Hmsklt – App to help friends form deeper relationships | Hacker News Reader

Hmsklt – App to help friends form deeper relationships

hmsklt.app

121 pointsbchhor91 comments

If you're trying to build a tool to help deepen connections, it shouldn't be around sharing things that you do. We've tried that model for the last 15 years and it's clearly failed. I think what people crave these days is human connection through interactions. I think the biggest problem with friendships these days is people want friends without all the work that goes with it.

I wonder if a shared struggle/experience is needed to forge strong bonds. Not just going out, eating/drinking/dancing over and over, but a series of ups and downs.

Maybe individuals becoming less dependent on others due to a combination of earning power and internet facilitating ease of accessing information and communicating with literally anyone and not just those around you changed the parameters of life. Hence relationships are less likely to experience the conditions required to create the necessary bonds.

I think "social" media helped to kill a lot of social interaction, by making it easy to go through the motions and keep up appearances more efficiently than actually living a rich social life.

I read somewhere that given a choice between what we know is good and what's convenient, people will choose convenience almost every time, leading to a modern world that feels how a pre-packaged peanut butter and jelly sandwich tastes. It's obviously a subjective statement but I've found it explains a lot about everything.

Yeah. At some moment in my life I noticed that there are two types of "friends": First is a person you can have fun with... and that is all you can ever do with them. Second is a person you can have fun with, but you can also discuss serious things with, and help each other. As long as you only have fun, these two types seem similar. You typically learn the difference only when something bad happens to you... then the first type of friend disappears.

You can filter friends by putting yourself together in difficult situations on purpose. Like, take a long trip together, some problems will happen and you can see how the other person reacts. Or volunteer for an organization that helps others; the friends you find there are already filtered for their willingness to help others. (This isn't a 100% certain strategy; there are some abusers who know that others use this algorithm, so they go there fishing for easy victims to exploit. But most of lazy and selfish people would refuse to try anything like this.)

If your life is all about fun, then you are at risk of being surrounded by people who are your friends only as long as the fun lasts.

>I think the biggest problem with friendships these days is people want friends without all the work that goes with it.

We have a very convenience driven "me first" culture. While it's healthy to always keep in mind your needs, aside from maybe you close family/friends, few will, you also have to consider other people and learn to reach agreeable compromises.

Sometimes it means driving somewhere you don't want to and spending half a day to make someone else happy when you could spend that same half a day making sure you exclusively are happy. Social relationships, maybe most human relationships in general, are about reaching reasonable compromises that doesn't always put self above all. We seem to be moving in a direction where we put self above all though and you get a lot of lonely people who pamper themselves. Some may enjoy that sort of lifestyle but not me, it seems very lonely.

I've seen an incredible outpouring of selfless support for others during the pandemic, and quite a bit before that. Maybe the problem is the people you're surrounded by and pay attention to, not culture in general.

Verbal/written or actual support?

Money, transportation, housing, referrals/interviews/jobs, a good time with safe people away from an unsafe but currently inescapable situation. Sometimes verbal or written, but that can be just what someone needs. I've personally received a few lifelines.

While those things are great, they're also one-and-done transactions. All the other person needs to do is say thanks and be appreciative.

Building friendships is actually harder. It takes more time and more effort, on many separate occasions. And there's no guarantee it'll be worth it, either.

If you do that, you have a high chance of being an idiot. You'll be the idiot who puts others first, always helps them, gets nothing in return and then gets abandoned. Hence most people are playing it safe and care about themselves first.

You could use a "tit for tat" strategy, where you do something nice for the other person first, and later you ask them for help with something small you need. Those who don't reciprocate, they get on your blacklist and you no longer do nice things for them. With those who reciprocate, you gradually escalate.

But this requires some bookkeeping, that strategies like "always help others" and "never help others" do not.

Seems like many people start with "always help others" as a combination of idealism and... I was tempted to say laziness, but probably the idea just never occured to them. After seeing that people do not reciprocate, they burn out and switch to "never help others". Or maybe it's not even the case that most people do not reciprocate, but rather that there are a few abusers who notice the opportunity and start exploiting the naive person. (So the naive person's statistics would be like "I helped others 100 times, and was only helped 7 times myself", but they forget to notice that of those 100 times they helped someone, 90 times they helped the same person who never reciprocated.)

Surely its the middle-ground between your point and what you perceive GP's point to be?

It seems to me that we the strongest bonds are formed out of necessity.

We bond with people in difficult situations when we need protections and are able to protect.

I've noticed friends who are born in places like South Africa, or Russia are much intenser with friendships.

My theory is that they really have to trust eachother because they have no trust in the system.

