Getting started guide for Joinable supporters

We’re grateful for your interest in Joinable and our mission to bring people together to build local community. Loneliness and isolation has become a national crisis, and the antidote is clear — spend time with people in person, especially friends.

Joinable is a social network (not to be confused with social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, etc.) that’s purpose built to get people spending more time together in person. Our #1 success metric is the number of successful in-person meetings.

Getting social networks started is hard, because the value is in the network, and without people there’s no value. This is where you come in!

First steps

  1. Download the app
    -> Download for iPhone/iOS
    -> Download for Android

  2. Sign up and go through the onboarding (it’s pretty quick)

  3. Optional: connect with someone from our team that you know (click from your phone after you’ve set up your account):
    -> Ammon
    -> Teg
    -> Bisi
    -> Stefan

Help us spread the word

Here’s a step-by-step guide – please do any or all of the following:

  1. Follow us and help amplify our voice on social channels. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Check out our posts and stories, then please “like" and repost them if you feel moved.

  2. Let people know about what we’re doing who might be interested. You can share this page.

  3. Connect us with journalists, authors, influencers, activists — anyone who’s passionate about the power of human connection and the current epidemic of loneliness. press@joinable.us

Use case: spend more time with friends

Here’s a suggestion for getting started (but there are many paths to take):

Create your first few activities

These can be anything from a concert you’d like to attend to an intention to take a walk. The goal is to create opportunities to connect. They aren’t commitments — they’re just ideas that spark conversation and help turn ideas into reality.

Start with one connection

It doesn’t take much to get value from Joinable. You only need one other person who lives in your area and is interested in spending more time with you in person. Inviting more people creates more opportunities, but you can start with one. When you send the invite, they will be greeted with your activity ideas.

Help is always a click away

If you get stuck or have questions, you can view out Help Docs or send a message to support@joinable.us


Use case: connect with group and association members

Joinable is optimized for spending time with friends, but is also a great way to connect more deeply with members of an activity group, intentional community, colleagues, a volunteer group, etc.

Create a Private Circle for the group or organization

In a Public Circle, you can only see and message people you’re connected with. A Private Circle is hosted by the Circle creator and has some basic group properties. The primary feature is that everyone invited into a Private Circle can see, invite and message (limited) one another. When you create activities that are shared with a Private Circle, you are creating opportunities for in-person time together.

As a Private Circle owner, create a welcome and inclusive tone

The purpose of Joinable is to facilitate in-person connections and people invited to Joinable should know that. Encourage all the participants to fill out their profiles and share at least one opportunity to connect.

Help is always a click away

If you get stuck or have questions, you can view out Help Docs or send a message to support@joinable.us


Help us raise money

We raised some initial pre-see money to get to where we are now. We’re now seeing real evidence of adoption of growth and we need to raise some money to keep it going. That said, we’d like to raise as little money as possible with our goal being profitability within 2 years. We believe Joinable can be a fantastic business without being ad-driven or compromising our vision and mission to empower people.

We’re looking for any and all options to fund Joinable in a way that’s aligned with our values

  • Alternative funding ideas (grants/government programs, crowdfunding, DAOs, factoring etc.)

  • Socially conscious VCs

  • Angel investors

  • Other ideas

If you’re passionate about fundraising, we’d love to hear from you. You can reach out to Teg & Ammon.


Joinable FAQ

Whether you’re wondering what Joinable is, or want to better understand how to share it with others.

What is Joinable?

It’s a private social network (app) for making it easy to spend more time with your friends, colleagues, neighbors, or anyone you’d like to get to know better.

Do I need an app?

Yes. We’ve experimented with supporting people without the app and it doesn’t work well. Once you have the app installed you can access the app through a web browser, but the app is required. We support both iOS and Android devices.

How is it different from Facebook or Instagram?

It’s built with an entirely different purpose in mind, which is in-person connection. Our core success metric is successful in-person connections. We do not make money from your attention, so time on the app is not relevant.

How do you make money?

We don’t yet, but if this works, there’s value in helping people develop stronger friendships. In particular, companies know friendships reduce churn, improve morale, and lower hiring costs.

Who is Joinable for? What ways can I use it?

Joinable is for you! I want to spend more time with you and our hope is that there are people you’d like to spend more time with. It’s also great for activity groups (fitness, gaming, interest, etc.) where there’s a desire to find more opportunities to connect either 1:1 or as a group. We built a special type of group support called a “Hosted Circle” that allows group-like functionality — this can be used for private groups and events to help people connect and get to know each other.

Can I use Joinable for promoting events?

While you could, it’s not what Joinable was built for. A better use case would be sharing an event you’re going to with your connections with the goal of sharing the experience with others. Another way to use Joinable is when you meet someone — it’s a great way to open the door to a future opportunity to connect and get to know each other.

What’s a Circle?

A Circle is how people are organized in Joinable. Circles can be interests, associations or ideas (they can be anything really). Circles are public (e.g., there is only one Cycling Circle), but you can only see your connection and 2nd degree connections who share a Circle with you. You share activities or intentions with Circles and your connection in those Circles are notified. This allows your connections to self organize around different interests or group associations.

What’s a 2nd degree connection?

Joinable is a social network that’s similar to LinkedIn, where direct connections can see more information and message you. You can also see your friends’ friends. This opens the possibility of connecting with and meeting people who are in your friend network. Sharing with 2nd degree people is completely optional.


Thank you!