“Map out your future – but do it in pencil.” – Bon Jovi
LAST UPDATED: MIDDLE OCT 2024
NEXT UPDATE: MIDDLE JAN 2024
Need to get oriented?
Have feedback or ideas about where we’re heading?
🧗♀️ Working on now:
Creating a better invite system to grow Groove together! Share your link to give a friend a month to try Groove for free, and you’ll get a free month of Groove if they become a paid member. (You’ll be able to see which of your invitees subscribes.)
🎯 Working on next:
Create a group for 4+ people to coordinate private Grooves together. Invite people from outside Groove to join you - they’ll be able to Groove in that group for free, without needing to start a trial or subscribe! Invite your community or create a themed group.
💭 Exploring:
Send a friend your unique link so they can join you in a specific Groove, even if they aren’t on the platform.
We’re looking at making it possible to schedule Grooves in advance, from within a chat. (These Grooves would be private - so only people that chat would be able to join.)
Either in the app or in an email or both, we give a personalized roundup of stats: this week’s Grooves, who you Grooved with, goals and tasks, streaks (days Grooved in a row), weekly goals or wins posted, and high fives.
Tag someone in a message on Groove (and their name becomes a tappable link to their profile). You can also use this to introduce two people you think will get along great.
You know how during a Spotify song, your phone shows you the song progress on your lock screen? You’d be able to see your Groove progress on your lock screen and the time the Groove is finishing.
Want to find other graphic designers / rock climbers / composers / chefs / or parents like you on Groove? We’d improve our search functionality so you can search keywords in people’s bios rather than just names. We’d also surface people we think you’ll want to be connected with, so you can add them to your orbit. We’re considering offering tags for your profile with interests and topics (eg ‘author’, ‘gardener’, ‘entrepreneur’ etc) that will be searchable as well.
When you come in via an invite link from a Groove partner (like Creative Mornings, for example), they show up on your profile in the “invited by” section. Tapping a partner’s name shows you a list of Groovers, who you might know or want to add to your orbit.
Hopped into video chat with groovers you haven’t met before and want to see their pronouns? Or maybe want to just take a peek at their one-line bio? We got you.
To make room for a more comfortable reading (and high-fiving) experience, and so you can better see new posts, the bulletin boards are getting their own page in the app.
It can be easy to miss when another Groover has sent you a new message, so we send you an email with a heads-up to read it.
🚀 Launched:
If you’ve started a Groove and waited a few minutes but no one has joined yet, now you can start solo! Someone will join you soon, and you’ll see them at regroup.
Sign up to Groove with your phone number - it’s faster, smoother (no need to go to your email to look for for verification links) and means it’s easier for us to verify community members when they join.
Instead of today’s longer process where friends accept your invite via Groove’s website, your new invite directs them to download the app and they use your invite code to sign in automatically.
Instead of people being added to your orbit automatically, you’ll be able to choose if you’d like this setting. Orbits will be one-way, so you do not need to request to be in someone’s orbit—it’ll function more like a ‘follow’ and be something you have more control over.
No need to wait for them to accept your orbit request anymore.
Respond to chats, plan your to-dos for the day, or share a win while Grooving!
Long gone are the days of needing to retype a task you do often! Pulling repeatable tasks into today’s to-dos will be quick and easy.
Carry over tasks from previous days or reuse them again and again.
Brand new Groovers sometimes need a little love and encouragement to hop in their first Groove. Now, when someone new just joins the platform, they’ll show up in the “Online now” section with a button to high five them, so you can send some good vibes their way, as a warm welcome.
Ever accidentally miss regroup because you didn’t hear the 5-minute alert or the end-of-Groove music? Sometimes your phone sets the volume way down on just those alerts, automatically. Now you’ll see an indicator if you need to turn them up.
Our email system setup is outdated and needs an upgrade! You shouldn’t notice anything different though.
Instead of today’s longer process where new applicants fill out a form to apply on Groove’s website, now they’ll be able to do it directly inside the app and get notified when they’re accepted.
To help early Groovers get inspired by what’s possible in Groove and build their Grooving habit, they earn stickers as they learn the ropes.
More relevant and useful notifications that support new Groovers coming back into the app and making them feel welcome. Perhaps including an omni-channel approach with messaging, emails, and phone notifs.
To improve the quality of video and decrease the # of rocky connections.
Say cheese! Tap on someone’s profile photo to get a full-screen view of it.
When you visit someone’s profile, it shows how many times you’ve Grooved together in the past. It’s fun to hop around and see how many cool friendships have developed!
A little Groover counter on the home screen for brand new Groovers to help them get going on the platform, and start Grooving regularly.
