Platform Africa caught up with Anamika Bhoyrul, a Mauritian native turned start-up entrepreneur in New York, to learn about Six Social, a new social network based on the Six Degrees of Separation Theory. Anamika charts her journey to date and looks ahead to expansion across other U.S. cities, with the goal to make Six the default way for Gen Z to navigate their social world.
1. You were born and raised in Mauritius. How would you describe your journey to date, which led you to New York?
I grew up in Mauritius in a very global, multicultural environment, which made me curious about people from a young age. That curiosity shaped everything that came after; studying law in London at the London School of Economics, then spending some time in New York to qualify as a lawyer and later, participate in the NYC Antler Residency, a global founder programme backed by a leading early-stage VC.
New York always felt like the centre of possibility. It’s chaotic and intense, but what really makes it magnetic is the concentration of talent; people who are wildly ambitious, building strange, interesting things and treating risk as normal. That pull is what ultimately drew me here.
2. What inspired the idea to set up Six Social? Was there a gap in the realm of social media connections that you were seeking to fill?
The idea for Six came from a simple observation: every meaningful opportunity in my life came from a mutual connection; a warm introduction to a friend of a friend.
But those introductions are almost impossible to uncover on traditional platforms. Social media today lets you passively follow people, but almost none help you actively connect with the people in your extended network. Cold DMs feel awkward and nobody wants to wait for a friend to make a group chat. We built Six to make those introductions for you.
We base ourselves on the Six Degrees of Separation theory: you’re only six individuals away from almost anyone in the world. I’ve always been interested in how technology can make those connections feel closer, warmer and more human. Your extended network is one of the most powerful resources you have, so we want to help you meet people you’re already much closer to than you think.
3. How does Six Social work in practice and who is it for? Do you need to be a user of Instagram to use the app?
Six is a social network for mutuals. When you join, you sync your contacts and are placed into a feed showing only people within 1-3 degrees of connection. Everyday, you get a notification to share posts with your extended network and connect to them directly.
Most importantly, you can ask our chatbot anything about your extended network – who goes to NYU? Studies Economics? Plays poker or enjoys museums? – and it connects you to a mutual who fits the description.
Our core audience right now is Gen Z, especially students in cities like New York, because they move often, crave new connections and rely heavily on mutuals to navigate their social world.
You don’t need Instagram to use Six, but if you choose to share your username with us, our AI will “vibe-check” your profile to enrich what the chatbot knows about you.
4. Can you share some of the challenges you have faced so far, and how you have overcome them?
Building a social app from scratch is brutal. One of the biggest challenges was understanding how people are using our app and product iteration. Our early versions were messy. We rebuilt the app multiple times, rewrote our graph logic, rethought the intro flow, and kept re-focusing on how people actually behaved instead of how we wished they’d behave.
Staying close to users makes all the difference. Going to campuses, talking to students daily, hosting events, and messaging people directly for feedback helped us iterate quickly and ship features people actually wanted.
5. What kind of feedback have you had from users?
Six has gained a lot of traction across university campuses in New York, where early adopters have been quick to share the app through word-of-mouth and student communities.
Since launching our private beta at CUNY, NYU and Columbia University, Six has already facilitated hundreds of warm introductions; everything from new friends, flatmates, and last-minute study partners.
Users frequently tell us they’ve met people they “should have met years ago,” which feels like the strongest validation of what we’re building. People are constantly surprised by how powerful their mutuals are once those connections are made.
6. What will be the next steps for Six Social?
We’re deepening our core graph engine so people can not only discover mutuals, but ask highly specific questions about their network. Things like: “Who do I know who’s been to Paris?” or “Who likes matcha and pilates?”.
We’re also expanding our university presence across other U.S. cities. The goal is to make Six the default way Gen Z navigates their social world; a personal social memory system that helps you find opportunities and community through the people who already surround you. We want to take Six global so that warm introductions become the norm everywhere you go.
Until then, though, join the waitlist: sixsocialapp.com
