Sircles – The Social Recommendations App Designed to take out Yelp with John Worthington: An EOFire Classic from 2022

When recommendations come from people you know, trust returns to local discovery

There is a peculiar loneliness baked into digital recommendations: anonymous stars, amphitheaters of outrage, and review sections that often feel more like battlegrounds than helpful maps. Circles, the social recommendations app built by founder John Worthington, is an argument against that noise. Its premise is unornamented and stubbornly human: people trust friends, not faceless reviewers. So instead of trying to out-Yelp Yelp on volume, Circles sets out to out-human it by reshaping how recommendations are created, shared, and rewarded.

Origins rooted in frustration and a practical fix

The idea began as a conversation between two friends who wanted a better way to ask, "Where should I go?" They were tired of trawling through scores and conflicting opinions, and the answer they landed on was almost embarrassingly simple: make recommendations strictly social and positive by default. That clarity of purpose informed everything that followed, from user flows to investor pitches. The app launched as a minimal, beta-style product after successful crowdfunding rounds, and the team immediately turned user feedback into a wholesale rewrite to make the experience more intuitive.

Design choices that remove negativity without erasing nuance

Circles avoids the familiar spiral of negative reviews by refusing to host them in the first place. Instead of star ratings and long critiques, the core action is to "favorite" a place you genuinely like. When you favorite something, that preference is broadcast to your own social circle—no anonymous commentary, no public shaming. Optional location tracking and a manual check-in button make the act of favoriting seamless, while "trust tips"—short contextual notes left after favoriting—add specificity without encouraging negativity.

The controls tilt the balance of power toward business owners in a way that traditional platforms rarely do: businesses can update profiles, rearrange or delete trust tips they find misleading, and present curated offerings directly to users. It’s a deliberate attempt to foster collaboration rather than confrontation between customers and local merchants.

Safety, authenticity, and the social contract

Authentication is simple but consequential: every user is verified through a phone number, which creates a deterrent against trolling and enables the app to ban bad actors permanently. That enforcement, combined with a ruleset that makes negative posts illogical by design, creates a calmer environment where recommendations retain the social trust they rely upon.

Gamification as civic design: turning discovery into progression

Circles treats engagement like a neighborhood ledger. Borrowing lessons from successful habit-forming platforms, the team layered progression and rewards onto the core recommendation mechanic. Users level through ten tiers—names like circle scout and circle superstar charting a clear path of advancement—and earn tangible, local rewards along the way. The company intentionally designed rewards to be attainable for ordinary users, avoiding the pitfall of distant, demotivating incentives.

• Progression creates a reason to return: levels, points, and visual animations provide emotional feedback.
• Local rewards close the loop: businesses provide discounts or merchandise that directly benefit engaged users.
• Mutual value sustains the network: users get perks, businesses get referrals that convert.

That reward loop is not just a retention trick; it is network economics at a neighborhood scale. As users accrue value, businesses see measurable returns and are more likely to participate, creating the very feedback loop that fuels growth.

Raising capital through narrative and community

Circles’ funding story is as much about culture as it is about capital. The company raised millions through crowdfunding, leveraging platforms that democratize startup investment. Early rounds were brisk: one campaign hit a $1 million cap in a week, and subsequent activity pushed total crowdfunding past $3 million as the team continued to solicit retail investor interest via a WeFunder campaign. The strategy here is twofold: secure nontraditional capital and build a community of users who are also stakeholders.

Crowdfunding as market validation

For founders who find closed venture doors discouraging, crowdfunding doubles as both a financing method and a large-scale focus group. Circles’ approach—rooted in local media partnerships, grassroots outreach, and careful storytelling—illustrates how a product that solves a clear social pain can galvanize small investors and media allies alike.

Practical lessons from a product-first playbook

Several takeaways emerge from Circles’ arc. Start local and recruit loyal partners who already own trust in a community. Design product rules that make good behavior the path of least resistance. Reward participation with gains that users can actually reach. And when capital is necessary, consider structures that allow real people to become early backers and brand ambassadors at the same time.

Circles is not a protest against every review or rating system; it is a focused experiment in returning recommendations to the relationships that matter. It asks whether technology can be calibrated to reinforce trust rather than erode it. In an era of algorithmic outrage and polarized comment sections, a product that privileges friends over strangers offers a modest but meaningful recalibration of social discovery—one level, one trust tip, and one local reward at a time.

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