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Knowing Me, Meeno You

Renate meets Andrew

Andrew Greenstein is a San Francisco-based tech entrepreneur and podcaster. He has the easy banter of a 1960’s radio DJ.

We recorded an interview for The Next Great Thing on 23 April. I had recently spent hours in deep conversation with Madhumita Murgia of the Financial Times for her profile "The Loneliness Cure". It left me feeling that interviews with true scholars of loneliness and social connection are a great way to learn.

Andrew’s past podcasts hinted at a deep personal passion for Meeno’s problem space and I was not disappointed, here’s our episode.

Andrew’s raw, vulnerable account of burying social anxiety under an outgoing persona and “just talking a lot” reflects many conversations we've been having with early Meeno users. Men in their 20’s and 30’s who are not at all isolated, who thrive on social connection, they just need… more. But what?

Of Men & Meeno

After soft launching Meeno for iOS in 7 countries in 2024’Q1 we were surprised to find that almost 2 in 3 Meeno users were Men. 

Surprised, and delighted. This flips the script on gender representation for mental wellbeing and clinical mental health services in the US, where men are consistently a minority of users and patients.

According to Calm co-founder Michael Acton Smith, “approximately a 1/3 of Calm customers are male”. That percentage might have been even lower, had Calm not made deliberate investments to attract male users: featuring talent like NBA star LeBron and actor Matthew McConaughey, whilst adopting a more neutral brand positioning, focused on sleep, compared to other mindfulness apps.

Men are also less likely to engage with professional services. “As of June 2024, US men account for 30% of our patients“ says Jake Cooper, founder & CEO of Grow Therapy*, a leading platform for finding therapists that are covered by US insurance.

ChatGPT* (Guys Prefer Tech)

Meeno’s gender split is less surprising if you consider the role digital tools play in accessing relationship guidance. Especially for men.

A Meeno survey of almost 3,000 people in 2024’Q1 revealed that 35% of men aged 18-34 use ChatGPT to access advice on relationships. This is 2-3x higher than for women. To labor the point, the delta in male and female behavior was consistent across all markets surveyed.

The top reasons men cited for turning to ChatGPT for guidance was that it’s a “non-judgmental, private and 24/7” resource. Cost was far down on the list of benefits. After conducting extensive qualitative interviews with early Meeno adopters, the picture started to become clear. It’s not the case that men are less interested in meaningful relationships, or even in therapy for that matter. 

Rather, they are missing an entry point. During many of our customer interviews, Andrew Greenstein’s words echoed in my head.

“I really buy into the idea that if you can name something, describe something, that’s the first step in understanding that it even exists.”

“I look back on any relationships I had pre-therapy and thought: they didn’t stand a chance. I didn’t even know what I wanted. How could I know what I’d want in a partnership?”

Equipped with these insights, the Meeno team gathered in early June and got to work on a brand new version of Meeno.  

Meeno: Level Up Your Social Health

Here it is:

Test users have especially loved that instead of prompt engineering, we make it super simple to get personalized advice for your IRL situation.

Renate

Meeno Founder and CEO

Get Meeno for iOS on the App Store

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*Disclosure: Grow Therapy is backed by Meeno’s lead investor Sequoia Capital LLC