When we started building Geneva, our goal was to create the world's most flexible group communication app — a new kind of digital infrastructure for groups, clubs, and communities of all shapes and sizes. We wanted a place where our 10-person workout crews, 100-person course cohorts, and 10,000-person podcast listeners clubs could live right next to each other and all work just as well.
And sure enough, during our beta period this past year we saw group and community leaders start using Geneva to bring people together in all sorts of ways — some that we expected and others that totally surprised us.
Over the next few months, we'll highlight some of those leaders and groups in more depth — but we wanted to start with a quick overview of the most common & interesting uses of Geneva we've seen so far...
COLLEGE GROUPS & CLUBS 🎓 We've been building Geneva with college in mind since day one. We've gotten to know a lot of different groups on campuses — sororities, investment clubs, a cappella groups, sports teams, radio stations, Model UN organizations — and consistently hear the same feedback from them: "Geneva's way easier than our old combination of GroupMe chats, Facebook groups, listserv announcements and Zoom meetings." We've also seen students use Geneva for off-campus orgs like a regional Girls Who Invest cohort and a college rep program for Rent the Runway. We're really excited to see what happens when IRL classes & club activities pick back up in the fall too. If you're still using GroupMe, come on over!
NONPROFITS & MOVEMENTS 🌎 Many non-profit and movement leaders have told us they love the balance that Geneva strikes: it's fun and easy to jump into yet robust enough to house serious, productive conversations. Kode With Klossy, a coding bootcamp for young women, has a home on Geneva where their scholars and alumni help each other with engineering challenges, offer tips for applying to college, and share internship and hackathon opportunities. Smile On Me has built a cozy space where members share hobbies, ask questions, and just casually hang out with new friends. And special shoutout to Earth Uprising International and all the other groups using Geneva to organize solutions to the climate crisis!
CREATOR-LED GROUPS 🎨 From podcasters to newsletter writers to people with big followings on IG or Tik Tok, creators of all kinds have spun up homes on Geneva to give their audience new ways to connect — with them and each other. We love the Sea Moss Life home started by Kate and Emma (the creators of the lighthearted health & wellness podcast "What The F*ck is Sea Moss") and Parachute Club, a media startup x global community of Gen Z women and nonbinary BIPOC who use Geneva to chat, organize book clubs and movie nights, and run monthly challenges. John Brennan's 5 Minute FC started as a newsletter about European football but has evolved into a thriving fan community. Now, the community feeds the content, and vice versa — a perfect match.
LEARNING COHORTS ⭐ Another common group type we've seen is some sort of teacher, coach or course creator setting up a home for ongoing discussion and support. The Creator Now community started by @airrack and his crew brings together up-and-coming Youtube creators and is one of the most supportive places we've ever seen online. Endurance Nation is a group of ~150 elite endurance athletes led by Coach Patrick, with a post room for announcements and chat rooms like "Bike Squad", "Swim Squad", and "Ultra Squad". Online marketing expert Amy Porterfield invites all of her events' attendees into a Geneva home as a base for live discussion and announcements. The possibilities here are endless...
INTEREST GROUPS ❤️ There are a lot of groups on Geneva that we don't really know what to call other than...interest groups? The Conversationalist is an inspiring community of almost 2,000 young people chatting about politics and other hot-topics, exposing one another to new perspectives as they work to amplify Gen Z voices and "unify the world" one relationship at a time. The Waves, a group led by Casper ter Kuile and Erica Williams Simon, is a casual and intimate online community exploring the future of spirituality, religion, and belonging. Xepa is a home started by fans of one of the biggest TV shows in Brazil, and word on the street is there's a fast-growing BTS fan home too 👀 . There are also, of course, a ton of IRL groups that use Geneva as their online home base; Greenpoint Art Circle, a local art club in north Brooklyn, is an OG that's been using Geneva to share ideas and run their programs for almost a year now!
PROFESSIONAL NETWORKS 🤝 We've seen a number of exciting groups that toe the line between work and play. There are exclusive entrepreneur communities like Good End and leadership circles like TheAList, an invite-only network of executives of color. Then there are more open groups like Per, a fast-growing community of young women in the workforce sharing job opportunities, advice, and just showing up to support each other during times of transition. Nik Sharma's 1,000 member CPG / DTC group is focused on the future of consumer brands and products and falls somewhere in between (it's free and open, but only to his most engaged newsletter subscribers.) And while we definitely didn't set out to replace Slack for internal communication at work, we've been surprised to see a bunch of teammates at retailers and restaurants start using Geneva to chat and organize day-to-day operations.
BRAND-LED COMMUNITIES 🛍️ A new generation of product brands is building community-first, using Geneva to organize their fans, ambassadors, and friends together in all sorts of fun ways. We've seen startups like August, Geenie, and Bubble bring people together before they'd even officially launched to do bottoms-up product development (i.e. Which items should we launch first? What's everyone's favorite packaging concept?) Later stage brands like What Do You Meme, Mejuri, and Thousand Fell are using Geneva to run their ambassador programs while others like Hannah Bronfman's HB Fit and Pattern are a bit more free-form, open to anyone who vibes with the values and vision.
FAMS & SOCIAL CLUBS 😊 Last but not least we have friends & families. While iMessage and WhatsApp are great for small groups, once things start to get bigger or more active they can get...a little chaotic (we've all been there!) A ton of friend and family group chats across the world have made themselves at home on Geneva. One family has a ritual of popping into their video room every Friday night to catch up and wind down the week (hi mom!) and another group called "spooky movie club" came together throughout the pandemic for live chats while they watched scary movies. We've heard about people using the app with their neighbors and alumni networks, and even more formal digitally-native social clubs like Jet Black that give people a fun way to broaden their circles and make new friends.
So all of this is to say, the possibilities are endless! If you're interested in bringing your groups over or starting some up, check out our home templates for a quick start. And if you're already running a group on Geneva and want to be featured in the future, hit us up!
We're excited to see what you do on Geneva next. 😊
Team Geneva