If you go to start a Groove and one is already available to join, you’ll be asked if you want to join that one instead, so folks avoid missing each other by starting separate Grooves.
To help Groovers see the date their subscription started and ends right inside the Groove app. If a Groover cancels their membership, they’ll also be able to share feedback directly with the team inside the app.
Instead of today’s longer process where people joining Groove via our partners (eg Creative Mornings etc) had to do apply via Groove’s website, now they can download the app and they use an invite code to sign in automatically.
To make the login experience more seamless, you’ll now receive a login code that expires within one hour. This will ensure that Groovers who request multiple login emails can get in smoothly.
Prompts for fun things you can share about yourself to connect with others, a 1-line bio that’s visible when you appear on the home screen, plus the ability to add optional pronouns to your profile. New Groovers will be able to fill out these new items when they onboard.
Groove will become a paid community starting January 23rd. $18/month or $120/year. If you’ve done more than 50 Grooves, you’ll get a discount on your membership.
Now it’ll be easier to find Groovers outside of Groove, so you can cheer each other on when posting about a new project or well-deserved vacation! Add your links to your Instagram, Linkedin, Tiktok, X, Youtube, website, and podcast.
A new way to bring friends into Groove, giving Groovers a specific number of invites. You’ll also be able to see who’s joined using your invites, and explore who your friends have brought in too.
If you start a Groove, it will now stay active for longer than the previous 5 minutes so someone is more likely to join you.
Making it easier to find friends to Groove with and reduce the uncertainty of who might join you.
The ‘big green button’ that new Groovers can sometimes find intimidating will now be a ‘little green button’ instead, and it’ll always appear at the the top of the home screen. So if someone in your orbit has started a Groove, instead of needing to join that one, you’ll be able to start your own if you choose.
Some subtle graphical updates to the way that groove cards look in the app: Besides looking cuter and more streamlined, you’ll be able to view more cards at once. Info about who’s waiting for a match, and when a Groove is starting is also presented in a more consistent way so New Groovers have a clearer picture about what’s happening.
We’re clearer than ever about what Groove stands for and who Groove can benefit. So we’re tweaking the website to showcase our awesome community and be more specific about who should apply to join. An updated FAQ section also helps quell first-Groove jitters.
On the home screen, you’ll see a blue dot when someone is online and has their phone open now, or a yellow dot when someone’s online but hopped away from their phone for a bit. This helps you see who might be faster to join your Groove, or who might need a few minutes.
In addition to sharing a goal, we’re adding in a bulletin for sharing wins from the week. After that, our slack channels for announcements and tech support & ideas will be moving to over to bulletin boards as well. This way there’s no need to hop between two apps. The design will still say simple and clean though, without taking up a lot of space.
Little design tweaks so it’s clearer how to pull from today’s to-dos into a Groove, and also making it clearer that your tasks carry over from one Groove to the next if you don’t complete them.
When you share a link inside of a chat, instead of it showing up as plain text, it’ll show up more appealingly as a preview image with bolded headline and some preview text.
Has someone posted a really interesting goal? Now you’ll be able to reply to someone’s post in the bulletin board when you want to cheer them on or give kudos.
See what friends and community members are working on this week, and be able to high five them - right from their profile.
See how long is left in the Groove, while you’re checking off tasks on the pink screen.
Share weekly goals like we do inside of Slack - but now it’s all inside Groove on our brand new bulletin board that you can see on the home screen. You can also tap to high five people’s goals to cheer them on. Can’t wait to see your goal for the week - High five!
Little info indicators to make things clearer:
- Prompts to suggest who shares first in regroup when there are 3-4 people.
- An icon that shows when your camera is off
- A little message that shows when you’re having a slow time connecting to video or your connection is rocky
A way to Groove with people who share things in common with you. A space might be named after an interest or type of work like “coaches” “musicians” “writing” “podcasting” or we may use spaces to onboard communities that exist outside of Groove into the platform (like alumni of an online workshop). When you join, you can create Grooves that are just for space members.
A nudge for new users to add a profile picture every time they try to Groove without one.
Before, you only got notified when people in your orbit were Grooving which meant new members weren't getting any notifications and if you had a small orbit you weren't getting many either. Now, you’ll be notified when “everyone” Grooves are started. You can adjust this by tapping your picture, then 'settings'.
If no one from your previous Groove joins you to “Groove again”, your orbit will be notified after 30 seconds and you’ll have the chance to open your Groove up for anyone to join.
If you start a Groove and no one joins you, you can now get notified when the next one starts (whether that person is in your orbit or not) so you can get into flow asap.
Groovy graphics to celebrate milestones with a share button to post them on social media or send them to a friend.