OUR STORY

Launching a start-up is hard for anyone, but launching a start-up for women has extra challenges. In 2020, author JK Rowling said, “We’re living through the most misogynistic period I’ve experienced” and she’s not wrong. When women set out to do something for women – aka ourselves – there are many objectors. Groups are always ready to silence women, “cancel” women and discredit women. Giggle has experienced its fair share of this. However, all the detractors have done is helped prove the need for a female space like Giggle where women can connect, talk freely and be heard.

Do you want to know how it all began?

Giggle started as a conversation between mother and daughter…

I had arrived home to Australia after almost 10 years in America, where I was pursuing my dream in Hollywood to write movies. I wrote movies about strong yet flawed women, romantic comedies where she didn’t always get the guy but she found herself. I was opinionated, educated and determined. But trying to achieve this dream was, in reality, a nightmare. It was pre #MeToo and many powerful men used professional situations as an opportunity for sex. There was much innuendo, invitations to “get a drink later…” and, eventually, uninvited groping. I was on a different page and just wanted to write. Eventually, I left LA for New York, hoping I could keep my dream alive outside of the toxicity of Hollywood. But when looking for a room to rent on the existing rental websites and apps, too many men used what should be a completely mundane task as an opportunity for sex. I needed there to be just one area of my life where sexual harassment, sexual assault and misogyny wasn’t present but I couldn’t find it.

Mum and I spent many nights talking about this. She was shocked and devastated by what I had experienced, as any mother would be. We spoke about how exhausting it can be navigating the big wide world as a woman, how women have to be careful of what we say, do and dream. Eventually, Mum said, “We should do something to help women, to keep women safe.” We thought of all the positive times in our lives and they all involved having a strong female support network around us, because women listen. I realized how much better – easier, even – my life would have been in Hollywood with a strong female support network. So Mum said, “Let’s create one!” We decided to create an app for women, so every woman could have a strong female support network in the palm of her hand.

We had no idea how to create an app. We thought it would be easy… Ha! But my Dad was the first person to take us seriously. He began researching what was involved to turn this new dream of supporting women into a reality.

Within eight months we had a working prototype and a development team ready to create Giggle. What started as a conversation was turning into a real, live app.

Creating the Giggle app with my mum has been the honour of my life. I genuinely feel like everything I have worked for and achieved so far has led to my commitment to female spaces and to Giggle. 

We can’t wait to create new additions to Giggle, continue with work with the women who love the app and to watch the community grow. 

Sall x

We soft-launched Giggle on the the App Store and Google Play at the beginning of 2020.

Female spaces are a place for women & girls to feel safe, secure, enjoy privacy and connect in a way that isn’t always on offer in “the real world”. Female spaces are necessary for many important reasons that can never be minimised. But they’re also just very fun and relaxing. Most women have memories that make them smile from female spaces. Whether it’s bonding with strangers in the bathroom of a bar or sharing her deepest secrets with a group of girlfriends. Female spaces are a refuge for women. It’s only natural that they would evolve into the digital world.

But female spaces have come under attack in recent years due to ideological pressure. Women’s voices have been drowned out by dogmatic abuse, a rise in both online and real world misogyny, and fear, proving just how important an online female platform is.

The abuse women experience online when expressing their opinions, looking for accommodation or doing business is well documented. According to a 2020 Plan International survey, 58% of women world-wide have reported experiencing abuse online, namely on social media and networking platforms.

Tim Berners Lee was right when he commented on the state of the internet. The UN Secretary General António Guterres predicts that the problem of misogyny isn’t going away anytime within the next 80 years. Women need a place to cope with this, to connect, to have a support network.

Giggle is now used in 88 countries around the world. What started as a conversation over wine between a mother and daughter now includes women of many races, religions, regions, ages, sexual orientations and abilities. Giggle offers women a place to find roommates, freelance work, emotional support, professional networking, activism, lesbian relationships and much, much more. The introduction of Giggle Talk in early 2021 has given women their own social media platform to publicly have a voice, where women are there to be heard and listened to.

It is now our goal to ensure that Giggle is a world-class app catering to all women and that all female spaces get the celebration they deserve.

Here’s how we solve it…

Rent a room or find roommates at no cost

Promote yourself or your business on Gigs

Share accomodation, promote your BnB or find travel companions

Create Micro Groups in the following categories for private conversation in groups of 2 to 6 members

Social

Support

Health

Exercise

Beliefs

Activism

Mentor and Networking

Hobbies

Whats next…

At the beginning of 2020, the Giggle MVP (Minimal Viable Product) was launched onto the App Store and Google Play. At the beginning of 2021, Giggle Talk was added to the MVP. Giggle has engaged no major marketing and currently has over 20,000 downloads and many 5-Star reviews.

We have enjoyed the support of Friends and Family who have invested to help bring this idea closer to a reality. Over $AU600,000 has been invested so far.

We have also enjoyed the load support of the many users who have tested for us, and those that are using the app today as their choice of social media.

During the MVP phase, we have dedicated our time to listening to our users to understand exactly what they want in a female space and how they would like it to function. Before we launch Giggle into the mass-market, our goal is to implement what the Giggle women want by constructing the app in a way that creates a world-class digital platform for women all around the world.

Giggle revenue is derived from advertising and in app purchasers. We need to complete construction so that each and every user gets a clear benefit and the usage of the app spreads to a large global audience. Once this has been achieved, revenues from advertising will cover operational costs and allow for continued R & D.

The Giggle goal is to create a user-friendly platform, where women can complete tasks, achieve their own goals and connect in a safe, female-orientated environment, and to ensure that every woman in the world is represented within the Giggle community.

To ensure Giggle becomes a world-class platform for women, we have a dedicated team of developers and coders ready to start from October 2021.The first stage – Giggle Talk Stage 1 – will be created by February 2022.

The stretch goals will be implemented to the app in the order they are presented.

Should we raise the maximum goal of 4A1,000,000, all of our planned stages will be implemented into the Giggle App by mid 2022.

Giggle Talk Verification

Shero Postcard series

Bumper Stickers