# 2025 Coming Out Party! | Sircles - Canonical URL: https://wefunder.com/feed/178035 - Entity ID: wefunder:feed_item:178035 - Published at: 2024-12-07 23:45:03 UTC - Updated at: 2025-07-16 19:43:07 UTC ## Author John Worthington ## Subject Sircles ## Content Dear Sircles Community,First, I want to start by saying how humbled and grateful I am for the incredible support and patience you’ve all shown us throughout this journey. We’ve been working on Sircles for years, and the only real pressure we feel comes from within. That internal pressure is immense and grows every day. Danny, the team and I have been pushing ourselves harder than ever. Some days, this project feels impossible—but then there are plenty of days when it feels like the most exciting, rewarding thing ever. It’s part tension, part stress, part excitement, but it’s getting better. Why? Because the app is improving at such a rapid pace, and the progress we’re making is undeniable.Are you ready to light this rocket?!Looking ahead, we’re planning some unprecedented moves. Recently, we recorded a new Sircles Sesh and have opened our daily standups and work sessions to the public. These will air daily on RAD TV immediately following the show at 10am (https://members.radradio.com/series_player.php?s=26). They will also be available for download. Now everyone can get an unvarnished, unfiltered, behind-the-scenes look at the challenges we face as a startup tackling this audacious goal, and the incredible teamwork that drives us forward. We’re committed to transparency, and we think it’ll be great for anyone watching to see how much we believe in Sircles and the mission we’re building toward. Plus, get a sense of how insanely difficult this project is in spite of the tremendous, and obvious talent of this team!(Above) Screen capture of a day-in-the-life with the Sircles team. (Below) Our second Sircles Sesh.. hopefully many more to come!Our goal is nothing short of runaway success. But here is the reality… Apps, generally speaking, only get about 45 seconds to capture a new user, so we’ve been obsessing over the new user experience and making it as seamless, engaging, and intuitive as possible. If you invite a friend, now, they’ll immediately see your recent Favorites and a message field to “start the convo.” Actual screenshot from SirclesThis simple action creates a new share topic with your friend and something to talk about. We'll be taking all new users through a similar flow soon as the home screen can be too overwhelming for casual users who were recently invited by a friend. So, no more throwing new users into the deep end of the pool. We're keeping it simple at first and this has been our major work-in-progress (much more below)...Here’s what else is new:Our friend connect feature just launched and has been performing really well. After you follow someone, Sircles will ask if you want to help them connect with their friends. For example, it might ask, “Is User B friends with User C?” If you say yes, User B will get a notification like, “Do you know User C? User A thinks you do.” It’s a clever way to build connections and grow your network.Searching for people in the app has greatly improved. Like Instagram, you’ll see people you interact with most frequently appear first.Adding members to your Sircle of Trust is easier than ever, with seamless integration from both your contacts and other Sircles users.New users are greeted with fun, silly, pre-made bios (like “I’m a professional Bigfoot hunter”) and an edit button to encourage them to write their own.Events are live! You can now create events, send invites, and track RSVPs with ease.Feed cards now have a message input field, making it quicker to engage with your friends after they Favorite or Check In somewhere.Here's some actual screenshots of our friend connect in action:Try it out—it works, and we’d love your feedback.But wait.. there's more!Ok so let's say you participate in the friend connect by suggesting some matches and they become friends. Then you get this warm and friendly notification which triggers a similar flow to "start the convo."Tapping the notification takes you to the above screen where you'll see your recent Check ins and Favorites in a scrollable list, and a message input field primed and ready to message/share one of them into a new group chat between (in this case) me, Danny and Shawntelle. These are actual screens in the app my friends! Invite some new people in or have old friends delete Sircles and run through this flow.. let's get some feedback. Check it out NOW : )You may have noticed from the screen capture (above) some testing around event creation. Well......... coming soon! We'll be curating a list of weekly events in your area and sharing them into a large, community group chat. Be sure to check it out, as early as next week, and let us know where we may be able to improve.We’ll soon be adding additional prompts like “Your friends want to see your Favorites,” along with walkthroughs that guide users to share a movie, show, book, or podcast and then immediately share it with their friends. This leads to instant engagement, with group chats forming around those shares. Speaking of group chats, you can now create combined chats with Sircles users and friends in your contacts who don’t yet have the app. Non-Sircles users will still get messages via SMS (yes, including group replies) until they download the app which will automatically join them into the group chat, in-app. It’s a great way to introduce Sircles to new users, keep conversations flowing, and grow our community organically.Jump in today! (https://Sircles.com/download)If you haven’t jumped back into Sircles lately, now is the time. We’ve shipped almost 100 new builds this year, each one improving and refining the app. If you’re using an older version, make sure to update—there’s so much new to try, and it’s working better than ever.. even Android works great! On a more personal note, we’ve nearly given up on academic organizations multiple times because of how chaotic it’s been—it’s like herding cats. But we’re still pressing forward, making connections, and finding traction. Danny recently onboarded a fraternity at Chico State that immediately jumped into group chats, spreading Sircles to their chapter effortlessly. We’ve also done some great on-campus events, like the tailgate at Sac State, where DJs were tossing Sircles hats and shirts into the crowd. Seeing so many students using the app and repping Sircles merch was an incredible feeling.We don't want to give up on organizations in general because Sircles is tailormade for them in many ways. We recently upgraded our business portal (far more user friendly now) and we're selling subscriptions at a very low price—gives owners the ability to manage their business profile: Business.Sircles.com Additionally, we encourage businesses to convert their staff communications over to the Sircles platform. Our group chat, with topics, is much more organized than traditional group chats. It's proving to be a valuable tool and gets your staff comfortable using and recommending the platform to your customers. The more Favorites your business receives, the more exposure you get. If you're a business owner or manager using SMS to chat with employees.. switch over to Sircles today and give us feedback please.We're just about ready to shift gears toward growth (downloads). Up to now, it's been about rounding Sircles out (no pun intended) and positioning us for rapid growth. We're almost there now, with features and experiences we expect to enhance engagement and increase retention. There's always a lot more to this but those are most of the big pieces. Ah, actually I didn't mention the analytics we're implementing for deeper insights and data driven decisions we'll need to make. That's a whole thing we're doing as well and far more robust than what we previously relied on. The next couple months will be about rolling all this out and making adjustments where we see drop offs. The team is really eager to enter this new phase and committed to making Sircles a household name.As always, thank you for your continued support. I know how hard we’re working every single day to make Sircles a success, but none of it would be possible without you. Please, if you haven’t already, jump back into the app. Explore all the new features, try out the friend connect tool, and invite a couple of friends. The more you engage, the more it helps us grow—and we’re all in this together.Warm regards, John Worthington ~ Co-Founder and CEO