Never visible to your employer
Ask anyone, anywhere
Written words, not ratings
Grounded in research
Why it's different

Not another performance tool.

Most feedback platforms were built for HR process and the performance cycle — not for the person on the receiving end. ZenFeedback was built the other way around.

Performance & HR feedback tools
Surveys, reviews, dashboards
  • Owned and administered by the organization
  • Managers and HR can see your results
  • Tied to the review cycle, pay, and promotion
  • Ratings and scores that invite comparison
  • Limited to people inside your company
  • Your results stay behind when you leave
ZenFeedback
Development, on your terms
  • Owned entirely by you — always
  • Private by design — only you can see results
  • Completely separate from performance & pay
  • Forward-looking ideas, not backward judgments
  • Ask mentors, clients, peers, former colleagues
  • Your history travels with you, wherever you go
The method

Feedforward, in words. By design.

ZenFeedback is opinionated about two things — and both exist for the same reason: to maximize how useful what you receive actually is.

Feedforward — ideas, not verdicts

Instead of asking people to judge your past, every question invites ideas and suggestions for your next step — a practice known as feedforward, popularized by executive coach Marshall Goldsmith. It's easier to give (nothing to soften), easier to receive (nothing to defend), and it arrives ready to act on. Less an assessment of what you did — more a set of gifts for what you'll do.

Qualitative only — words, not scores

There are no ratings, rankings, or numeric scales anywhere in ZenFeedback. A 3.7 can't tell you what to do tomorrow; a well-written sentence can. Every answer arrives in the giver's own words — specific, human, and full of the detail that numbers flatten away. Nothing to compare, nothing to obsess over.

The result: less anxiety on both sides — and feedback you can actually use.

How it works

From a question to a growth plan.

A complete loop in four steps. Most feedback tools stop at step two — ZenFeedback closes the loop, from gathering perspectives all the way to acting on them.

1
Set up
Choose your focus

Pick what you're working on — leadership, a new role, a project, collaboration, or something custom. Your focus shapes a recommended set of thoughtful, written questions you can edit freely.

2
Collect
Invite your circle

Choose anyone who knows your work — a manager, mentor, client, peer, or former colleague. They get a private link, answer in their own words, and never need an account. Group them by role for a lightweight 360, and make it anonymous for extra candor.

3
Interpret
Read & make meaning

Responses arrive in a calm reading room — by question or by person. Star the lines that land, write reflections, and name the patterns you notice. The meaning-making stays yours.

4
Plan
Build your plan

Turn one or two ideas into concrete implementation intentions — specific if-then plans, grounded in behavioral science — then practice them and check back in later to see what's changed.

What you get

Everything to ask well — and act on it.

A focused, calm toolkit. No dashboards screaming for attention, no engagement tricks — just what helps you gather honest input and do something real with it.

Best-practice questions, built in

Twelve focus areas, each with a curated bank of feedforward questions crafted by an organizational psychologist — phrased so people can answer honestly and usefully. Start from a recommended set and tailor every word, or write your own from scratch.

Invite anyone — in your words

Givers receive a private link and answer in their own words. No login, no sign-up, nothing to install. And every message is yours to customize — the invitation, the instructions givers see, and the thank-you that greets them after.

A lightweight 360, on your terms

Group givers by role — manager, peer, report — and read perspectives by group, not one undifferentiated pile. Make a request anonymous and responses stay protected until enough arrive — and you control, giver by giver, who's named and who stays anonymous.

Status, reminders & deadlines

See where every request stands — invited, opened, shared — without chasing anyone. ZenFeedback sends tactful reminders for you, and when life happens you can extend the deadline or send one final nudge in a click.

A calm reading room

Read responses by question or by person, at your own pace. Capture standout lines as Gems, write Reflections, and name the Themes you see — your own synthesis, never an algorithm's. When you want to keep or share them, export a polished PDF report that respects every anonymity setting.

A real development plan

The Growth planner turns insight into if-then implementation intentions you can rehearse with flash cards. Print a clean one-pager of your plan, or share a commitment with someone you trust to hear how it lands — then schedule a check-in to see how far you've come.

