Subscribe
Sign in
Cocoon
p/cocoonRescue your most treasured group chats
Start new thread
Alex Cornell

Cocoon - A private app for the most important people in your life

by
Top Product
•

Cocoon is a dedicated space for the most important people in your life. You use it with a single group who you want to feel closer with — it's like your home, on your phone.

Add a comment

Replies

Best
Sachin Monga
Maker
Hey, I'm Sachin (the other Cofounder). Really excited to share Cocoon with the PH community and hear your feedback, questions, and ideas. One particular area that I'm really fascinated by — there's a whole world of features that could be really useful within the context of a closed family space, but wouldn't make sense in a general purpose messaging app. The ambient sharing layer is the first example that we've started to explore in earnest — the Now tab in Cocoon offers a window into the life of everyone in your Cocoon without them having to manually share anything. Not only would most of us not feel comfortable sharing at that level with a broader audience, we also wouldn't find that kind of content from people other than our chosen families very interesting :) Our automatic flight tracker is coming soon, and we have a host of other ideas that fall into this category that I'm really excited to explore. What do you think? Are there any features like this that you'd love to have as a part of your family space? A final note: the app is only available on iOS for now but Android is coming as soon as we can build it! If you want to be notified when it's ready, you can add your email here: http://eepurl.com/gKP2Gz
Lucas Wittwer
@monga This is a really awesome idea. Really happy to start using it with my family. However, will it ever be possible to join more than one Cocoon? Personally I have my family that I am close with but also another very close group friends.
Robert Bye
Top Product
@monga @mrwittwer came here to write the same! Would love to have this with family, close friends, and potentially even a small professional group of friends
Sachin Monga
Maker
@mrwittwer @robjbye It will be possible in the not-too-distant future! So you could start with your first, most obvious group who you would want a shared space with on your phone. And know that you'll be able to reside in a handful of Cocoons soon. From our (still largely anecdotal) research on this, we found that most people have somewhere between 1-2 family units and 0-3 friend units that could clearly map to a Cocoon. Older people we talked to tended to skew on the lower side, and younger people could identify more groups that would make sense. From a product standpoint: since you'll only ever be in a few (VS dozens or hundreds of potential chat threads), we want to make residing in multiple Cocoons and switching between them feel a little more heavyweight and intentional than i.e. switching between chat threads in an inbox view. More like navigating between completely different places/settings. After using the app for a little bit, I'd be curious if you have any thoughts/ideas for how you'd like to see multiple Cocoons implemented!
Robert Bye
Top Product
@mrwittwer @monga Hi Sachin, really interesting to hear that research and it does fall in line with my expectations. Love that you want to make it feel intentional, as having multiple groups could quickly become overwhelming (like multiple group threads or slack groups feel currently!). If you're up for it, I would love to chat about this and also Cocoon as a whole - I'm an ex-google PM and past founder, so hopefully I could help! Drop me an email if you would like - hello@robertbye.com
Jihad?!
@mrwittwer @robjbye @monga Hi Monga, good luck in your Venture! I’d like to weigh in the topic of multiple cocoons. As I, my family & friends were heavy users of @path. In MENA region (maybe Asia as well), small groups (<10) of very close families and/or friends usually depends heavily on WhatsApp groups. As well as social networks like Twitter. There was a clear gap between very small groups and large social networks. Which was a private place for close-but-not-very-close groups (10-60). Because the Perceived-value to move from WhatsApp group to another app to share same things with very limited people is very low. This was the sweet spot for a private mini-social-networking product. I have few thoughts and statistics on this segment as well as suggested Product approaches that align with local community social behaviors, if interested i can share it in detail via email. Good luck to you and the team!
Mohammed Al-Rozzi
I’d like to hear more about data management policy. the last thing I want is to blindly trust something in sharing my family stuff.
Edison Espinosa
@mohammedalrozzi they worked at Facebook so they'll likely share it
Deleted User
@mohammedalrozzi @edisonjoao6871 That's a pretty cynical take. Alex said on Twitter that the business model is subscriptions, not ads/data.
Sachin Monga
Maker