Where I grew up, trust in system is strong and it seems people don't need to rely on eachother.

It's not so simple, and of course most people still bond deeply depending on personality and upbringing. But it's why I think most Western societies are so individual.

There are some studies which reveal possible connections between wealth, compassion and how generous people are. [1] and [2] for articles about studies like [3]. I see some shortcomings in some of the studies (looking at drivers of luxury cars is not informative about all types of wealthy people, just the ones who care about spending it this way which self-selects a certain kind of person), but I think that the general direction could be informative for more research. There are also studies about cognitive costs of empathy [4] which may relate to this.

[1]: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/wealth/save/why-poor-pe...

[2]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduce...

[3]: https://www.pnas.org/content/109/11/4086.short

[4]: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/xge-xge0000595.pd...

I agree, Friendship is an investment. I like my friends, I respect their friendship but I hate the social construct of having to constantly keep in touch to keep that friendship alive.

Hi how are you...

I'm good how are you...

I'm good too...

Then next 1 hour spent on each others problems which usually neither could do anything about.

Go regularly to your local surf beach/kite spot/skate park/climbing wall/Games workshop/organic vegetable collective/Latin dance club / or whatever your interest is.

Show that you are interested. Talk to people. Ask questions. Give praise when you see cool stuff. Accept praise when it's given. Don't bring your job with you. Be respectful and interactive. Let connections build over time.

No app needed!

Repeating "don't bring your job with you."

It often comes across as status-checking based on income. I feel bad for people who can't think of a better question than "so, what do you do?"

I think the "problem" is that then you have to deal with real people rather than the fantasy facades social apps and discussion sites let us create!

I commend the developers for acknowledging the problem that exists with modern social media and trying to do something about it. My personal opinion is that you don't fix this problem with another platform that promotes content sharing. Regardless of the content shared, it'll likely turn into a comparison game and result in the same unhappiness that more traditional social media platforms bring and it's now been proven through extensive studies that these platforms do in fact worsen mood. Why is that? Well, it kinda makes sense.. you're sitting at home looking at what other people are doing instead of doing those things yourself. Certainly images and videos of loved ones enjoying themselves can bring you joy, but nowhere near the amount of joy you'd get from being with them. The problem is that the current social media platforms do everything but make us social. They encourage us to sit back at home and feel as if we're being social by seeing social activity.

So what's the solution? If I had to take a stab at it, I'd build something very primitive with no content sharing, no followers or likes that promotes actual social interactions. The primary focus of the application should be to get people together, IRL. Once that interaction has been facilitated or scheduled, that's as far as the application should go. The goal of social media should be to get people to be more social again, in person and not through a phone screen. Going to visit a new city? This app would allow you to let your network know and use approximated GPS data from your phone to connect you with people in your network that could meet up in person. Even if you're going to visit the same city you always visit but live in the suburbs, you can let people know where you'll be by location and they would receive alerts that someone from their network will be in the area. Want to plan a hike? Schedule it in the app and make it public, semi-public allowing people in your network to see your plan and opt in to join.

Going to meet a friend for happy hour? Throw it on the app and allow your network to be updated and suddenly you're catching up with a few friends you haven't seen in some time.

You're basically describing Meetup.

And I'm not going to lie, meet up is absolutely amazing for both making friends and dating. It's been phenomenally more effective for me versus dating apps. It's how I meet one of my previous partners ( more like we met because I mistook her for someone else, but life is random fun).

That said, when I'm dating someone like now, I don't socialize nearly as much. It takes a very real amount of energy to do so. Online socializing, also takes that energy. So when I get home I'm in my temple, and I don't let all that social media drama into my temple. It's done wonders for my mental health, back when I was heavily in the social media and online dating apps I was very nervous and miserable almost all the time. I'm half convinced the never-ending notifications are designed to make us all a little bit crazy, and very addicted. It can be easier to drop it all and go for a walk. Occasionally you ask for directions and end up getting coffee...

You may be half-convinced but I'm fully convinced the never-ending notifications make us all a lot of bit crazy. Many of us have lost the ability to focus.

I think meetup is close to what I'm describing but not quite there. Meetup is very goal\work\hobby oriented which I think is great but I'm describing something a bit more informal geared towards keeping in touch with existing connections as opposed to meeting new individuals.

1. Tech is not the solution to everything. Am I the only one to notice the absurdity of needing yet another app to "connect with friends"? I can see the use of tech to reach out to people you know from abroad, but... Whats wrong with Facetime or similar tech?

