When 30-year-old businesswoman Nicola Gunby relocated to London following the pandemic, she yearned for a social circle but was taken aback to discover that she was alone in one of the world’s largest cities.
Born in Nottingham, UK, Gunby, co-founder of the social and community networking app Cliq, moved to London in 2021 with her partner Jason Iliffe following a period in Australia.
Being that gregarious type, Gunby and Iliffe expected to meet people, but they found it difficult.
“How can you be in a city of millions of people but struggle to find true connection? Gunby complained.
Nicola stated that she and her husband, Jason Illife, co-founded Cliq because it felt so impossible. She actually made every effort to establish a simple connection.
Though she thought they were too corporate, she went to networking events for female founders. Because Facebook groups were “so out of date,” she even resorted to apps like Bumble BFF, which she found to be “super transactional.”
No matter how difficult it was, Gunby and IIiffe began to consider the concept of a social networking site that connected people in person.
Following some planning, they engaged an app development company to create the basic framework of an app, which they then tested at universities.
Founded in February 2023, Cliq is characterized as a counterbalance to conventional social media sites. Users can join communities that are centered around their hobbies and interests, which can include faith-based organizations, Pilates, running, and reading.
The communities’ main goal is to plan events that allow users to get together in person and start friendships.
The main goals of the app are to make it simple to meet people in a genuine way and to teach users to put down their phones, which is extremely challenging in this day and age when screen time is so prevalent and everyone is so dependent on their phones.
Since its inception, Cliq has amassed a global user base of 100,000, with the United States, Australia, and other countries contributing £528,900 ($646,000) in funding. Australia and Bali its main markets outside of the U.K.
The creation of Cliq coincides with people looking for connections in the midst of what has been called a “loneliness epidemic,” which is a worldwide problem.
A problem that is spreading across generations, loneliness poses a serious risk to one’s physical well-being and can lead to conditions like dementia, stroke, and even early death.
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According to Gunby, social media and technology have also made the loneliness problem worse.
“We feel so connected through our phones that we can see what our friends or influencers are doing constantly, but many of these people we don’t actually see, so we feel like we’re connected on the surface level, but when we look deeper down, we’re actually really not,” she said.
“The loneliness crisis is going up and up and up, and so many people are looking for connection, but none of the apps are doing anything to solve this.”
Gunby claims that the reason Cliq is successful is because its communities function around a common goal and interest. She explained the difference between social media apps and social networking apps.
According to Gunby, the app is more about interacting with friends than it is about consuming content.
Cliq organized a walking event in partnership with Gymshark. It strikes a balance between making meeting people simple and maintaining the “nice, social media feel.”
