Our Story

Mady Dewey and Ali Howard are friends from college, whom after 8 months together in Seattle, found themselves living alone, far from family as COVID-19 hit. In a time of immense isolation, both turned to social media as a way to find community, but as their screen time went up, their mental health went down.

Trapped in the game of social comparison and recognizing they needed help, the duo began researching how to improve their well-being and found the advise contradictory:

Want to feel better? Eliminate social media. But also, join a community. 

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Mady & Ali believe we can do better, creating a space to easily find community in a comparison-free environment. 

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How are we doing that? 

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Herd runs on shared interests, focusing on connection over content. Each week, we match you with a "herd," a small group chat of people that share a few of your interests. Want to post a picture? Your discover photo feed is filled with people that share your interests.  We also eliminated inherently addictive features, such as pull to refresh, follower counts and excessive notifications. 

From day 1, we have committed to protecting your data, refusing to sell advertising on Herd. On this front, we are just getting started. We believe that users should be owners, and impactful community cultivators should be rewarded for their contribution to the platform. Our commitment to privacy, ownership and building for Web3 will be brought to life in 2022. 

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We believe that the next generation deserves a social space that that help make their lives better, not worse. While we are still early days, we know the best is on the horizon. Thank you for being on the journey with us to the greener pasture of social.