Owners
Miami-based startup Friendly Apps was founded in 2022 by product engineer and designer Michael Syman. For several years, Syman was involved in the development of products such as Instagram Stories, WhatsApp Status, YouTube Shorts Roblox and Graph.
The mission of the project is to create a set of applications aimed at preserving the physical and mental health of users. The product has not yet been launched and there is no detailed information about the project on the site. However, one of Syman's ideas is to develop an app to help users achieve their fitness goals. Another app could help people remember to prioritise relationships in the real world and encourage them to spend time with those they care about in the physical world.
History
2022: Raising $3 million in investments
In late May 2022, startup Friendly Apps announced it was raising its first investment. The $3 million funding round was attended by BoxGroup, Weekend Fund, Shrug Capital, Betaworks Ventures, SRB Ventures, 305 Ventures and CoreVentures. The startup also invested the Day One Ventures fund, founded by Maria Drokova, an ex-speaker of the Nashi youth movement, who kissed Vladimir Putin on the cheek in Seliger in 2009.
Friendly Apps founder Michael Syman believes the problem lies not only in the product design, but also in the internal goals and metrics that the companies are pursuing.
 | Many social media products use retention tactics that gradually degrade the well-being and mental health of their users because of the way they are designed, explains Syman. Companies encourage their users' misbehavior, he said, and they have become popular because they are addictive. They have tactics to keep people in. |  |
| | We didn't evolve to live the way we all live now, "says Syman. So I think a lot of the mental health issues that we're starting to see, especially in younger generations, come from isolation and that kind of view of the world through the "little window."[1] | |
Notes
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