Our Story — Kubo

The Beginning

A long time coming.

We've used these apps for years. We know the drill: open the grid, scroll through profiles, maybe send a message. The core experience works. It has for a decade.

What doesn't work is everything around it. Inboxes flooded with bots. Safety features locked behind paywalls. Subscription tiers designed to make you feel like a second-class citizen for not paying more. Boosts, coins, and pay-to-win mechanics that turn the app into a casino.

We didn't set out to reinvent the category. The category works. We set out to remove the garbage that gets in the way.

The Philosophy

Why no investors.

Kubo is self-funded. No venture capital, no board of directors, no pressure to grow at all costs. We don't answer to shareholders who need 40% year-over-year revenue growth. We answer to the people using the app.

This matters because of what it lets us not do. We don't have to sell your data. We don't have to show you aggressive ads between every conversation. We don't have to paywall basic safety features and call it "premium." We don't have to invent new ways to extract money from loneliness.

We charge $10.99/month for Premium. One tier. That's it. If you never pay, the app still works — discovery, messaging, safety tools, all of it. Premium gives you more of everything, not the basics.

The Vision

What we're building.

Kubo is the same familiar app — the grid, the profiles, the messaging — rebuilt with a few things done differently:

Safety features are free. Location fuzzing, appear offline, unlimited blocks, discreet notifications, trusted contacts. We just decided these shouldn't cost extra.
Your inbox is yours. New messages go to Requests. You decide what gets promoted to your inbox. No spam. No bots. No unwanted conversations cluttering your chat.
Photos on your terms. You create albums, name them, share them with who you want, for as long as you want. Revoke access instantly.
Fair pricing. One tier at $10.99/month. No boosts, no coins, no consumables. 52-76% cheaper than comparable features elsewhere.

The Commitment

What you can expect.

We're not going to moralize about how you use the app. We're not going to add friction to slow things down or lecture you about your choices. You're an adult. This is your space.

We are going to keep safety features free. We are going to keep the pricing simple and fair. We are going to build features that respect your time and your privacy. And we're going to keep using these apps ourselves — because the moment we stop, we lose the perspective that makes this worth building.