Beta testing is live!
OK!
As of last Thursday (4/16), real living humans are officially using Exist! on their phones.
Following a few too many months in “monk mode” to get this thing operational, saying that feels good.
I have to keep reminding myself what a certain someone in venture capital once said:
“If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late.”
Well copy that.
I still might have launched it too late, but it definitely wasn’t because I waited for perfection.
Exist! in its current form is an iOS app, and it still has bugs (plus what I’d consider to be some ~janky~ design elements).
And it hurts me not to fix those issues before letting anyone test drive this thing, but…
At some point, I realized how silly it would be to spend more time perfecting features that I’m uncertain are even going to help people.
On the most general level, the purpose of Exist! is to help people avoid (and heal from) the psychological harm caused by overuse of a smartphone, particularly the “doomscroll” apps.
That's a complicated problem to solve to say the least, so in terms of features, I’m starting with the basics, then progressively experimenting with more ambitious solutions with each successive version of the product.
Here’s the starting point:
Right now, Exist! is an iOS app that…
Blocks other apps on your phone according to your preferences— (for example, Exist will block TikTok every weekday from 9 am to 5 pm if you ask it to)
Allows you to put your device into “Exist Mode,” in which your phone essentially becomes a “dumb phone,” with just texting, calling, maps, and the clock. (I’m considering add music apps to this as long, as long as they’re not video-heavy. )
Prompts you to pause before opening the apps that you want to use more deliberately. How many times has checking Instagram for an innocent five seconds turned into a two hours watching Reels? Exist! gives you a chance to be like, “hold up, do I actually want to do this right now?”
Catches you at the end of your self-imposed time limit for any given app. Let’s say you want to limit your Instagram use to 30 minutes per day. At 27, 28, and 29 minutes, Exist will send you a notification and give you a chance to escape.
The most complicated and ambitious features are related to #3 (pausing before opening apps).
As various smart people have pointed out, our unconscious impulses to check apps like TikTok or Instagram are ultimately driven by deeper and natural human desires (like alleviating boredom, loneliness, or avoiding uncomfortable thoughts).
By repeatedly training ourselves to become aware of when we feel those cravings, we become more empowered to fill them in more emotionally nutritious ways.
Based on this, the vision for Exist! is to to a) catch users in the moment they feel the impulse to open [whichever app they suspect is poison for them] and then b) give them a healthier way to scratch the true itch which, hopefully c) leads to a progressively more mindfulness and finding more fulfilling ways to exist, no pun intended.
How this works will evolve over time.
What will not change is that we’re trying to help people transcend their phones.
Onwards.
FINALLY got the last permission from Apple to start beta testing.
PS don’t judge my yahoo email…..it’s from like 2008.