2. The template questions seem overly intrusive to me. I'd much rather answer "any covid hobbies?" then any pre-written gratitude nonesense, esp. in written communication. Philosophizing about the world is something best done in a face-to-face situation.

you're not the only one

I previously thought technology evolved in order to help humans, now I think it just creates new needs.

Yes, and I’ll take that further and ask “what’s wrong with writing a letter and paying the cost of a stamp to have that letter delivered?”

It sounds like the prompted experience of homeskillet is not for me. I prefer 1:1 communication and 1:x (as in this forum; I find many HN comments to be at least an engaging diversion, and I do not expect conversations but a healthy back and forth does add something useful), and the pace of pencil on paper suits me just fine for maintaining friendships outside of the few closest.

> Tech is not the solution to everything. Am I the only one to notice the absurdity of needing yet another app to "connect with friends"? I can see the use of tech to reach out to people you know from abroad, but... Whats wrong with Facetime or similar tech?

That is so damn correct. I don’t have the typical social media presence. Some of friends and family constantly pesters me that I am hard to reach. In response I keep telling them, we kept in touch just fine when there was no Facebook, so just pick up the phone and call/text. And astonishingly, it works better than typical social connection avenues.

Hey everyone - we're working on Hmsklt.app to help friends form deeper relationships and more authentic connection.

- Join a small group of friends for a 7-day "bonfire" centered around a theme like Daily Gratitudes, Small Moments in Your Day, Weird Fun Stories, Self Love, Childhood Memories, or Highlights + Lowlights.

- Each day, the group will get a prompt to respond with short videos — a chance to reflect on the topics and small moments that you wouldn’t normally ask about. After the 7 days, you can choose to have the videos disappear or save them to celebrate your friendships.

We want to make it less awkward to be vulnerable and build authentic connections with the people who matter to you. No influencers, no posing, no filters -- just sharing small moments and good stories with your friends.

It sucks to be connected to thousands of people on social media but still feel so lonely. Having been personally affected by loneliness and mental health, we wanted to build tools to boost mental wellness that are less intense than therapy/medication.

We're currently in private beta and would really appreciate any feedback to help us make the app a warm and supportive experience.

Hey!

How does the beta access work? Shouldn't I be able to join together with my friends in the Beta?

Hey! If you sign up for the email list, we'll send you a TestFlight beta link for the app and you can invite your friends from within the app.

iOS only?

Yep, iOS only for now

That seems like a pretty big oversight, particularly for an app that's intended for bringing people together. Now my first discussion with my friend group isn't "who wants to use this new app," but instead "who has an iPhone and wants to dogfood this person's social media app without the rest of our friends?" It's an awful lot of friction for a medium that relies on viral propagation.

"Daily Gratitudes", "Self Love"... This sort of curated communication reminds me a lot about how it feels to be around believers... It makes me shiver. Authentic communication cant be based on a framework of acceptable topics preselected by, well, whom? Besides, less screen time is the only way to go to strengthen friendships.

Agreed, I just had a strong stomach churn thinking about the slightly crazy eyed, chipper, vision board writing, medium article writing, HR types who who act like they're some kind of middle school camp counselor..."Today, tell me three things that made you sad, silly me..it's the 2021? Take a selfie of yourself telling your friends what makes you sad" f'ng yikes.

The stories prompted by this app will be very personal. Shouldn’t they be protected from third parties? Encryption with a shared symmetric key sounds reasonable?

"... Stories, Self Love, Childhood..."

I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable posting videos of that to my friends...

OnlyFriends

> It sucks to be connected to thousands of people on social media but still feel so lonely. Having been personally affected by loneliness and mental health, we wanted to build tools to boost mental wellness that are less intense than therapy/medication.

I'm struggling to see how to bootstrap this. Like if one guy in a groups says "hey let's use this new app to become better friends" and the others are just fine with the status quo, won't it be very awkward?

And if the group has decided "hey let's do this to become better friends", do they really need this over a discord, hike or some other activity?

I found it was enough to just talk to people... but I guess my experience is not universal.

Personally I'd find it very awkward to use such an app, it would feel very forced and artificial, but if it helps someone then I say awesome!

> no posing

> "Weird Fun Stories", "Highlights + Lowlights"

Good luck, but I have to say this is one of the weirdest sounding apps I have heard of, and something I (and probably most of my friends) would never use. I don't see how forcing conversation around some kind of "theme" produces "authentic" and "deep" connections - those are things that only come organically

I love the spirit, but in all honesty, this is one of those instances where you don't need an app for that.

The best ways to build deeper connections with friends don't involve a screen.

I think there’s something to be said for having an item to center a ritual around. Similar to the “talking stick” concept. Gives people an excuse to share, which can otherwise be hard to find.

