About Kovii
The Kovii mission and how we started
Kovii’s mission
Improve humanity by making personable communication more convenient
We’ve become a society that’s ever connected via social media scrolling, texts, and emails. This modern way makes us addicted to our phones and creates unhealthy social comparison. It doesn’t even satisfy our need for human connection or keep our relationships intact. There’s little empathy on those channels, and way too much divisiveness.
People do best to socialize in person but when that’s not possible, calls or video calls are best. However connecting real time is much less convenient than we typically realize. Not every call feels that it’s of high enough importance to be worth scheduling. And cold calling during a free moment brings worry that the call may be intrusive. For those reasons, people often don’t connect even when the desire is there.
The Kovii mission is to improve humanity by bolstering friendships, increasing empathy and love for one another, and decreasing loneliness and divisiveness.
For this we need a cultural shift away from social media and text based communication and towards calls and video calls. We believe Kovii can enable this shift by breaking down the barriers that discourage people from calling and video calling.
About us
Innovation from the adversity of 2020
Backstory
Kovii originated with me, Matthew Shanks, in the summer of 2020. I’m a military spouse and I was working from home as a triathlon coach. I also had the responsibility of watching our infant son full time, since daycare had closed in March. We live in the middle of the Mojave Desert, in Fort Irwin, CA. On top of being nowhere close to anything, we weren’t allowed to travel or have visitors due to COVID. It was a really hard time for me. I struggled to maintain my business while taking care of my son. And being so isolated I was very lonely for adult interaction.
I found myself Facetiming friends and family regularly, but often had a few frustrations with that. When I was bored and wanted someone to call, I didn’t know which of my friends would want to talk at that same time. Sometimes I’d text to see if it was a good time. Sometimes I’d call unannounced. Either way I’d often run into the issue of them trying to call me later on, during precious nap time. I wouldn’t want to take those call backs, during the only time I had to focus on my coaching business. Scheduling personal or business calls never worked well either. It was simply too hard with my entire day shaped by the unpredictable demands of my son.
I needed a system that could optimize around people’s availability and desire to connect with one another, without any need for scheduling.
Inspiration
The spark itself came from an idea to help find new clients for my coaching business, since with the Pandemic I had lost a considerable amount of business. I was wondering how I could connect with my Instagram followers while I was watching my son. He doesn’t like when I’m scrolling or messaging on my phone, which in the past is how I’ve connected with potential clients. However he doesn’t mind when I’m on Facetime. I thought about posting to my Instagram story to ask if anyone would like to video chat about triathlon training. This would be a great way to engage with potential coaching clients, while also helping solve my boredom and loneliness problem.
A moment later I thought an availability-based video chat app could be a great platform for this. Not only would it help me connect with potential clients, but it could be the system I needed to keep in touch more conveniently with friends, family, and current coaching clients. Since that moment I haven’t stopped working to make Kovii a reality. I am determined to help people to connect with each other personably and conveniently.
Download Kovii today
Experience personable, convenient communication