Development planning

Feedback only matters if something changes.

Collecting perspectives is the easy half. ZenFeedback's Growth planner is built around the harder one — turning what you heard into behavior you can actually repeat.

  • Pick one or two commitments
    Not a 20-item to-do list. Choose the handful of ideas worth real focus.
  • Write if-then "recipes"
    Convert each one into a specific implementation intention: "When X happens, I'll do Y."
  • Rehearse with flash cards
    A simple practice mode keeps your intentions top of mind, so they fire in the moment that matters.
  • Check in on your progress
    Schedule a development check-in down the road and ask again — see what's shifted in your own words and others'.
  • Share or print your plan
    Save a clean one-pager as a PDF, or share a commitment with someone you trust to hear how it lands.

Grounded in decades of behavioral research on implementation intentions.

Who it's for

For people who'd rather grow than be graded.

If your development matters to you — and you don't want it tangled up in a performance review — ZenFeedback is built for you.

People managers

Find out how you actually land as a leader — candidly, from your team and peers — and grow without any of it touching someone's review.

Project & team leads

After a launch, sprint, or offsite, ask the people you led what to carry forward — even when you have influence without formal authority.

Contractors & freelancers

No review cycle? Build your own. Turn client and collaborator relationships into honest signal about where to sharpen — owned entirely by you.

Consultants & advisors

Gather candid stakeholder perspectives between phases of an engagement, and keep refining how you show up — without a corporate HR system in the middle.

New roles & career changers

Stepping up or stepping sideways? Find out quickly where to focus, with forward-looking input from people who've watched you work.

Anyone growing between reviews

You don't need a title or a cycle to invest in yourself. A calm, private place to ask the people who matter — whenever you're ready.

For organizations & L&D

The moments your formal cycle can't reach.

ZenFeedback isn't an HR platform — and that's exactly why it works. L&D and talent teams add it to their repertoire as a light feedforward instrument for the people and moments performance tooling misses — and a practical way to grow a culture of feedback that doesn't wait for the review cycle.

Interns & early careers

An internship ends before any review cycle begins. Give every intern a real development loop — a mid-point pulse and an end-of-internship feedforward round they take with them into the next chapter.

New leaders, 3–6 months in

The classic integration question: how is this leader landing, and what should they try next? A feedforward round keeps it developmental — completely decoupled from evaluation, so people answer honestly while there's still time to adjust.

Contractors & external talent

People outside the HRIS never get a review cycle — yet many stay for years. Offer long-running contractors and agency partners a development loop that doesn't require adding them to your performance system.

How it stays zen: each person owns their own account and their own results. You sponsor the habit, not a surveillance tool — individual responses never report back to the organization, which is precisely why the input is candid. Development stays a gift, not another instrument of evaluation.

What your program does see: aggregated, anonymized signal — number of requests run, participation rates, and the recurring development themes across the group. Enough to show the habit is taking hold, demonstrate the program works, and steer your L&D priorities — without touching anyone's candor.

Talk to Victor about your team Request a pilot invite

"Turning a vague goal into a specific if-then plan roughly doubles the odds that people actually follow through."

Grounded in the work of Peter Gollwitzer (NYU) on implementation intentions · Gollwitzer & Sheeran, meta-analysis of 94 studies (2006)

A note from the founder

Built by someone who ran the other kind.

Victor Dumeige, founder of ZenFeedback
Victor Dumeige
Founder · Organizational psychologist & consultant
Connect on LinkedIn
"

I've spent 15+ years helping people and teams work better — building leadership-development programs and 360-degree feedback systems at Nike, Qualcomm, and L'Oréal. At Nike I designed the company's first systematic 360 process for its top 200 leaders worldwide.

And I kept noticing the same thing: when feedback also feeds talent and pay decisions, people hold back. The most useful, generous input never makes it into the system, because it isn't safe to say.