@mohammedalrozzi @edisonjoao6871 A few things I'll touch on here. From a system design standpoint, Cocoons are "federated" in that there is no way for users outside of your Cocoon to see what you're sharing -- your other Cocoon members can't forward it, you can't accidentally post something to the wrong thread, and content can't spread beyond its intended audience. From a business standpoint, we have no reason to share your data with 3rd parties or sell it for any reason. We don't even have a reason to build up any internal data profiles since we'll never be serving ads. In fact, we have every reason not to do these things since privacy/intimacy/trust is at the core of why people would want a space like Cocoon. Lastly, from an engineering standpoint, anything you share in your Cocoon is encrypted in transit with SSL/TLS, then stored on secure servers by our hosting provider in the US. We are also exploring full e2e encryption but want to make sure we get a chance to make that decision thoughtfully, with input from our customers.
Edison Espinosa
@mohammedalrozzi @bryantpeng not a cynical take.. would you have the same viewpoints of an oil tycoon wanting to get in on fixing the environment? The same environment he helped damaged.. come on Bryant
Primer
@mohammedalrozzi @bryantpeng @edisonjoao6871 That's a completely preposterous analogy.
Rajiv Ayyangar
It goes beyond the normal messaging app and makes me feel connected to my family (who’s split across several time zones right now).
Eugene Fedorov
Any plans on Android version?
Sachin Monga
Maker
@fedoroveugenework Yes! As soon as we can build it. If you want to be notified when it's live, you can add your email here in the meantime: http://eepurl.com/gKP2Gz
Alex Conway
Can I self host this and if not, why?
Deleted User
@alxcnwy Because 99% of their target users don't care about stuff like that so it's not worth the investment? This isn't a dev product.
Alex Conway
@bryantpeng The subheading “A private app for the most important people in your life” suggests more privacy than simply not letting other people into the conversation. Privacy is a feature sorely missing in the space where there are many other options that provide the same basic functionality as Cocoon (Whatsapp / Slack / Facebook / etc) but I want privacy from those service providers, not just from other people in the network (can achieve this using groups in Whatsapp, for example). I don't trust Facebook / Whatsapp / Slack with my data and I don't trust Cocoon either. Regarding your comment that “this isn’t a dev product”, I think it’s a mistake to associate “self-hosted” (sovereignty over your data) with developers. It would be entirely possible to implement this in such a way that I own and control my data while using this product without needing to be a developer or manage servers to keep it running. I also think more than 1% of users care about their data and mistrust companies with their intimate conversations and location updates...
Primer
@alxcnwy @bryantpeng Fantastic response. Although I would say 99.9999% of people don't care about this.
Yury Molodtsov
@bryantpeng @alxcnwy 'don't trust Facebook / Whatsapp / Slack' Then you're in such a small minority it's hardly a good target market.
Alex Conway
@bryantpeng @y_molodtsov I think users care about privacy *much* more than you realize and I'd wager it's going to become exponentially more important as time goes on. "Think Facebook hasn't been hurt by their privacy scandals? According to a recent study, it's time to think again ... Over the past year, 44-percent of younger users have deleted Facebook off their phones" https://www.inc.com/dakota-shane... I also think we're going to see loads more privacy-focused startups coming. Privacy is a feature. I actually can't think of a single example where I wouldn't like more privacy as a feature of a product I use. As I type this, the #3 product on PH today is "Winston Privacy" focused on reclaiming your online privacy on all the connected devices at home. I guess we'll have to wait and see...
Alex Cornell
Top Product
Maker
Hello I'm Alex, one of the cofounders of Cocoon. The site and the video do a good job covering the highlights – I'll chime in with sometime I'm particularly excited about, which is the threading model we built into Cocoon. We refer to it as clustered conversations. In a typical message thread, the entire conversation is linear. Every message is added onto the end of a single thread. This makes for a really lightweight exchange that can be contained in one view. However, for group chats in particular this can be chaotic, especially when multiple topics are being discussed at once. By contrast, feeds are organized around posts, which host their own distinct comment threads. This is great for organization, but comes at the cost of navigational overhead, where comments are displayed on separate pages and posts need to be organized algorithmically. Since Cocoon is a dedicated space for a group, we can take unique liberties with the construction of the space itself. We are able to combine the lightweight linearity of a messaging thread, with the organized comment model of a reverse-chronological feed. The main view in Cocoon is a combination of manual and ambient updates, appearing in the order they were created. Each update – each piece of context – is capable of hosting its own conversation attached to it. When you tap on any update, the keyboard will appear and you can reply in-line. Your comment will attach directly to whatever you clicked on, and the order of the top-level updates will remain unchanged. This allows multiple conversations to occur at once, all in a single view. The end result is a cluster of conversations, built on a clear hierarchy between top-level updates and their attached comments.
