By Bethany Wallace
It’s a good time. That’s the tagline for Matthew Shanks’ app, Kovii. A free platform, the app allows users to notify others when they’re available to speak on the phone. It creates real, personable connections where you can hear each other’s voice and truly connect.
“If someone has a free moment, they don’t want to bother people if it’s not important. They might text or scroll social media, but they usually don’t call,” he said. Adding that when people do call loved ones, they’re happier. “It’s a better connection and more interactive to talk on the phone.”
He also says that staying in contact with friends and family members makes for better moods, closer connections, and overall better relationships.
“In general, people only usually call each other for big things: engagement, they’re pregnant, things like that,” he said. “If it’s not that caliber of importance, you usually don’t call and say ‘We’ll talk sometime.’ But ‘sometime’ never happens unless there’s a strong reason.”
Shanks said this is a normal trend and has led to further disconnection. Then, when the pandemic hit, people began calling once again, but the timing was messy, if not just plain awkward; no one wants to play phone tag all day long.
Shanks had the idea for Kovii when he became a full-time stay-at-home dad during the pandemic. Previously an aerospace engineer for the Navy (he quit when his wife was stationed across the country), he found a second career as a triathlon coach. But with COVID-19 in full effect, those meetings became few and far between.
Coming from a dark place that so many can relate to amid COVID, Shanks had an idea that could fill two needs at once, he said.
“It was a double frustration. It was my business failing, and then also just being lonely. I just needed people to talk to,” he said. “I was sitting there with my son, bored, and I needed to talk to adults.”
Shanks began posting on social media so that he could talk training…or anything, really. But that had its own logistical issues. That’s when he had the idea for Kovii.
Shanks went to his wife, Rachel, an Army nurse, and told her he wanted to drain their savings to develop an app. He presented the plan and began staying up late into the night, fleshing out the details. He used his engineering skills to take Kovii as far as he could.
“She was the first person I had to prove it to. Because when you have an idea you need to validate it,” he said. “They might understand the idea and think it’s interesting, but then you have to prove it can work.”
He began creating wireframes, 200-line spreadsheets of functions that span all levels of accounts, including features that have yet to be released. He then spent weeks researching development companies.
With Rachel’s full support, he finalized a development company to kick the program into the next gear.
Going all-in wasn’t an easy decision, though.
“I kept going back and forth with, ‘You’re absolutely crazy…you don’t have experience; this is really dumb’ to ‘Wait, let’s think about this. Who’s going to use it?’ Every time we verified it, we said, ‘Yeah this could work.’”
Kovii works like this: After installing the app (available in iTunes and working toward Android development), you create groups of contacts. Known as circles, users add family members, friends, co-workers. Then, when you’re available, you mark yourself as able to talk. Others can receive a notification or look and see who’s available. If they’re busy, no harm, no foul. But if they want to chat, they know they’re not interrupting. It’s also a way for professionals to interact with clients. Completely customizable, users can add free members or upgrade to paid services to unlock new features.
“There’s usually an ‘aha’ moment when people use the app. It’s a pretty simple concept … once people use it they’re like, ‘Oh, this is really cool.’”
Kovii can be used for work, such as a replacement for Calendly, or socially to connect and meet, or keep in touch.
Today, he’s continuing to adjust the business based on consumer feedback and milspouse needs. One example includes connection abilities where milspouses can meet and chat with new friends, either at their current duty station or the next one.
To learn more about Kovii or Shanks, head to kovii.com.