So I built the opposite — a tool with one purpose: your growth. No employer dashboards, no scores, no performance tie-in. Just honest perspectives from the people who know you, and a calm way to act on them.

ZenFeedback is in an early, invite-only pilot, and I'm personally looking for a small group of thoughtful testers — managers, leads, consultants, freelancers, anyone serious about growing. If that's you, I'd love to have you in and hear exactly what you think.

— Victor

Request a pilot invite Email Victor directly
Your data, your growth

Privacy isn't a setting. It's the whole point.

People give honest developmental input only when they trust it won't be used against anyone. We protect that trust by design — so the candor that makes feedback useful can actually happen.

Yours, not your employer's

Your account, requests, and responses belong to you. No manager dashboards, no HR reports, no performance tie-in — and we never sell your data.

Givers are protected too

Everyone who shares input sees clearly that only you can read it. Anonymous requests aren't tied to names — so people can be fully candid.

It travels with you

Your perspectives, reflections, and development plans aren't locked to a job. Change roles or companies — your growth history stays with you.

Plain-language promises

No buried clauses. Our Privacy Policy and Terms say what we do and don't do, in language a human can read.

Read the details: Privacy Policy Terms of Service
Questions

Frequently asked

What does "feedforward" mean?
Feedforward flips the usual question. Instead of asking people to evaluate your past ("how did I do?"), you ask for ideas and suggestions for your future ("what could I try next?"). The practice was popularized by executive coach Marshall Goldsmith. It's easier to give honestly, easier to receive openly, and it produces suggestions you can act on immediately — which is why every question in ZenFeedback's bank is framed this way.
Why are there no ratings or scores?
Because numbers are for comparing people, and words are for developing them. A 3.7 invites you to argue with the score; a specific, written observation invites you to try something. ZenFeedback is qualitative on purpose: every response arrives in the giver's own words, which is where the useful detail lives.
Can my company or L&D team use ZenFeedback?
Yes — bottoms-up. L&D and talent teams point people to ZenFeedback for the moments the formal cycle misses: intern development, new-leader integration around the 3–6 month mark, and long-running contractors who never get a review cycle. Each person owns their own account and results — individual responses never report back, which is exactly why the input stays candid. Program owners can get aggregated, anonymized reporting — requests run, participation rates, recurring development themes — to show the program works and to grow a culture of feedback without waiting for the review cycle. Write to zenfeedbackapp@gmail.com to talk it through.
Is ZenFeedback free right now?
Yes. During the invite-only pilot it's free for testers while we refine the experience.
Do the people I ask need an account?
No. They receive a private link and answer a few short questions — no login, no sign-up, nothing to install.
Can responses be anonymous?
Yes. When you make a request anonymous, responses aren't tied to individual names, and they stay protected until enough have arrived — so people can be candid.
Can I use ZenFeedback as a 360 review?
Yes — it works as a lightweight, self-owned 360. Group your givers by role (managers, peers, reports) and read perspectives by group, keep responses anonymous with attribution you control giver by giver, and export a shareable PDF report. The difference from a corporate 360: it belongs to you, it's developmental rather than evaluative, and there's no employer visibility or rating attached.
Does ZenFeedback summarize my feedback for me with AI?
No — and that's deliberate. ZenFeedback gives you a calm space to read responses yourself, by question or by person, plus your own tools to make meaning: star the lines that land (Gems), write reflections, and name the patterns you see (Themes). The interpretation stays yours.
Who can see my feedback?
Only you. Your account and your data are yours — not your employer's, and never something we sell.
How many people should I ask?
A handful of the right people beats a long list. Five to eight thoughtful perspectives is usually plenty.
How do I get into the pilot?
Request an invite below, or email zenfeedbackapp@gmail.com. During the pilot, every note genuinely shapes what we build next.
Join the pilot

Grow on your own terms.

We're opening the pilot to a small group of thoughtful testers. Drop your email and we'll be in touch personally with an invite.

Free during the pilot  ·  No spam, ever  ·  We reply personally

Prefer email? Write to zenfeedbackapp@gmail.com