Reconnect. Rebuild. Belong.
Tired of superficial connections? Heyesa helps you find and build genuine community in your favorite local spots and the digital communities that bring people together. Offer your skills, find support, and tackle shared goals together.
Our Mission: Building Real Connections
We want to build community and address social isolation, full stop. We acknowledge yet resist the near inevitability of platform decay by adhering to a set of north star principles around strong, thriving communities that exist for the benefit of people, not businesses or organizations.
We view the current landscape of dating, social media, and app-addiction as a “Tyranny of the Commons” problem that calls for focused, collective action. We view algorithms and AI as tools that must serve human needs and desires, rather than shaping human behavior to serve technological growth, or shareholder value.
We want to see people thriving at their local community center, library, church, social club, “p-patch”, food-forest, or park – in short, all of the shared local spots where we gather - not sitting at home, alone, doom scrolling or swiping for the next superficial connection. We also mourn the decline of for-profit shared spaces where profit-motive is often in conflict with human connection.
We want vibrant communal spaces—both physical and digital—where people can meet, socialize, and organize for common goals.
We are intentionally neutral on the goals of all individuals. Our focus is: Are you engaging in local spots and their associated digital communities, and are you connecting meaningfully with other people?
The Isolation Epidemic
We have ceded our local gathering spots and community hubs to online forums, message boards, social media groups, and matchmaking apps. Despite being more connected, and having more ways to “stay connected” we’ve never felt more isolated. In 2023, more than half of all US adults reported feeling isolated.
of malls may close within 10 years.
Church attendance decline.
of neighborhood bars closed (2004-2014).
The current paradigm doesn’t work. Searching for relationships of convenience doesn’t work. We need to return to solutions that have proven to work: cultivating connections in our local shared spaces. Growing connections slowly, but surely, in the communities we live in.
Our Solution: Inverting the Model
We propose inverting the model of our convenience-oriented culture; our fast-food, DoorDash way of relationships. Welcome to Heyesa.
Instead of seeking an application designed to “meet our needs,” users join to offer their unique services or values. We make the convenience application a facilitator, not the primary coordinator. The coordinator is driven by the physical locations themselves and their digital extensions. This removes the perverse incentive to “keep users engaged on the app.”
- Free-form, untemplated ways to express needs and offers.
- Grouping mechanisms around social needs, unbiased by our own unconscious biases.
- Metrics focused on genuine connection and repeat engagement in local hubs and their associated digital communities.
- AI as a "mutual friend" to make introductions, moderate discussions, and guide conversations.
Our starting metric for launch: how often are users revisiting local hubs with other users? Are they visiting local hubs and engaging in their digital communities in an ongoing fashion? We aim to measure the quality of experience and community health, not just usage.
How Heyesa Works
Here's a simple guide to how Heyesa helps you build genuine local connections:
Talk to us, chat with our AI agent to tell us more about you, what you're going through, how you'd like to be supported, or what you can offer someone else. This helps us understand your unique needs and contributions.
We don't want to keep you on the app; we want you out in the world, active in your local communities. Heyesa uses your real-world location and the places you frequent—like coffee shops, community centers, and parks—to drive connections, not just interactions while you're sitting at home.
Based on the places you frequent, we identify potential connections. Our AI then thoughtfully filters these matches against your earlier conversation to ensure they are symbiotic and aligned with your needs and offerings.
Our AI 'mutual friend' helps kick-off and guide discussions. The ultimate goal is to help you build genuine relationships and get you back into the world, engaging in your communities, and off the app.
What Makes Us Different?
We're not just another social app. Heyesa is built on a foundation of fostering genuine, local community and meaningful interactions.
- Local community hubs and their associated digital spaces are central to our application.
- We cater to users with a vested desire to build community, not to only have their personal desires satisfied.
- Users are grouped by their specific local hubs (like your favorite coffee shop or community center) and the digital communities around them, not just broad geography.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the “mutual friend” that makes introductions and guides conversations.
- AI matches people based on services-needs alignment to foster tangible collaboration.
- AI moderates discussions to ensure respectful dialogue and a safe environment.
- AI guides conversations subtly, without explicitly revealing private needs, fostering natural discovery.
Our Approach to Sustainability
To support our mission of building thriving communities, Heyesa will explore ethical and non-intrusive ways to sustain the platform.
One potential avenue is through AI-recommended advertisement placements. Our AI, acting as a helpful "mutual friend," may occasionally suggest relevant paid products or services that align with user discussions and needs, much like a trusted friend might recommend something useful. We are committed to ensuring that any monetization strategy enhances, rather than detracts from, the core experience of community building and respects user privacy. 74% of shoppers indicate word-of-mouth plays a major factor in their purchasing decisions, and we aim for our AI's suggestions to feel like a natural part of helpful guidance.
Ready to Build Real Connections?
Join Heyesa today and start making a difference in your community. Offer your skills, find support for your needs, and connect with like-minded individuals in your favorite local spots.
Let's make our communities stronger, together.