Private social networks are making a comeback. Plus’s gratitudestartup that aims to steer social media in a more positive direction is expanding its personal wellness journal to include support for families who want to stay connected even when they’re physically apart.
The startup, whose name reflects its core offering of a gratitude journal, is in some ways reminiscent of Path, which was founded many years ago. Path briefly emerged as a challenger to Facebook, creating a space for smaller groups of people to interact with each other. The app distinguished itself by limiting users to just 50 friends, ensuring that their interactions remained in narrower circles than on larger social networks.
Path gained popularity for a while, and while it never toppled Facebook, it provided an example of how private social networking could work if done right. (The company raised too much venture capital funding to recoup its dead-end investment, so Path was sold to Korean company Kakao in 2015).
Likewise, Gratitude Plus is not intended for exploit by a general audience. Instead, it encourages users to develop healthier relationships and better mental health habits by offering a space to journal, track mood, and stay connected with family and friends through compact, private “circles” on its app.
“I designed it to be very straightforward,” says the app’s Modern York founder and creator, Daniel Shaffer. “I wanted people to feel like they were writing in an elegant journal.”
Once you open the app, it will ask you to journal with a straightforward question: Name three things you are grateful for today. You can also change the prompt to other suggestions, such as “What made you smile today?”, “What are you looking forward to today?” and others, or you can write your own. Journal reminders can also be set to random, so you’ll receive up-to-date ones every day. Optionally, you can include photos to illustrate their answers.
However, unlike a private diary, responses to the app’s prompts are intended to be shared with a private group such as family members, close friends, or even your partner.
“When I talked to users, they loved that it was an app where they could take a minute or two to think about their day,” Shaffer said.
Shaffer says he was inspired to create Gratitude Plus by the death of his mother. He says his grief journey led him to seek out more accessible mental health tools and pushed him to build a well-being platform that people could exploit to connect with friends and family to stay connected in a more positive and personal way than this is possible through time-honored social media. He’s not alone in searching for these kinds of tools; another startup founded by widows, DayNew, offers a social platform for people struggling with grief and trauma, for example.
However, with Gratitude Plus, the focus is not necessarily on healing grief, but on maintaining relationships that are essential in the present.
With the launch of the up-to-date Family Plan on Mother’s Day (Sunday), up to four members can share a premium subscription for $74.99 per year.
In addition to private networks, the social feed, based on anonymous shares from individual users, also allows you to see how other members of the wider app community are feeling that day. Users can interact with these posts by leaving hearts or messages of support. Shaffer said about 50% of the app’s users share content anonymously on the feed.
“People feel really good when they support other people. “That’s one of the magical things is that if you keep going here and have a negative attitude, you’ll send some messages to people and you’ll feel better,” he says. “A lot of people say it’s kind of like a positive social network.”
Gratitude Plus encourages daily habits with features like push notifications and streaks, but Shaffer believes the biggest draw comes from the people you exploit the app with: family, friends, partner, child and others you want to connect with. Some users also post in the application with a larger group of friends, for example from their dorm or school, or even with a group of other YC founders.
Shaffer plans to add more mental well-being tools to the app, such as meditation, breathwork and more.
The freemium app is currently used by over 10,000 users, of which 650 are on a paid subscription plan offering access to more features,