Also - great idea while in lockdown.

Really. There are things the little distraction box in my pocket are not good for.

My initial thought, though, was who keeps these logs of discussions and "go one level deeper" conversations, and what do they do with them?

Friendship as performance art/virtue signalling.

You mean this app is?

Hey!

I don't think one goes against the other. Meeting in personne would never be replaced by an app, but with work, kids, distance, it can be really easy to loose touch.

This app also focus on questions that you may not have even thought asking your friends or even yourself.

>it can be really easy to lose touch

I use a simple question to determine whether I've "lost touch" with someone or not: do I have a regular or semi-regular urge to talk to that person?

I find the answer is often no. Lots of folks gain and lose friends unexpectedly over time. It's ok! It's natural. It feels (to me) unnatural to feel unhappy about not communicating regularly with a friend: that person is just not as close of a friend anymore.

Anyone who grew up on IRC or in the early days of online dating/video games will rightfully recognize this as completely, totally false.

Fully agreed. It is somewhat concerning that so few people realize this. It seems tech is the answer to everything these days ... Nothing beats catching up with friends by actually visiting them and sit down for a few hours of talk.

What's the story with the name? How do you pronounce it?

The product seems interesting, but I'm not a sharer on social media.

Agreed. This product will live or die on word of mouth, and right now I wouldn't know how to talk about it with someone else.

homeskillet: noun~ a close friend, more like family, someone from your neighborhood.

That's fine, but it's still going to be very hard to explain to people (or hell, even remember) how it's spelled, so they can search or download it.

Home skillet?

agreed, as a english-as-second-language speaker both the idiom and acronym was completely lost on me. concept has potential as long as it's not just another clone of snapchat stories.

As an English-as-first-language speaker, it did not at all occur to me what “hmsklt” meant. I haven’t heard the term “homeskillet” used in 20+ years.

The name is short for "homeskillet," which is a colloquial term of endearment for a good friend. I met my cofounder on an airplane 7 years ago and developed our friendship while each living in distant cities (SF, Taipei, Berlin, London). I called him homeskillet once but he didn't understand the meaning since he's French, so it randomly became our placeholder project name as we bounced around ideas for cool things to build.

Super helpful feedback on the name confusion!

Just calling it “homeskillet” would be better.

(Although, I’ve never heard that term before, so it still wouldn’t be great me for at least.)

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=home%20skill...

Huh, I learned a new word today! Doubt I'll use it, but at least it won't confuse me should I encounter that use in the future.

Thanks for the explanation. Further feedback though, I've never heard this term before, and I consider myself to have a relatively good vocabulary. Here in the UK, "skillet" isn't the most common word either (it's not uncommon, some people do use it, especially referring to cast-iron skillets specifically, but less common than in the US).

At the very least you've got to add the name of the company to the website so that people know it's not just some random letters.

Honestly though, I'd feel silly having to explain this name to anyone so probably just won't.

Maybe it's not, but this sure looks like a predatory data grab.

Even if it's not, they could get hacked or acquired by someone else along with all the personal videos and data

1. All the titles on the homepage do word-wrapping after each letter. Resize the width on a computer to see it. 2. Are those prompts generated by you? I'd be put off by too many challenges like "daily gratitudes" or such self improvement trendy hoopla.

Thanks for the website feedback!

We did generate most of the prompts ourselves but there's a pretty broad range: - Getting to know each other better through sharing funny weird stories, music that's shaped you, stories from childhood, etc - Sharing small moments in your day-to-day life: things that made you smile, times you were frustrated, weird morning routines, etc - Improving mental wellness by reflecting on your priorities, how you take care of yourself, or things that you're worrying about these days

This seems very focused on friendships, but it sounds like a pretty interesting way to get a bit closer with my remote coworkers.

I hope OP takes this as a pivot for the product. Connecting with friends is already solved, connecting with co-workers on a personal level much less so, especially remote.

Not all people want a deeply personal relationship with their co-workers, many would even find being forced to engage in that intrusive. Unfortunately once those bonds are formed between some members of a team, often the team dynamic is shifted weirdly as some people feel forced into the "buddy buddy system"...it's classic now and forcing it into remote work seems like a nightmare

If you're at a place where this would be "forced", then I'd argue that that place is the problem, not the existence of such a product. I can imagine us setting this up as a team, bottom-up, though. (Similar to how e.g. I've been at two organisations where donut.com is available, but it being completely optional in both cases.)

