YOLLO Journey - Friends to Founders

We met a few years ago at GWU, shared classes, and hanging out between lectures became our daily routine. By second semester, Bindaas in Foggy Bottom and Starbucks on E Street became our go-to hangouts. We would crash there after lectures, catch up, laugh, vent, and talk about everything. From who was dating who, who gave us the ick in class, who broke our hearts, which professors to avoid, to which free food event we were hitting next. Just simple, unfiltered, real life moments.

It was never just about the conversations. It was about feeling completely in sync with each other in the moment. If something felt interesting, we would dive into it, ask questions, and stay on it. If not, we moved on to the next fun thing. No pressure, no forcing it, just natural, in the moment connection. We were always in control of what we talked about and for how long.

Our friendship was never about the past. It was about showing up for each other, whether it was big news or just a random update. Always being present in the moment, not stuck on things from weeks or months ago. During breaks, when we were in different cities for internships or vacations, we tried everything from Snap and Insta to chat apps. But nothing came close to the spontaneous, messy, real conversations we had at Bindaas and Starbucks. We were always catching up until we got back for the next term.

Even after weeks or months apart, it was never awkward between us unlike the online world that gets several pending unread chats, old posts waiting for likes or comments, and many moments that expired before we could enjoy them. In real life , we just picked up right where we left off. Drinks at Decades, tater tots at Tonic, late-night runs to the Lincoln Memorial, it all just flowed like nothing had changed.

Of course, we had our ups and downs. Fights, tantrums, jealousy, judgments, like anyone else. But it was always temporary, just part of daily life, nothing like the constant awkwardness these apps create. We moved on quickly, no grudges, no overthinking. We moved on at our own pace. No one said making and sustaining real friendships is easy, and that is the point. The hard stuff is what pushed us from being acquaintances to real friends.

After graduation, we left DC, promising to stay in touch with calls and to meet at least a couple of times a year. However, everyone says friendships fade after graduation, especially with distance and no longer being in the same place. No more dorm drop-ins, no class hangouts, no spontaneous nights out. Same happened with us. Busy schedules made it harder, time zones made it worse. We thought we would call weekly, then it became every two weeks, then less. Slowly, we drifted apart. We tried everything to stay connected, but nothing stopped us from falling out of sync.

Texts started getting seen too late, chats got chaotic with too many pending replies, and the usual “who texted who first” dramas kicked in. Snapchat just added to the confusion with us overthinking if stories or texts were seen, and if they were seen, why there was no reply. Stories vanished before we could even reply. Notifications kept popping up about things we had already seen, just to keep us hooked. BeReal got boring after a week, and those disposable camera posts the next day killed the real time vibe. Widgets and calendars felt like another job, and let us be honest, we all know how much we enjoy our jobs.

And Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, even YouTube if you count it as social media, were a whole different mess. Posts from weeks or even months ago kept showing up on our feeds like they were fresh. (“Going out tonight” – posted 6 months ago!).

Call us crazy. We even tried Twitter and Reddit for discussions, but those were also days or weeks old. Then we tried Pinterest for ideas and even some Chinese apps, hoping something would work. Nothing did. Nothing helped us stay in the moment like we did back in school. No surprise Zuckerberg is now pushing AI friends after making everyone lose touch with their real ones.

It was never about not wanting to use these apps. The problem was they just kept working against our friendship. None of them was going to change to help us stay connected. We just wanted to get back to the basics of how we actually talk to friends or even strangers who could become friends in real life.

That is when we decided to do something about it. We thought about what brought us together in the first place. The simple stuff that made us friends and how it all started that first semester at GWU. We did not swipe on a random app, or meet based on an algorithm deciding our mutual interests. We never asked each other about our likes or dislikes when we met or shared every little detail about our past before deciding to be friends. We just hung out together, eventually became friends, then best friends through shared life experiences and now are co-founders.

Both of us have been through enough life experiences to bring it all into YOLLO. Not just as random app features, but as real experiences that reflect the ups and downs of life. We have lived through online bullying for years, body shaming, suicide attempts, mental health rehabs, depression, panic attacks, loneliness, you name it. We have also seen completely different sides of life, from being rag pickers to travelling the world, meeting people from every background, even those far from everyday reality. At the end of the day, no matter how different we seem, we have all been through something and we all socialise in pretty much the same way. Whether you are rich or poor, hanging out on a fancy yacht or a roadside tea stall, the way we connect does not change. Every group has a mix of talkative ones, the shy ones, the jealous ones, the competitive ones, the gossipers, the short-tempered ones, and everyone in between, and what bonds us is our vibe and the ability to share things and experiences with each other and being present and in sync with each other.

We wanted to build something that made it easy to share daily moments with friends, without expiry limits or pressure to make everything permanent. We never talked in chronological order in real life, so we did not want an app forcing us to do that. We also did not want it to be only about the biggest or most exciting things in our lives. We did not become friends by obsessing over highlights. Our friendship started by sharing anything and everything, even the boring, random, everyday stuff.

We wanted a space to talk about good days and bad days for as long as we wanted, in a spontaneous, random way. A space where boring or forgettable stuff did not sit there forever like awkward birthday posts on Facebook. We did not want deadlines on moments where things disappear after 24-hours. We definitely did not want the usual who texted first, who left whom on read, or who sent a snap or locket first drama getting in the way of real connection.

In the real world, it gets harder to find the same natural, random connections we had in college or just hanging out. When you are stuck in different offices, different parts of a city, or completely different places, those spontaneous moments disappear. So we asked ourselves, how do we get that feeling back? You do not wait around, you build something that actually brings it back. That is how YOLLO came to life.

It saved our friendship by helping us stay truly in the moment. And we really hope it helps yours too!