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Kinnect.Club helps families save memories and improve relationships across generations. Each member gets their own private, invite-only digital space where they can message each other, answer a daily question, and set personalized reminders to connect with the people they love. Because it's private and invite-only, there are no bots or ads allowed.
Using Customer.io's startup program and technical support, founder Omar Alvarez transformed what could have been months of engineering work into personalized campaigns launched in weeks, and built full-fledged products using Customer.io’s push notification capabilities.
Inspired by the loss of a close friend to cancer in his early 30s, Omar witnessed firsthand how existing social platforms failed when people needed them most. His friend struggled to preserve memories and connect meaningfully with family, his wife, and friends during his final months, ultimately telling Omar, "I wish for something better."
This experience, combined with his grandfather's battle with dementia, sparked the vision for Kinnect.Club: a platform built for longevity and generational impact rather than the conversion-focused goals of traditional social media.
Omar’s belief is simple: if you give people the space to feel like they can be themselves with their family and friends, it increases belonging. Belonging increases memories. And memories are what Kinnect.Club is all about.
The startup challenge: Doing more with less
As an early-stage founder, Omar faced a familiar dilemma. Kinnect.Club needed sophisticated marketing automation to serve their multi-generational audience, but traditional solutions either required significant engineering resources or lacked the features needed for personalization at scale.
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When we think about the product, you have to think about a multi-generational family, multi-age, multi-need, multi-desire for communications. Frequency of communications varies by demographic and also, again, age.
Omar AlvarezFounder
The challenge wasn't just technical—it was strategic. How could a small startup team build complex, personalized user journeys without derailing product development?
Finding the right partner through Customer.io's startup program
Omar evaluated multiple customer engagement platforms but found most charged prohibitive amounts for pre-revenue startups. Customer.io's startup program offered something different: enterprise-grade capabilities with startup-friendly pricing and exceptional support.
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I had to choose: do I want a cheap partner to get me by, or can I find the partner that I'll trust with my data, long-term? With Customer.io, I feel like I found a program that will invest in me when I need them.
— Omar AlvarezFounder
The startup program provided more than just discounted pricing—it offered access to Customer.io's full platform capabilities and technical support team, critical resources for a founder building complex automation without dedicated marketing operations staff.
Building sophisticated campaigns without engineering overhead
Kinnect.Club's flagship "Nudge" feature exemplifies how the startup program enables innovation. Users can select a relationship to work on—whether with a parent, partner, or friend—and receive personalized push notifications over a month to encourage deeper connection.
The technical implementation would typically require significant engineering work: building forms, processing responses, generating personalized content, and delivering it across channels. Instead, Omar built the entire system using Customer.io, Typeform, and Google AI products.
The results speak to both technical execution and user value: 80% of users who started the Nudge onboarding survey completed it and were enrolled in the monthly program.
Hyper-personalization through AI integration
Kinnect.Club's most innovative application combines Customer.io with Google Gemini AI to deliver truly personalized experiences. After users complete their relationship assessment, Gemini generates unique push notifications tailored to their specific goals and communication style.
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Gemini creates experience and message, and then delivers it back into Customer.io. Customer.io hen delivers it as a push notification. So it just does hyper-personalization in a way that we didn't think we could do before.
Omar AlvarezFounder
This approach delivers experiences users describe as remarkably relevant and personal.
Lessons for early-stage founders
Kinnect.Club's approach offers a playbook for startup founders facing similar challenges:
Choose tools that grow with you. Rather than settling for basic email platforms, Omar invested in a solution that could handle complex automation and multi-channel messaging as Kinnect Club scales.
Leverage integrations creatively. By combining Customer.io with Typeform and Gemini AI, Omar built sophisticated workflows without engineering overhead.
Find partners, not just vendors. Customer.io's startup program and support team function as extensions of Kinnect Club's team, helping solve technical challenges and unlock new capabilities.
Think beyond email. Kinnect.Club uses push notifications, in-app messages, and email to meet users where they are across their multi-generational audience.
Ready to build something meaningful?
If you're an early-stage founder looking to create sophisticated customer experiences without sacrificing product development resources, Customer.io's startup program might be your next strategic advantage.
Learn more about our startup program and discover how we help founders build meaningful customer connections from day one.
