Scratchbac started off last year as a Telegram bot to bring people closer amidst the isolating pandemic.
Ever since day 1, it was our mission to help our community members interact, share resources and create meaningful connections. And indeed, Scratchbac-kers like yourself are kind-hearted and environmentally friendly! Over the past year, we’ve been blown away by the amazing support you all have shown our humble bot:
We have had over 60,000 users join and over 50,000 interactive connections made!
It is exactly this amazing community that has kept us going through all the trials and errors. Inspiring us to take Scratchbac to even greater heights! As we approach the milestone of launching the Scratchbac App, we took some time to reflect on some of the highlights of our journey... First off we have some of the very few posts we saw on the bot!
In fact, in the first month, we were often the ones running all over the island personally responding to posts just out of sheer excitement. We even vlogged some of our 'SB Missions' 😅
One particularly interesting story was also covered by our national tv channel; channel 8. The story was about how one of our users was able to reach out to her neighbour to borrow a walking cane.
Another more heartwarming story was about mental health and suicide prevention. One of the key indicators of mental wellness is social inclusion and having people to reach out to when in need of help. On Scratchbac, we were very glad that our community was able to respond and feedback to us when one user reached out for help. What happened late last year was that the user was on the verge of committing suicide but decided to post on Scratchbac seeking help. Our community members noticed his distress call and contacted us. With the help of the Singapore Police Force, we were able to locate him and bring him to safety.
The journey to where we are hasn't been easy, especially for our small team. Juggling building Scratchbac and studies have been tough. Unlike large tech companies, we don’t have floors of developers and venture capital in the bank. But the support from friends and family, the exciting interactions we see you guys initiate and most importantly the impact you help to create for others keeps us going.
The bot already has an amazing impact. But going forwards, in order to provide a more robust, safe and impactful experience for our users, we must move away from the developmental limitations of Telegram. This is why we have decided to build our own app.
If you believe in us and the work we want to do, be one of the first to use the app! Click here to get notified the moment we launch!