Maybe forced isn't the right term, I'm referring to non-mandated systems that occur organically. Not that I've experienced this too much personally, but I have had co-workers who would often be deliberately left out by management or not given contracts by the project managers (it was the nature of the work that some jobs were better than others, less sketchy <biotech>) because they weren't considered "friendly" to them.

Luckily I was social and often made connections with those people, but I didn't feel like it was a fair system. I think it's part of human tribalism, if some group clicks, it can cause repercussions across the whole main group/dept.

I think my general concern still holds then: such a place will probably be shitty regardless of whether such a tool is used or not.

That's not much different from being forced, really. If you dislike this sort of thing but are on a team that adopts it, it's not really optional no matter how much everyone says it is. It would be a bit like office parties in that respect -- technically optional, but bad for your career if you opt out.

I mean, you have a say in whether to adopt it if you're part of the team. It might be different elsewhere, but you could and people did opt-out in the teams I saw donut.com being used.

Again, I think it's not the tool that's the problem, but the team, in that I don't think a team whose use of the tool is problematic wouldn't have problems if the tool didn't exist.

> Not all people want a deeply personal relationship with their co-workers

I don't either per se, depends on the person more than it depends on the fact that they are my co-worker. What I think is useful is to connect, a bit, on things that aren't related to work, so that you get to know each other a bit better. 'Deeper' in this sense would be getting to know each other beyond just work things.

> forcing it into remote work

Bit of a straw man. I never said anything about forcing.

> Unfortunately once those bonds are formed between some members of a team, often the team dynamic is shifted weirdly

It seems like you are saying we have to avoid bonding with co-workers because the anti-social members of a team might be left out because people would rather work together with people they have a connection with than people they don't. If so, I'd strongly disagree with that and I don't think it is weird.

We spend so much of our time on this planet working, I'd rather spend it with people I have a good relationship with than people I don't have a connection with.

I am seeing a nightmare scenario where hr-types push something like onto teams. We'll be expected to spend time taking videos of ourselves and our morning routines or whatever.. instead of doing what we were hired to do.

This app is the infomercial equivalent of the latest gadget that promises to give you 6-pack abs in 60 days.

In the same way that building muscle requires actual work and dedication, so does meaningful connections with your friends.

I will not use an app for this, but all the contents of the app, I can Simply ask my friends about. In this way we can have engaging conversations.

This app confuses me. You deepen relationships with your friends by hanging out with them and doing things together. The sharing of personal stories and whatnot comes as a natural result of that.

The sort of "compelled" sharing that this app is proposing doesn't strike me as being terribly useful in terms of deepening your friendships.

For some reason a lot of the comments here are negative and people are suddenly all about extreme screen aversion, but I think the app is great. Kind of like a more engaging private whatsapp group, which most of us have anyway in one way or antoher. Kudos to the team on the launch!

What is a "deep connection" between friends?

> Hear about the small moments in your friends’ days and feel like you’re a part of their daily lives.

Wouldn't "be a part of their daily lives" be better than "feel like a part of their daily lives"?

Deep connections are best build in real life by investing time into a relationship. I worry that for a lot of young people real friendship is getting really hard to come by nowadays.

I clicked into it thinking it was going to be a research article about the importance of developing deep connection with a few. Boy was I wrong.

What's the big difference between this app and another social networking app? You can't assume that all of the features content sharing is authentic just because it is posted on the platform.

> Anything spark joy yesterday?

Who are you and what have you done to my friend

I wonder if this app is trying to capitalise on exclusivity of a new social network that Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat once provided?

the only solution is to keep your screen off, get your car and go somewhere with your friends

Landing page copy is cringe af. "Daily Gratitudes"? :pukes in mouth:

Those aren't friends.

I think a small adjustment to this formula could make a big difference: instead of group prompts, is there a way to prompt a single person at a time to respond to something deeper, and then to use that to start a conversation?

When I think about the most genuine connections I have with friends, the bonds are not formed from little things like talking about what we’re doing this weekend. They’re formed from moments when we are focused on each other as complex people with hopes, struggles, ideas, perspectives, messy families and careers, insecurities, successes, all wrapped up in a bundle. They come from being around for each other’s journeys as we individually sort out our lives, even if the venue might be something insubstantial like talking while playing the same video game.

I think short prompt responses would make me focus too much on myself, not enough on others.

I’m sure another app is what will build deeper connections with friends.

I had a lovely party this week after everyone got vaccinated and it’s the closest I’ve come to building relationships with friends in two years.

kinda skeptical. I think you need to be in the same room as someone for mirroring neurons to engage

Kudos on Launching. I’m in support of anything that gets people out of the social media routine and into more meaningful interactions. In fact, I’m building a Messaging app with exactly this in mind.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com