Pero, are we really connected?

I’m the founder and CEO of Kinnect, and right now, I’m on a walk in San Juan. The waves are crashing, the sun’s coming up, and I’m reflecting on what it really means to connect with the people we love.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it really means to connect with someone. Not just liking a post or replying with a quick “haha” on social media, but actually feeling close to the people you care about. The truth? A lot of us are lonelier than ever. Social media was supposed to bring us closer, pero now it’s basically a giant shopping mall pretending to be about connection.

What’s wild is that we’ve created these tools to stay in touch with more people than ever before, but we don’t have the right spaces or habits to actually feel connected. And it’s not just about connection—it’s about understanding.

Why does it feel so hard to stay close?

Families don’t live in the same neighborhoods anymore. Gone are the cul-de-sacs and multigenerational homes. I hear it all the time—siblings who haven’t talked in months, parents who only see their kids on holidays, friends who drift apart because “life just got in the way.”

When we were younger, things felt different. School, sports teams, or even work gave us these natural ways to stay close. But after college, when the group texts fade and people move for jobs, relationships start to feel like work. And let’s be real, life is busy. It’s easier to just prioritize the people nearby because proximity makes it easy.

But proximity isn’t the same as connection.

I think we’ve forgotten how much effort relationships need. Or maybe it’s not that we’ve forgotten, pero we’ve let other things take over—work, stress, fear of being vulnerable. We tell ourselves, “Oh, I’ll call them later.” But later turns into months.

Another thing I’ve been reflecting on is how little we’re taught about what it means to age—not just getting older but understanding each other as we grow.

Now that I’m in my 30s, I’m starting to see my parents differently. I think about what they were going through when they were my age—raising kids, navigating jobs, dealing with the same stresses I’m dealing with now. Pero when I was a kid? I didn’t have the perspective to get it.

That’s part of what makes Kinnect so special. Imagine if your kids or grandkids could look back and see you at this exact moment in your life. Not just in photos, but through your words, your stories, your decisions. Imagine them hearing your voice talking about what you were proud of, scared of, working toward. It’s not just about capturing memories—it’s about creating understanding across generations.

Because right now, we don’t create enough space for that. We don’t really think about what it means to document who we are at this point in time—not just for ourselves, but for the people who’ll come after us.

What holds us back?

I’ve also noticed how much fear holds people back from reaching out. Sometimes it’s a grudge—something someone said or did that hurt you. And instead of talking about it, you just avoid them. Other times, it’s this worry about being too much: “What if they think I’m clingy? What if I’m bothering them?”

And then there’s social media. It creates this weird sense of connection without actual closeness. You see people’s curated lives, and everything looks fine. But you don’t really know what’s going on. You don’t know that they’re struggling with their health, or that they’re worried about money, or that they’re grieving a loss.

We’ve created this culture where we only share the highlights and keep the real stuff buried. But what if we could change that?

The purpose of Kinnect

Kinnect is here to fix this. It’s about making it easier to check in, to share stories, and to really feel close to the people you love—even when life gets in the way.

We’re not another social media platform chasing likes and clicks. Kinnect is a space for your real moments: the aging, the messiness, the triumphs, the little things you want to remember. It’s about building a tool that helps reduce loneliness by improving the relationships that matter most.

I think a lot about what makes a healthy relationship. How do you measure it? What are the things that actually improve it? And how do we create tools that help people build better relationships without it feeling like a chore?

At the end of the day, that’s what we all want: to feel closer to our friends and family. To know that the people we care about see us and that we see them.

We’re all aging together. We’re all navigating this life for the first time. So why not make it easier to go through it with the people we love?