Nowhere to talk about work honestly
LinkedIn rewards polish, Instagram rewards looks and Reddit is chaos. Young people who want to talk about work and study as they really are end up on burner accounts and anonymous posts, which says the need is real and nobody is serving it.
What people actually wanted
Primary research came first. The themes that kept coming up were performative silence (saying everything is fine because your manager might be watching), resentment of hustle culture, and a wish for solidarity more than advice. People did not want to be fixed. They wanted someone to say "same".
From a concept to a working app
It started as a concept called SinkdIn. I designed it, then built it myself: Flutter for iOS and Android, Firebase for accounts and data, around 11,000 lines of code. Along the way it found its real name, Unprofessionally, and a voice to match.
The screens on this page are drawn from the app's own code, type and illustrations.
Getting in: safe first, then fun
Three short slides set the idea: your space, your moods, your people. Sign-up works with email or Google, and nobody gets past two boxes, being 18 or older and agreeing to the rules. Every email address has to be confirmed before the app opens, and the confirmation screen checks in the background, so it moves on by itself a few seconds after the link is tapped.
Then the part people remember. You don't choose a username, you are given one: an adjective, a noun and a number, like TiredOtter_27, from more than 80,000 combinations. It can't be changed later, so you can shuffle as much as you like, and the line under the button notices: "Plenty more where that came from", then "Third shuffle. Commitment issues?" Names are reserved the moment you take one, so no two people ever share it. Pictures come from an illustrated set, so nobody's real face is on show.
Last, you pick your vibes from 16 moods, from Burnt Out and Ghosted to Small Wins. They become the filters along the top of your feed.
A feed that reads the room
Home opens with today's question, the same one for everyone, from a set of 30 that rotates daily: "Petty win of the week. Go." or "Your LinkedIn headline, if it had to be true." Every question is about the person answering, and none invites naming a real person or company. Below it, posts arrive newest first, with no ranking algorithm deciding what you see. The feed loads 20 at a time as you scroll, so it stays fast and keeps database costs down. Even the empty states have a voice: "Somebody has to complain first. Might as well be you."
The detail I'm proudest of is the reactions. What you can say to a post depends on its mood. Nobody can laugh at a post about being lonely, and "oof" makes no sense under good news, so heavy moods offer Same and Oof, wins offer W and Same, and everything else gets Same, Ha and Oof.
Anonymous, properly
Every post is either Posting or Asking, and either as yourself or anonymous: no name, no picture. Anonymous really means anonymous. The post carries no author at all, not hidden, not stored. You can still find your own anonymous posts on a private tab of your profile that only you can see, and notifications about them still reach you.
Anonymous authors can join the conversation under their own post. Their replies are signed "Anonymous (author)" with an AUTHOR tag, so everyone knows who's speaking without anyone learning who it is.
The small things are handled too. A mood is optional, but the app asks once ("Give it a mood?") because moods are how people find each other. If you press Post before confirming your email, the app explains why and keeps what you wrote on screen.
A profile that's a parody staff badge
Profiles are drawn as a fake employee ID. It reads "NOT AN EMPLOYEE" across the top, your bio stands in for a job title, your vibes are your departments, your post count is "posts filed", and the ID number comes from the digits in your username, so TiredOtter_27 becomes 0027. It even has a lanyard slot, a dashed tear line and "VALID UNTIL YOU QUIT" along the bottom. The app's own account is the only one marked "THE MANAGEMENT".
Safety built in, not bolted on
Anonymous spaces go bad fast without care, so moderation was designed with everything else. Any post, comment, reply or person can be reported for one of eight reasons, including "Names or exposes a real person", and a copy of the reported words is kept so the report still makes sense if they are edited. A moderator-only screen lets me view each report in place, remove the content or dismiss it, and the database refuses everyone else.
Blocking is private: the other person is never told, and their posts, comments and profile disappear for you. You can hide any single post. Changing your password asks for the current one, so someone who picks up an unlocked phone can't lock you out, and deleting your account removes everything: posts, comments, reactions, notifications and the login itself.
Written like a friend, not a platform
The copy does as much work as the layout. The post box says "Go on. Nobody here is your manager." A question with no answers says "Got an answer? Say it." The tone is the product: honest, a little dry, and always on the side of the person typing.