Singapore's new voice app Mentza helps you grow your own communities

There's always something new appearing in social media and digital apps. From Instagram to TikTok, a hot new trend usually comes out of nowhere to take over the world.

Now there is a new app to try that was created in Singapore. Mentza, a unique start-up audio-based app, grew out of a small project its designer, Jayal Shroff, developed during her studies at Lasalle College of the Arts.

"We started creating Mentza while I was studying in Lasalle's MA Design programme. One important learning I had at Lasalle was about co-creation — involving people and community in areas that affect their lives," explains Ms Shroff, co-founder of Mentza.

"Based on this, I thought it was crucial to bring together interest-led communities to co-create their own space. This is the idea behind Mentza. A user experience that provides space for such communities and supports co-creation and growth through design strategies."

Prior to creating Mentza, Ms Shroff had a clear idea but little experience: "This is the first time I have designed an entire app from scratch. I picked up skills on the job, used some software for the first time, and am doing many other things for the very first time. But the most creative part of it all is to produce a tangible version of the concept we had developed as a team.

The most fun part of the creation process was working with a brilliant team and learning from them. All the co-founders, partners, and team members come from various backgrounds and bring in unique perspectives that have helped Mentza greatly," she says.

Like another recent app, Clubhouse, Ms Shroff's project is a live audio-based platform. However, the differences lie in the focus and the democratic nature of access to the various speakers on the app. Instead of waiting for an invitation and then mostly just listening passively as you do on Clubhouse, Mentza allows you to start your own 20-minute conversations, talk to other people, record conversations you find interesting, and highlight particular chats. You can also share these conversations with other people. In a way, Mentza is like the chatrooms of old, but using live voices instead of text.

"Since these conversations are synchronous, they allow more empathetic interaction between users who find their tribe and build communities based on common interests. Communities provide more sustained and meaningful engagement as users continually learn about other perspectives and experiences and share their own," says Ms Shroff.

"The live audio conversation aspect of Mentza sets us apart from Clubhouse, where a lack of community has been highlighted as one of its key shortcomings. We are a social audio platform focusing on finding the right people and communities to bring about personal and professional growth through conversations."

On Mentza, all conversations are limited to 20 minutes and five speakers per conversation. The idea behind the limitations is to have focused conversations that are also more casual and democratic. "The speaker limit ensures that everyone is heard. These focussed conversations have helped greatly to create bonds between people, one conversation at a time around their areas of interest. This has, in turn, encouraged collaboration and altruistic behaviours within the emerging communities," Ms Shroff says.

Mentza is a community-focused application, something that can clearly be seen in the types of content that is most popular.

"Mentza is designed as a platform where communities exchange stories in 20-minute conversations. Just enough time for the best parts of a story and for finding common grounds," Ms Shroff says.

"In the past few months, we have seen ten such communities organically develop on the platform with keen moderators, channelers, creators and listeners. The content on Mentza is based on the different communities that have organically formed on the platform. One can join scheduled conversations as a speaker or a listener or listen to recordings of previous conversations.

"Mentza has grown to become a lively repository of amazing conversations from communities of Well-Being & Sports, Marketing & Design, Careers & Leadership, Behaviour & Social Change, Art & Culture, Entrepreneurship, Travel & Lifestyle, Investing & Personal Finance and Books."

The democratic nature of Mentza means that people from all walks of life have been joining the app: "Mentza has been created for people from across the board, but it may be most helpful for those who may not have the appropriate network or means to access industry experts," says Ms Shroff.

"I imagine this will be especially valuable for students and young people just starting out their careers. As a student, my professors at Lasalle connected me to industry experts, and my conversations with them significantly positively impacted my project. Because of this experience, I realised that the student population could benefit from live and contextual conversations with experts.

"Although we are still fine-tuning this strategy, we aim to have a system where students and young professionals can use credits to invite an expert to their conversation."

Although still relatively new, Mentza has already got over 23,000 registered users, creating more than 60,000 minutes of content, and recently received $400,000 in funding from Inflection Point Ventures. So the future is seemingly bright for this unique Singaporean creation.

"Voice makes communities come alive. Voice brings with it, empathy. And that's why communities that care to listen to each other thrive and grow," says Ms Shroff.

"Our long-term mission [for Mentza] is to get every growth-minded person across the globe to engage in at least one collaborative, short, focused conversation every day so that we can deliver on our vision of democratising real-time access to different people and their experiences."

To join the conversations, download the app at www.mentza.com.