Traction & Validation
Surveys
We reached out to 85 university students and learned the following: 74.1% stated that they found their screen time to be too high. 61.2% primarily consumed short-form content on social media. Only 29.4% stated short form content is the content they valued the most on social media. There is a clear discrepancy here; people don't value short-form content much, yet it is the primary thing they consume, leading to dissatisfaction with screen time. This gap between what students consume and what they actually want is exactly the space Mannequin aims to address.
Interviews
In the process of development, we are working closely with our target demographic to validate our solution. Because our proposed solution is novel, the designs have to be tested and iteratively improved upon. Benedikt is conducting 7-8 interviews every week, resulting in 31 completed interviews as of the 8th of June, 2026. Each interview takes around 30 minutes, resulting in feature-specific and broader market learnings. Of the participants interviewed, 45% stated that they were unhappy with their current social media usage to the extent that they would be willing to download an additional app centred around connection.
Beta Testing
We are currently running a closed beta for university students. In this beta, we have 100 students who, in addition to Instagram and TikTok, use Mannequin as a place to connect and post more intimate, friend-related content. This behaviour shows that Mannequin can exist in the hyper-competitive social media market not as a replacement for existing platforms but as a meaningful addition to them.
