said “It’s almost like a journal or log to see how I was doing. A big issue for me is feeling like I haven’t done enough [to nurture my relationships]. So I’ll look back two weeks ago to where I said the exact same thing, and I’ll be like, well, I’ve actually done a good amount in the last two weeks.” So, we started to think about ways to make it easy and fun to track progress.
If you watch my Finland launch talk, “Will AI Cause or Cure Loneliness”, you’ll hear me describe Meeno as a flight simulator to practice social situations. One reason I love this analogy is that a pilot’s license is subject to continuous flight training, it’s far from a one-and-done business. Nurturing meaningful relationships is the work of a lifetime, and we wanted our progress tracker to reflect that.
NEW: Face ID – lock conversations with Meeno
Privacy is Meeno’s most compelling feature. Whilst our AU/NZ audience rates Meeno highest for its non-judgmental advice, US audiences across every age group (18-60) consider the 24/7 access to private advice most appealing [III].
So to keep your Meeno chats private, we’ve added the ability to lock Meeno at an app level, with Apple’s native Face ID feature. Meeno is much better if you’re comfortable being truly vulnerable, and this security feature means your conversations are safe. You can enable Face ID when you come back for a second session, or in settings.
We also created a fierce-yet-friendly guardian of secrets, the “Chat Cat”, because our team (the Meenions) loves cats and I love speaking French. Voilà.
NEW: Voice Transcription – talk to Meeno, without typing
Typing out long and maybe sensitive stories on a smartphone can get tiring. That’s why we added Voice Transcription [II] (speech-to-text). Personally, I now mostly talk to Meeno while wandering around the house, or leaving my phone on the table. Tap tap, bla bla. I can ramble to my heart’s delight, and Meeno’s advice is way better when I share more context.
I’d love to hear whether you find our voice feature useful, or if you have ideas on how to make it better. Another benefit of using voice is less screen time, so we want to make speech-to-text really awesome for you.
NEW: Personalized Insights – timely push notes with trends and insights
If you opt-in to receive push notes (during onboarding, or enable it later from settings) you’ll receive insights relevant to your profile. These may be thought starters, like “32% of Australian women your age have regular issues with their mother, and only 20% of men. How's your mother bond?"
If you think you’re alone in feeling anxious about (for instance) the weekly team call, these insights can help you to understand, is is normal to feel this way? We’ll start testing once we have enough data to share insights in an anonymized way, and they will only appear as “trend reports” and “fun facts”.
NEW: App Name and Icon
We changed our App Store name from Meeno: Relationship Mentor to Meeno: Relationship Advice. Calling Meeno a 'mentor’ seemed to cause some confusion and led to Meeno being referred to as a companion. Whilst our product is informed by human relationships experts, Meeno is not a fake friend or person. It exists solely to help you nurture close relationships IRL.
We also updated our app icon to be a star instead of a heart. (We kept the ‘thinking heart dots’ because our advice is crafted with love.) Some early users assumed our focus was on dating because of the green heart icon, when Meeno has been designed to help transform all of your close, everyday relationships: friends, family, romance, roommates, colleagues and even bosses. Data backs this up with 2 in 3 Meeno conversations focusing on existing relationships.
That’s all, for now!
I’ll say it again, we’re building Meeno with you. If you have feedback, questions or suggestions please email: hi@meeno.com
Renate & the Meenions
******
I. January 2024 Survey, 500 respondents aged 18-34 in Australia and New Zealand
II. In case you’re wondering, nothing is stored except the text you send to Meeno. Voice data is processed on your device and converted to text that you’re able to edit.
III. January 2024 Survey, 1500 respondents (of which 811 aged 18-34) in the USA