Meeno and the Fight to End Loneliness.
Meeno and the Fight to End Loneliness.
Message from the Founder
Sep 26, 2023
Hello! My name is Renate and I’m the founder of Meeno*, a relationship mentoring app. While we just announced our funding from Sequoia, AI Fund and NEA, I wanted to share more about this journey, our mission and product.
Introducing Meeno
Meeno (pronounced ‘me-know’) is a relationship mentoring app for all the relationships in your life, from friends to family, from romance to work.
The U.S. Surgeon General has declared loneliness an urgent public health issue with approximately half of U.S. adults experiencing loneliness. The highest rates are among young adults, which is why our app is primarily designed for people aged 18-30, though I believe people of all ages will find it beneficial. Our mission is to help one billion people master the skill of social connection.
As of today, anyone in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Netherlands can pre-order Meeno in the App Store and will receive a notification when the app launches. We’ve decided to offer 12 months of Meeno Premium as a gift, which you can claim if you sign up by January 31, 2024. Meeno is subscription-based because we have committed to never use your data to sell you ads (if you look at my LinkedIn, I have declined to work on ad-focused companies my entire career).
The Meeno Journey
The loneliness crisis is bigger, and more urgent, than anything I’ve worked on before. During my time at Tinder, I saw first-hand how the pandemic threw gasoline onto the fire, with Gen Z really feeling the burn. I learned that 4 in 5 US people aged 18-25 are lonely. I spoke to young adults that were dreaming of a romantic soulmate, because “maybe then it won’t matter that I have no close friends.”
Despite many honest attempts, I did not see an obvious tech-based solution for a problem of this nature and at this scale. That is until Andrew Ng called me in October 2022, and persuaded me that large language models (LLMs) might be the enabler I had been searching for.
AI works with something called training data. LLMs like OpenAI are trained on public data, but there’s a problem when it comes to using LLMs for relationship advice: People don’t tend to publish intimate emails or text exchanges with loved ones, nor their therapy/coaching conversations. To solve this data problem, we have been working with relationship experts and clinicians since January, to build on top of public LLMs.
How Meeno Works
Meeno is your personal mentor. Not a virtual girlfriend, boyfriend, clinical therapist, or coach. A mentor to help you be your best self; like Remy from Disney's Ratatouille. Except instead of helping you cook, we are helping you learn about relationships. You’ll already find Meeno different from public LLMs. Meeno makes space for you to be heard, to be seen, and to feel secure sharing what's really going on in your life. As more people use the app, Meeno will improve its relationship mentoring.
This is why we ask for your age and ethnicity, so we can ensure our service is equitable and works well for everyone. Meeno offers time-limited missions around important relationship moments: from breakups, to dating, and making friends. Plus, it’s fun! We’ve included delightful animations, music, gifs and memes.
The “Why” Behind our Approach
Let me address the elephant in the room: Are you trying to cure lung cancer with cigarettes? Isn’t technology the problem in the first place? If this sounds flippant, the comparison is apt, with loneliness considered to be the physical health equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes per day.
It’s tempting to say, “young people should flush their phones down the toilet and hit the park.” However, in speaking with experts like Megan Jones Bell (Clinical Director of Mental Health at Google, Meeno investor) and Kristen Berman (Irrational Labs, behavioral scientist) we know that: if you want to shift people towards healthy habits, you need to meet people where they are. Where are young people? Nine in ten young people have an iPhone, and many of them prefer to start with tech to solve problems.**
That’s not to say this isn’t a tension we have to balance. I have been very careful in selecting a team and investors who share core values. Every single person involved feels a strong personal connection to our mission, in addition to relevant expertise. Meeno’s team has experience in digital education, relationships, mental health, entertainment and of course AI/ML, gained at companies including Apple, Tinder, Headspace, Duolingo, Uber, Mya and Instagram. (P.S. – we are hiring!!)
Team preparing to onboard our first test users
When thinking of what to call the company, we named it Meeno because when it comes to relationships, it’s all about what you feel is true. Meeno refers to Meno’s Paradox, an essay by Plato that examines how knowledge is obtained. It asks: how can we know if something is true, if we never experienced it? We may ask our friends to show us the truth, but they may be wrong, or unintentionally mislead us. The book concludes that one way to overcome this paradox is by thinking hard about truths in our lives. From my years at Tinder and Headspace, I’ve learned how hard it is to codify emotions and relationships, and how subjective knowledge in this space is. We are not pretending to offer you a perfect guide to relationships.
Let’s go, Meeno!
Following almost a year of research and development, I wholeheartedly believe that thoughtfully designed AI technology can be part of the loneliness cure. I’m not the only one. I saw glimmers of hope in the response to early prototypes, and customer surveys (see graph). Andrew Ng joined our board. An incredible team joined Meeno. Roelof Botha, managing partner of Sequoia who led the firm’s investments in Instagram and YouTube, led our Seed. Dozens of young adults are working with us, testing, tinkering. We all see something.
That said: this mission is going to be insanely hard. It will take a village. I hope this blog post gives you a better sense of our ethos and has inspired you to try Meeno when it's still in its infancy. It took Greta Thunberg to raise the climate crisis to red alert. We hope YOU will be part of a new movement, to fight loneliness and foster close social connection. In real life.
Renate Nyborg
Founder & CEO
Meeno
* We were called Amorai for a bit. We are now 100% Meeno (meeno.com).
