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Reduce screen time
& Replace mindless scrolling

Our Vision

To empower you to live a digitally balanced life by reducing screen time.

Zario believes that the phone is not the problem, but rather how we use it. By offering innovative tools and resources, Zario is committed to reducing screen time, improving focus, and increasing productivity, so that you can prioritize what truly matters in life.

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What is Zario?

Zario is the first global app to use gamification and psychology to reduce screen time, and help people live more digitally balanced lives. We use the latest psychology research to create engaging challenges in the real world to help reduce and replace unhealthy screen time habits.

Zario helps reduce screen time and improve your habits by at least 1% each day, which means a 100% change in 70 days.

“Habits are the compound interest
of self-improvement”

James Clear, (2018) Atomic Habits:  An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

Why Zario?

Zario creates a customized experience that helps you achieve your screen time reduction goals and become the best version of yourself.

Say goodbye to mindless scrolling and take back control of your time!

At Zario, we prioritize your privacy above everything else, and we ensure that your data remains yours.

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Why Zario?

All good things come at a cost, although social media can be helpful, its effect on our minds can be negative and that's why we want to help create a healthy balance.

Zario provides the tools, and healthy habitual alternatives to “mindless scrolling” and gives us control on how much time we want to spend on any given platform.

At Zario we always prioritize your privacy and your data remains yours and all challenges are completed offline, Zario will never sell your data, that is what we are against.

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The effectiveness of Zario in reducing both problematic smartphone use and screen time has been confirmed in a scientific study at Maastricht University.

Learn More

How it all began

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2017 - A Scroll Free Car Ride

If it wasn’t for a public transportation and Airline traffic control strike happening simultaneously in Paris on a sunny spring day in 2017, then Zario would have never happened.

Ondrej and Killian had both separately planned to visit a friend in Paris and ran out of transportation options and decided to test out a car sharing app to get to Paris from Zurich where they both live. While the other passengers were quietly scrolling their phones for the 7 hours journey, the guys became friends and avidly talked about life experiences, passions and their shared dreams of one day starting a company. This was the beginning of a very long friendship. Little did they know then, that they would one day start a company together.

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2019 - Champagne Showers

On the beaches of Mykonos, Ondrej was celebrating his recent promotion in his previous consulting career and went to the beach with his best friend and brought a bottle of Champagne. His eyes were immediately drawn to a handsome man laying on a beach so he and his friend decided to put their towels in close proximity.  

As they were opening the Champagne bottle, the temperature had caused the pressure to rise, and the cork immediately flew to the sky as it was popped and caused it to shower everyone in close proximity.  This obviously grabbed Bartek’s attention and was the start of a connection that would continuously evolve.

2020 - A Problem That Created More Problems

After years of nonstop business travel abroad, staying in foregin hotel rooms scrolling for hours to feel closer to friends and family, Ondrej and Killian both decided that they had enough of the draining consultant life.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, and people were feeling the negative impact of spending too much time on their phones and in front of their screens.

The Netflix documentary “The Social Dilemma” exposed us to the influence social media platforms have on people. The problem seemed to globally grow out of hand, but nobody seemed to be doing anything about it.

2021 - Researching & Developing a Cure

The year was spent analyzing existing solutions, talking to industry experts across the world and reading every book on the topic of digital wellness, habit change, psychology and gamification. The biggest revelation came from understanding that excessive scrolling came from feeling of discomfort; such as fear of missing out, loneliness, awkwardness or boredom.  What every other player in the space was focusing on was only the symptom, hence restricting phone use actually turns out to have a negative long term impact. What needed to be done, was to treat the root cause. It’s not just about reducing, but about replacing unwanted screen time.

So the team tested all types of prototypes from programmed chatbots on telegram, to physical groups of strangers competing together in meaningful exercises.  The team received such good feedback on their tests, that they were convinced they were onto something big that could help people all over the world feel better, more focused and learn about our own behavior and improve our relationship to our phones.

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2022 - Take Off

The years started off with a bang, where our team quickly grew to 11 people from all across the world. We received governmental funding and support from the Swiss government. We published the 4th and improved version of Zario in the Appstore and Playstore and received a tremendous amount of good feedback and support.

The year will continue on a hyperbolic path, where we will secure funding for the next 18 months which we will use grow our community by 1000x and make a lasting impact on people across the world. Perhaps you want to join us to make a life changing impact? Then send us an email and tell us how you can help: info@zario.io