Viktor.comAn AI coworker that actually does the work
Cercle is conquering the loneliness epidemic by bringing back connections with the people that matter most. Check in with yourself and share your mood with your close friends or your entire Cercle. Take the guesswork out of your friendships, know how they're feeling before that phone call or text. Your friends' mood updates live on your home-screen widget, so you know who needs you before they have to ask. Built after watching a series of close friends live and struggle in silence
The Zoomer Hotline
@sheetaverma I think a lot of people want to check in but don't know how. Has there been a feature that's helped start those conversations naturally?
Sheeta, the founding story has a detail the rest of the thread hasn't picked up. Your friend went quiet for ten months because she didn't have it in her to have a conversation. That same person also doesn't have it in her to complete a daily check-in.
Which is why the reciprocal gate is the thing I'd pressure-test. You offered it to Irene as the retention answer and it clearly works for the engaged middle. But it's a lock, and the people it locks out are the tail the app was built for. Three weeks into a bad stretch someone opens Cercle, gets asked to log first, and closes it. Her friends see nothing, and she sees nothing either, on the day it matters most.
I build in a different category, in-the-moment support for parents, where the user is depleted by definition, and the rule I keep coming back to is that any gate in front of the thing that helps gets paid by whoever is worst off. Mutuality is a fair principle when everyone is fine.
Two things I'd want to know. Does lighting the bat signal bypass the gate in both directions, so a low mood logged after a long silence still reaches friends who also haven't logged lately? And do you treat prolonged silence as a signal in itself? In your own story the ten months was the message, but a mood log renders silence as no data.
The Zoomer Hotline
@narek_keshishyan Hi Narek! Users actually showed they were more likely to log a negative mood to their friend on Cercle because they didn't have it in them to have a conversation. The check in takes seconds while a conversation can go from minutes to hours.
Lighting the bat signal notifies all your friends to "check in and see how your friends are doing". This nudges people to see how their friends are doing without telling the explicitly that someone is struggling. If someone doesn't log for more than 3 days, the app checks in and asks them to log.
ClinicFrame
Sheeta, the screen that stopped me was the third check-in step, because Want to Isolate is the hardest state to build for and you already named it.
The preference lives in the log, but the delivery surface may not honor it. A low mood still lands on a home screen widget, and the person seeing it is the same friend from your story who sent countless texts. I build AI for clinicians and the rule there is identical: a stated preference about being contacted only counts if the system downstream enforces it, otherwise it is a note nobody acts on.
Does the widget hold or soften an update when someone picks Want to Isolate, or does the mood go out either way?
The Zoomer Hotline
@clemente_lopez1 great question! The mood goes out anyway so that people are aware that friend needs their space. If someone logs a low mood and says they "need a friend" then a notification will go out to their friends saying "check in on your friends" prompting people to go on the app so they can see that a friend is struggling.
the reciprocal-gate thread above is the real design tension here, but there's a second one on the other side: what happens when someone logs low mood often, not once after ten months of silence, but as their baseline. does the friend group eventually stop reacting the same way to a widget that's been on "struggling" for three weeks straight? the whole point is catching the person who's usually fine and suddenly isn't, but I'd worry the signal gets noisier the more someone actually needs it long-term, not less.
The Zoomer Hotline
@omri_ben_shoham1 There's definitely a difference between each low mood. If the mood tells people they are struggling, the difference is "feeling chatty", "enjoying peace". "want to isolate". This allows people to know what they need and what is happening. The note also allows people to add details so people know what's going on and if it's something they can handle. Currently we are working on this: if the app sees continuous low mood logging, it will offer the user options to feel better along with mental health resources.
This is a considered take on a hard problem. A question about the self side rather than the friend side: does a daily mood check-in change how well people come to understand their own patterns over time, or is the log mainly a signal for others?
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@alieksia Both! You get a private mood view so you can see how you've felt in a month and what your most logged mood is. Your friends cannot see this. You can only see how they're doing once you log in your own mood.
I really like the idea of focusing on close friends instead of trying to build another social network.
I'm curious: after people complete the first few check-ins, do they tend to keep using it consistently, or is building the habit the biggest challenge?
The Zoomer Hotline
@ir3ne People use it consistently because it allows them to see how their friends are doing. In order to see your friend's moods you must log in your own otherwise you can't view it. This brings consistent momentum!
@sheetaverma That makes a lot of sense. Creating a natural reason to come back is usually much stronger than trying to build a habit with notifications alone. Thanks for sharing, and congrats on the launch!
The reciprocal check-in mechanic — you have to log before you can see — is smart because it makes the value exchange explicit and keeps it feeling mutual rather than one-sided. What I'm curious about is the Cercle size itself: is there a cap on how many people can be in one circle, or does it scale to the size of your friend group? That changes whether this works as a tight inner-circle tool or something bigger with looser ties.
The Zoomer Hotline
@leo404 There is no cap :) We are currently working on adding more groups. For now you can share your mood with your "favorited friends" which can be your people of choice, all friends, or just with yourself.