** This is one reason we are focused on iOS, for now. Apple’s tools around privacy is another.
Hello! My name is Renate and I’m the founder of Meeno*, a relationship mentoring app. While we just announced our funding from Sequoia, AI Fund and NEA, I wanted to share more about this journey, our mission and product.
Introducing Meeno
Meeno (pronounced ‘me-know’) is a relationship mentoring app for all the relationships in your life, from friends to family, from romance to work.
The U.S. Surgeon General has declared loneliness an urgent public health issue with approximately half of U.S. adults experiencing loneliness. The highest rates are among young adults, which is why our app is primarily designed for people aged 18-30, though I believe people of all ages will find it beneficial. Our mission is to help one billion people master the skill of social connection.
As of today, anyone in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Netherlands can pre-order Meeno in the App Store and will receive a notification when the app launches. We’ve decided to offer 12 months of Meeno Premium as a gift, which you can claim if you sign up by January 31, 2024. Meeno is subscription-based because we have committed to never use your data to sell you ads (if you look at my LinkedIn, I have declined to work on ad-focused companies my entire career).
The Meeno Journey
The loneliness crisis is bigger, and more urgent, than anything I’ve worked on before. During my time at Tinder, I saw first-hand how the pandemic threw gasoline onto the fire, with Gen Z really feeling the burn. I learned that 4 in 5 US people aged 18-25 are lonely. I spoke to young adults that were dreaming of a romantic soulmate, because “maybe then it won’t matter that I have no close friends.”
Despite many honest attempts, I did not see an obvious tech-based solution for a problem of this nature and at this scale. That is until Andrew Ng called me in October 2022, and persuaded me that large language models (LLMs) might be the enabler I had been searching for.
AI works with something called training data. LLMs like OpenAI are trained on public data, but there’s a problem when it comes to using LLMs for relationship advice: People don’t tend to publish intimate emails or text exchanges with loved ones, nor their therapy/coaching conversations. To solve this data problem, we have been working with relationship experts and clinicians since January, to build on top of public LLMs.
How Meeno Works
Meeno is your personal mentor. Not a virtual girlfriend, boyfriend, clinical therapist, or coach. A mentor to help you be your best self; like Remy from Disney's Ratatouille. Except instead of helping you cook, we are helping you learn about relationships. You’ll already find Meeno different from public LLMs. Meeno makes space for you to be heard, to be seen, and to feel secure sharing what's really going on in your life. As more people use the app, Meeno will improve its relationship mentoring.
This is why we ask for your age and ethnicity, so we can ensure our service is equitable and works well for everyone. Meeno offers time-limited missions around important relationship moments: from breakups, to dating, and making friends. Plus, it’s fun! We’ve included delightful animations, music, gifs and memes.
The “Why” Behind our Approach
Let me address the elephant in the room: Are you trying to cure lung cancer with cigarettes? Isn’t technology the problem in the first place? If this sounds flippant, the comparison is apt, with loneliness considered to be the physical health equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes per day.
It’s tempting to say, “young people should flush their phones down the toilet and hit the park.” However, in speaking with experts like Megan Jones Bell (Clinical Director of Mental Health at Google, Meeno investor) and Kristen Berman (Irrational Labs, behavioral scientist) we know that: if you want to shift people towards healthy habits, you need to meet people where they are. Where are young people? Nine in ten young people have an iPhone, and many of them prefer to start with tech to solve problems.**
That’s not to say this isn’t a tension we have to balance. I have been very careful in selecting a team and investors who share core values. Every single person involved feels a strong personal connection to our mission, in addition to relevant expertise. Meeno’s team has experience in digital education, relationships, mental health, entertainment and of course AI/ML, gained at companies including Apple, Tinder, Headspace, Duolingo, Uber, Mya and Instagram. (P.S. – we are hiring!!)
Team preparing to onboard our first test users
When thinking of what to call the company, we named it Meeno because when it comes to relationships, it’s all about what you feel is true. Meeno refers to Meno’s Paradox, an essay by Plato that examines how knowledge is obtained. It asks: how can we know if something is true, if we never experienced it? We may ask our friends to show us the truth, but they may be wrong, or unintentionally mislead us. The book concludes that one way to overcome this paradox is by thinking hard about truths in our lives. From my years at Tinder and Headspace, I’ve learned how hard it is to codify emotions and relationships, and how subjective knowledge in this space is. We are not pretending to offer you a perfect guide to relationships.
Let’s go, Meeno!
Following almost a year of research and development, I wholeheartedly believe that thoughtfully designed AI technology can be part of the loneliness cure. I’m not the only one. I saw glimmers of hope in the response to early prototypes, and customer surveys (see graph). Andrew Ng joined our board. An incredible team joined Meeno. Roelof Botha, managing partner of Sequoia who led the firm’s investments in Instagram and YouTube, led our Seed. Dozens of young adults are working with us, testing, tinkering. We all see something.
That said: this mission is going to be insanely hard. It will take a village. I hope this blog post gives you a better sense of our ethos and has inspired you to try Meeno when it's still in its infancy. It took Greta Thunberg to raise the climate crisis to red alert. We hope YOU will be part of a new movement, to fight loneliness and foster close social connection. In real life.
Renate Nyborg
Founder & CEO
Meeno
* We were called Amorai for a bit. We are now 100% Meeno (meeno.com).
** This is one reason we are focused on iOS, for now. Apple’s tools around privacy is another.