This morning, NYC-based startup Honestly Now announced they closed their Series A financing round led by Golden Seeds and Canrock Ventures. The team, led by CEO and co-founder Tereza Nemessanyi, has been completely revamping their online product and their mobile apps, and they are relaunching today as a social game that helps reduce the stress of decision-making, leveraging the honest opinions of others online.
Originally known more as a Q&A platform, Honestly Now has morphed into a Q&A gaming experience to “help people make awesome personal decisions together,” said Nemessanyi, who also added that a lofty but real goal here is to make the world a better place. How?
Well, apparently, humans are very bad decision makers. Decision fatigue is real – and at any given time we are all prone to making very, very bad decisions. Sure, some of those decisions may only result in a bad haircut or posting some really bad pictures online. But others could be more expensive, or worse, life-changing.
No matter what level of decisions we’re talking about, they all create stress, and the more we put off decisions, the more stress builds, which we all know is detrimental to our collective health. Honestly Now seeks to help people make better decisions faster, creating a game-like environment that could actually make daunting decisions fun, even delightful. Nemessanyi wants people to feel good and confident about the decisions they make – getting good, honest feedback and opinions from others does actually help us. She calls these offerings “honest moments” and has announced a goal for America to step up and create 1 Billion Honest Moments, which really could make the world a better place. The reduced stress alone could make most of our workplaces a bit more delightful on a daily basis.
So what is Honestly Now? You could look at it as a polling tool to get feedback from others, or “think of it as 1 glass of wine and a good talk with friends” Tereza explains.
Whether you choose to keep it private with your closest friends, or share it anonymously inside our helpful community, we help our members get to the bottom of life’s thorniest questions, fast. We make being honest, kind and helpful deliciously and addictively fun. – Tereza Nemessanyi
"Ask" module guides users toward defining their personal decisions and asking for advice effectively.
HonestlyNow dashboard includes recaps of past questions
Before a question goes live, the Asker can see what it looks like in-format, and give it a final edit before it hits the live stream.
And when you really need more help, Honestly Now experts are also available. Experts could be anyone from Montgomery Frazier, original celebrity styler who worked with Madonna back in the 80’s; Lou Paget, top sex expert in the country; High Voltage, Katie Couric’s trainer, and many others. While the social game aspects will drive daily use and engagement, experts will drive the business.
But Nemessanyi stresses this point:
I see smart advice coming in on Honestly Now from experts whose names you wouldn’t recognize — bloggers, local service providers, professional moms — people who’ve seen and experienced a lot and offer a balanced view on life and always solid advice. There’s a lot of wisdom out there to be harnessed if we ask the right questions of the right people, and it’s wisdom that brings great value.
Nemessanyi, her co-founder and COO Bob Petrie, and the rest of their team has just moved into a new space in NYC. Among their board are Jim Estill of Canrock Ventures, Peggy Wallace of Golden Seeds and Lauren Stanich, former executive at Meredith Corporation and President of Publishing for Martha Stewart Living – an expert of Honestly Now’s core demographic, women ages 30 -50.
You can come meet the Honestly Now team and see the product in action at Wednesday night’s Tech Cocktail Startup Mixer event at General Assembly.