Kyle Mitchell
Can you point to a privacy policy?
Amrith
@jaggedlines according to their App Store page, here's their privacy policy 🙌
Sachin Monga
Maker
@jaggedlines @amrith thanks for finding! we're working on making our privacy policy more discoverable and making the language itself a lot stronger and more clear as we speak too.
Kunal Kundu
This app seems really great. I'd come and work for you on this but I am still in college learning things.
Alex Cornell
Top Product
Maker
@kunal_kundu College is awesome. Keep learning things. When you've learned enough things, call us and tell us about those things.
Armand
Great job launching for Thanksgiving, very smart.
Alex Cornell
Top Product
Maker
@armand Very smart...until I'm at home, responding to customer feedback, with my family wondering why I'm not at the dinner table. (lol)
Armand
@alexcornell Those users will remember the proactive service they received on Holiday and will become ambassadors for life :-) I think the timing of Cocoon is perfect, let's get this bread.
Alex Cornell
Top Product
Maker
@armand Awesome :)
Devesh Kumar
This seems to be the alternative to Path, that I was looking for.
Katey Nilan
Cocoon replaced instagram and group chats for me. My family in Texas and I use it EVERY SINGLE DAY multiple times a day. I've learned so much more about my family's day to day that would be impossible to catch up over sporadic texts or calls. Thank you for building this!
George Gabonian
Would love to see this on Android too! (otherwise my family will be split in two)
Sachin Monga
Maker
@gvg @fedoroveugenework I am so sad we weren't able to ship Android in time for the initial launch, especially outside of NA we know that most groups would be mixed or Android-only. We also think being cross-platform will be especially useful in an era of green bubbles and native OS systems that don't play well with each other. If you'd like an email as soon as Android is live, you can subscribe here http://eepurl.com/gKP2Gz
David Kampmann
Ok, looks interesting. My family is connected all through iMessage. What is the 10x value to switch?
Alex Cornell
Top Product
Maker
@mrkampmann A good question – for 99% of the threads you have on iMessage, Cocoon probably won't get you to 10x value. It's designed for the 1% of people who you care about 100x more. For those people, Cocoon is easily 10x better, largely because it is designed for that specific use-case (supporting your closest relationships). Sachin touches on this above – basically there is a whole category of features that wouldn't make *any* sense inside of a general purpose messaging app, but would provide incredible value inside Cocoon. Two I'm excited about here are: ambient sharing (lightweight automatic updates around location/weather/activity etc) and automatic flight tracking (which is coming soon).
Joël Kai Lenz
I ve been using Cocoon for over a month now with my family and love every thing about it! We are super excited to soon see more features! Great Job Alex and Sachin!
Sachin Monga
Maker
@ankericious Thank you so much for your early support!
Jihad?!
Looks like a promising App! Looking forward to see how it goes; especially after seeing how Apps like @Path and @MeWe are tackling this. Such apps had a huge domination in Arab market, after @Path announced closing, similar applications i.e. @MeWe got a flood of hundreds thousands of customers in that segment. Some of them had to increase server capacity. Good luck .
Patrick Finlay
Cocoon is a really beautiful product! I love the way that @monga and the team think about relationships - excited to see where things go next.
Ghost Kitty
Comment Deleted
Alex Cornell
Top Product
Maker
@gersom Thanks Gersom! Sachin touched on data /privacy above, so I'll direct you there for your first question. To get to profitability, we are planning to monetize with paid subscriptions. It's free today, while we work on nailing the core mechanics. Ultimately, Cocoon should be valuable enough that you would want to pay for it. That's the goal. It is not currently possible to be in multiple Cocoons. This is our #2 most requested feature (behind Android) and it's absolutely on the roadmap. For both, I don't have an exact ETA, but I am optimistic that multi-Cocoon could be out before EoY. Thanks for your questions!
Deleted User
@alexcornell - just wanted to say I'm a fan of your work. Was not surprised at all by the production quality of this video and the visual/motion design of the app. Some really interesting ideas worth exploring here, excited to see the team iterate on this!
Alex Cornell
Top Product
Maker
@bryantpeng Thank you! Any chance to break out the Origami prototyping machine, I will TAKE IT!
Jason Cross
Rolling this out to my group of friends as we speak. We have missed PATH dearly. Any future plans for song tagging/identifying? We always share new and/or memorable songs through out our day.
Alex Cornell
Top Product
Maker
@jason_cross Song tagging is on the list, and now one point higher based on your vote!
Khalil Fadhel
I like the idea of the chitchat, hoping tge conversation are really removed after. The flight tracking and those kinds of details help differentiate it from other messaging app and it makes sense. It would be cool to be able to make announcements. It's promising. Waiting for the android version.