Groove’s Year in Review
Community growth, IRL meetups and product updates — oh my!
“Where has this year gone? I can’t believe it’s already December!” This might be the most common statement we’ve heard in Grooves lately, and while it’s cliché to note how fast time flies, turns out it really does when you’re having fun (in the Groove 🕺).
Building a fast growing community and new product means it’s even more important for us to take a beat to reflect as the year comes to a close — we hope you get the opportunity to think back and celebrate how far you’ve come in your year as well!
Our supportive community grew
We came out of our private beta, and now have over 1,300 Groovers. That’s 1,300 people supporting each other along their wavy career paths.
To get a glimpse of this inspiring community, check out 👇🏼
- Solopreneur Toolkits
- Solopreneur-ing with ADHD series
- Meet the Groovers who welcome new Groovers (aka our Welcome Crew)
We celebrated wins together — both big and small
Groovers reached new heights in 2022. Jason S, Thea N, Shaina S, Patrick S, LaShonda B, and Tirza M were the first Groovers to complete 1,000+ Grooves ever.
To celebrate milestones like these and other wins along a Groover’s journey, we now send them little gifts to help commemorate special moments.
We hosted three Groove events in NYC, bringing together dozens of Groovers IRL. But, those aren’t the only meet-ups that happened. Groovers got together across the globe after spending hours getting sh*t done together.
2022 was the year we started gathering once a month on Zoom for Goal Planning Parties, to intentionally plan out the months ahead and celebrate wins from the previous month.
When we asked Groovers to share an accomplishment from 2022, two Groovers, who joined within the last two months, quickly responded:
“My personal win is being part of a diverse collection of amazing people from all corners of the globe. I’ve been so pleasantly surprised with the authentic connections I’ve created in just a few short minutes chatting face-to-face and then co-working. I come away with new knowledge or a new friend every time, and I appreciate that Groove helps make that effortless, productive, and fun.” — Laura
“This is the only community I’ve ever been SO involved in, almost to addiction. I’ve genuinely met so many fabulous people that I get to see semi often and it brings the forlorn feeling of having coworkers! Additionally, I truly get more done within a Groove than outside a Groove.” — Victoria
These two capture what Groove is all about: not just being more productive and finishing your projects, but also finding people who can support you on this crazy journey called life.
We leveled up our friendships from the Groove to IRL
We love seeing Groovers meeting up in real life, all over the world!
- Jessica and Fadzi Grooved together, then met up in Paris
- Tirza lives in Indonesia, but on a big trip across the US met up with Elissa, Orna, Brian, Taylor and others across various cities.
- In May, 18 Groovers met up at an adult summer camp for a long weekend of play, reflection, and outdoors time together. Our Head of Community, Taylor, led a goal setting workshop lakeside on the final night.
Many of our community members come to Groove for the focus, and stay for the friends.
The Groove team also met up for the first time all together at a team meetup in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, full of ideating for the future and the playing of some very intense Code Names and Salad Bowl games.
We released new features galore
Orbits: a way to balance seeing familiar faces and meeting new people 🪐
As we prepared to scale intimacy at Groove, we wanted to replicate how relationships in the “real world” form. Our solution was orbits, which seamlessly builds your network of people you Groove with in a way that’s designed to help you bump into familiar faces, but also meet new people. Read more about it here.
Private Grooves
You can now directly create a private Groove in a group chat, offering more control in who you Groove with.
More ways to discover awesome people in the community
We added a search function on the app to search for Groovers, spotlights on the home screen to highlight members, and chats that allow you to message someone after a Groove ends.
Schedule Grooves in the future
You can now schedule Grooves in advance, for when you want to Groove with someone else or plan to dedicate time to something. These sync to your calendar, and can have custom titles that have to do with a topic or habit.
Simple UX design to make things, well, less awkward
We’re all adults here, but sometimes we need a little help to temper our social anxiety. We added a colored pre-Groove nudge based on time to help remind everyone to be considerate of one another’s time while chatting. We also have a new person indication inside the pre-Groove chat, to see if someone is a “Groover you haven’t met yet.”
Notification control
Set your Grooving hours to make it clear when you’re “on” or “off,” and when you’re getting notifications.
And there’s more where that came from!
View our full product roadmap for all the changes, and see what’s being planned for the future.
We quit social media (kinda)
We decided to take a break from proactively posting content on most social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok). Why? Ultimately, it was about trying to use our time intentionally. We hear from so many Groovers that their relationship with social media is complicated, so we wanted to take a step back and reflect on how we’re using these channels.
It’s an ongoing learning experience, and we’ve since been more active on LinkedIn and Twitter. TBD what’s to come in 2023!
Groove officially launched!
We came out of beta and raised $3.5m to date to help build Groove. Behind everything we do is the belief that authentic human connection powers our best work (and lives). You can read more about our mission and the fundraising here.
Our website got a shiny refresh
We love our newly designed website from Philly-based agency Self Aware. Read an interview with Mike and Jennifer for an insider’s look at the redesign, and this interview with designer Emunah Winer on Groove’s original brand design and how we landed on such quirky colors.
Our global team grew
Groove’s remote-first team added more members based around the world, now placing our team in four continents and six countries!
You rang? The Pick-Me-Up Hotline boosted your mood
When you’re feeling the freelancer funk, you can now call 1–833-HOTL1NE for a 60 second dose of inspiration, encouragement, and good ol’ fashioned fun.
We prioritized work-life harmony
Along with everything we’ve been working on during work hours at Groove, we made sure to balance our personal lives, since you can’t win in one without the other!
- Our CEO and Co-Founder Josh got married in Israel and moved countries to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia
- Head of Community Taylor got a fish and named him Meatball. She also started hosting book exchange and floral arrangement parties for her friends.
- Brandy, our Head of Marketing, read sixty books in just fifty-two weeks! (One standout? Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman)
- Peri, who supports our Community Projects, trained for and ran two half-marathons!
- Co-Founder and Head of Product Sruli finished another year of daily podcasting with Babble on Talmud.
Bring it on, 2023! We can’t wait to see what’s to come, for Groove, our team, and the Groove community. We hope everyone has a restful, rejuvenating, joyous holiday season.
Looking for more Groovy Content? Check these out:
- Join our monthly goal planning party
- Authentic human connection powers our best work (and lives)
- Or, start getting sh*t done the fun way at groove.ooo 🕺🏼
