Spoony

New feature alert! ⏰ Spoony Journal is here—a personalised health and symptom tracker designed to help users uncover insights about their health. We get it—living with a chronic illness, disability, or neurodivergence can feel like a full-time job you never signed up for. That’s why we’ve created the Spoony Journal to take some of the pressure off, making it easier to track, understand, and manage your health in one safe, supportive space. 💙

It was incredible and inspiring to hear Chanelle Morris talk about her journey with disability and her experience on Spoony. Stories like hers are the reason we do what we do every day.

I’m so excited to share that we’re launching a major new feature this week—Spoony Journal! Journal helps users track and log the things that affect their symptoms, giving them better insights into what’s really going on. But why is a social app adding a symptom tracker? Because Spoony isn’t just a social app. It’s a support platform that gives people the connections and tools they need to manage their health. Peer-to-peer support is a huge part of what makes Spoony special, but it’s not the only way we support people. Providing support and solving problems for neurodivergent, chronically ill, and disabled people is our mission at Spoony— and we're so excited to be launching this heavily requested feature.

So awesome to be able to share the stage with these amazing founders. I love talking about storytelling and I love talking about startups!! If you missed the panel yesterday, here are three things I spoke about: 1) Stories are persuasive My entire career has been about storytelling and using the power of emotion to persuade people. In my previous role I worked with politicians to craft their personal narratives into political messages. I never expected that one day my work would centre around my own personal narrative. And that’s what I’ve done with Spoony. My own personal journey becoming chronically ill and disabled is the founding story of our company. 2) There's only one story I really think there’s only one story. You can see this in everything from Star Wars to Harry Potter. It's this: who am I? There’s a reason for that— it’s really a fundamental question of the human condition. It’s why we take gap years and have mid life crises. It’s why we define ourselves by the jobs that we do or the political parties we vote for. As we were building Spoony, we really thought very deeply about how we could help people answer this fundamental question. And it’s why there’s so much power in giving people a sense of belonging and community. 3) The stories we tell shape the world we live in Human beings are wired to tell stories. Whether it’s around a campfire, or in a Reddit post. Our society is shaped by the stories we tell. You’ve heard the saying that history is written by the victors. What that means is that marginalised voices— women, people of colour, disabled people, have not been the principal protagonists in collective stories we tell. One of the reasons why Spoony has resonated with the neurodivergent and disabled community is that for the first time in a long time, someone is listening to voices that don’t often get heard. We’ve given a marginalised community a platform to share their stories. To feel seen and validated. That is incredibly empowering. -- Thanks to Paz Pisarski for the photo!

Our community events hosted by Larissa Kutny have been a big hit this year! Creating a space for thought leaders in our community to share ideas, tips, and strategies has been massively empowering for our users. We're excited to bring these events onto our platform next year and continue to find ways to bring the community together!

We had a lot of fun at this year's Pause Fest & Awards! Spoony was a finalist in the Customer Obsession category. This recognition means so much because customer obsession has been at the heart of Spoony from the very beginning. Our platform was shaped by the lived experiences of neurodivergent, chronically ill, and disabled people, with their voices driving every decision we make. From co-designing features with our community to ensuring accessibility and safety are baked into everything we do, we’re committed to creating a platform that truly supports and empowers our users. Thank you to the community for trusting us to get it right. We’re just getting started!

The world can be a hostile place for neurodivergent, chronically ill, and disabled people. But it doesn’t have to be this way. A more inclusive and compassionate world is possible—one where everyone is seen, heard, and valued for who they are. It starts with listening, learning, and creating spaces where people feel safe and supported. Change is long overdue, but it’s not too late.

How good is it when people can’t wait to share your app with their friends? We love this follow up video from Chanelle about Spoony!

We're thrilled to share that Spoony was a finalist at the 2024 Victorian Premier's Design Awards! Established by the Victorian Government in 1996, the Victorian Premier’s Design Awards are an opportunity to highlight and celebrate local design capability. A big thank you to our design agency, Shadowboxer. It was exciting to see all the incredible creative projects happening here in Melbourne.

As thousands of users flee Elon Musk’s X, Australian social media platform Spoony is climbing the top charts #startups #startupnews #australianstartups #socialmedia