Jessica Glowacki spent two decades in engineering and product roles at companies like Reddit and Lululemon. At Reddit, she saw firsthand how platforms optimize for engagement by rewarding outrage over connection—and watching U.S. political rhetoric around Canada made that dependency feel increasingly fragile.

So she walked away and built EH!, a location-based social network designed to strengthen Canadian communities instead of exploiting them. Launched in early 2025, the platform has hit 14,000+ users and 25,000+ posts through pure word-of-mouth, climbing to #12 in social networking apps as Canadians look for alternatives to algorithm-driven feeds.

"As a Canadian, I didn't want to spend the rest of my career optimizing attention while our sense of community eroded," Glowacki says. "EH! is me taking everything I learned and building a Canadian-owned space designed to strengthen connection, not exploit it."

EH! works like a digital version of the hand-written poster on a café wall—intentional, local, human. Users choose which city or neighbourhood they want to post in, and feeds are chronological, not algorithmic. There's no viral reach, no follower counts driving visibility, no background GPS tracking.

"A café wall poster is intentional, local, and human—so we design EH! to behave the same way," Glowacki explains. Posts are tied to places people choose to care about, not wherever an algorithm thinks will provoke them. Discovery favours nearby events, small businesses, and neighbours over viral reach.

The platform is built and hosted in Canada, prioritizing Canadian data residency without over-engineering too early. "We get the trust and regulatory clarity of Canadian infrastructure, without slowing innovation," she says.

Glowacki designed EH! to work in low-bandwidth environments and doesn't rely on constant engagement or heavy media. Location is self-selected, so rural communities aren't drowned out by city volume. The company runs a dedicated feedback group where rural and remote users can flag what's working and what isn't.

"We design from the edges in, not just for dense urban centres," she says. The platform is built around three pillars: community building, economic growth, and tourism. Right now, community building is driving the most engagement, with people showing up to find neighbours and local conversations without being pulled into outrage cycles.

Small businesses get free visibility by default, then can pay for optional tools like enhanced profiles and local offers. There's no pay-to-go-viral model. "Revenue comes from subscriptions and value-add services that help businesses thrive locally, so when they win, the community wins—and Canadian dollars stay in the loop."

Glowacki went from sketchbook to AI-built prototype in February 2025 with a small team. AI helped scaffold the prototype and accelerate decisions that would normally take months. But human judgment defined what the platform wouldn't optimize for.

"AI helped us move fast on the how," she says. "Where we needed human judgment was the why: setting community norms, defining trust and moderation boundaries, understanding Canadian context, and knowing what not to optimize for."

Community-led moderation handles the first layer because local context matters. Trained moderators and AI-assisted tools handle edge cases and patterns. "Communities handle the first layer because they understand local context best," Glowacki says. "AI helps with consistency and load, but never final judgment on nuanced issues."

EH! is the first launch under TrailMix Technologies' broader strategy to build place-based social platforms across Canada. Over the next year, Glowacki wants to strengthen local communities city by city, expand community-building tools, and become the app people download when visiting Canada to understand what's happening locally.

Success isn't about user numbers. "It's seeing real conversations stick, communities self-moderate with pride, visitors discover places through real people, and people say, 'this feels better to be on,'" she says. "If EH! becomes a trusted daily layer of local life—something people rely on, not scroll past—that's a win."