People often use multiple apps for notes, schedule management, and to-dos. But why not combine them all in one app? That’s the ethos behind Hero, an all-in-one productivity app with an AI assistant (of course!).
The iOS app was developed by former Meta employees Brad Kowalk and Seung W. Lee. Both met while working on Facebook stories where Kowalk was the product manager and Lee was an engineer. Kowalk also worked on new AI experiences at the company until 2022.
“When we started working on a new project after working at Meta, we didn’t want to work on something that felt like we were helping people waste time. We actually wanted to create something that helps people save time,” Kowalk said.
So far, the company has raised $4 million in seed funding from Instacart founder Max Mullen, Dropbox founder Arash Ferdowsi, Adobe’s Cheif Strategy Officer Scott Belsky, Meta’s VP of Messenger Ime Archibong, musical group the Chainsmokers, and venture firms including Neo and Abstract.
Mullen, who met Hero’s co-founders through another company he had invested in, said he was impressed by the startup’s vision.
“Hero had a clear vision for how he wanted to transform the way people think about AI apps. I think many consumer apps will have voice interfaces and assistants like Hero, which is trying to become an everyday app so you don’t need multiple apps,” he told TechCrunch over a call.
Mullen said Hero would be useful for families and friend groups as they will not need to use so many apps to coordinate with each other.
The app itself has a single screen where you can see your current day’s schedule, weather, a list of to-dos, a grocery list, and your notes. On top of the screen, you have an Instagram Stories-styled daily brief containing your schedule, news recap, and a daily quote.
You can add people like friends, family, or teammates to the calendar to see their schedule or even share tasks and notes with them. If they are on the app, they can also comment on anything, such as shared events or to-dos. (At the moment, you can share a to-do in a message-friendly format for people who aren’t on the app.)
You can also create an event, reminder, note, or add a grocery item through the built-in AI assistant. The assistant can answer your queries using Perplexity’s AI, and you can save web searches as a note.
Plus, the assistant helps you build lists or notes. For instance, you can title a note saying “Movies like Challengers,” tap on the suggest button, and generate a new list.
Kowalk believes that because of the rise in the number of AI tools available to people, they eventually won’t use different apps like multiple calendar apps, reminders, notes, and weather.
“There will be two categories of apps in the near future. A blank slate chat app like ChatGPT or Google Gemini and the one that shows your day. This app will bring your whole day into one place and will work with your friends and family with an intelligence layer on top of it. We want to be that app,” Kowalk said.
He pointed out that when you use multiple apps, there’s a chance that while switching apps, you forget what you meant to do and open TikTok or YouTube. He noted also that couples — because of social coordination features — and people who have just finished college and are looking for a fresh take on productivity are drawn to this app over things like Google Calendar.
The app is free, and the company plans to keep it that way.
Currently, users can tap on the Instacart icon in the grocery list to search for all items and place an order. The company takes a cut from those transactions.
Kowalk said that this is the area for monetization the company wants to focus on going forward.
Hero is currently working to improve the voice interaction with an assistant, building a habits and goals tracker, and a feature to add events, to-dos, and notes from an image or a screenshot.
