HERQ: A Lost and Found App Powered by People

The Power of Action: Reimagining Lost and Found Through People

NATIONWIDE -FEBRUARY 2026 - (USAnews.com) In a world inundated with apps that demand daily engagement, HERQ stands as a beacon of simplicity and usefulness. It’s an app you don’t need to use every day but when something important goes missing, it’s there. HERQ was designed for that exact moment of loss, when a misplaced phone, wallet, or jacket suddenly becomes urgent and personal.

Imagine losing your phone at a crowded event or leaving a favorite jacket behind at a café. You reach for another device, and in a moment of clarity, you remember HERQ. Not as a social platform or a rewards app but as a tool built to reconnect people with what they’ve lost, through the help of others nearby. With just a few taps, you can report a lost item or help return one. Any rewards that follow are a consequence of contribution, not the purpose of the action itself.

The Birth of HERQ: Why Lost and Found Needed Rethinking

HERQ was created to challenge a quiet assumption most people accept without question: that losing something is mostly a matter of luck. Marko Kotnik, the founder of HERQ, saw lost and found as a broken system fragmented, passive, and disconnected from the people most capable of helping.

Traditional lost-and-found solutions often rely on centralized desks, manual processes, or hope. They rarely leverage the one resource that is almost always present: people. This insight led to the creation of HERQ, a mobile platform designed to activate everyday individuals as part of a shared lost-and-found network, rather than leaving recovery to chance.

HERQ is the brainchild of Rewardhero d.o.o., a company that set out to build something practical before it was ambitious. At its core, HERQ was built to answer a simple question: how can people help each other recover lost items more effectively? Community participation and rewards were introduced only as mechanisms to encourage and recognize that help, not as a purchasing or sales system.

From Transactions to Contribution

The defining shift behind HERQ was moving away from transactions entirely. The platform was designed around contribution specifically, the act of helping reconnect lost items with their owners. Where traditional systems depend on staff, infrastructure, or chance, HERQ is built to rely on people already present in the environment.

Rewards exist in HERQ, but they are intentionally secondary. They serve as acknowledgment for actions such as reporting a found item, sharing information, or assisting in recovery. The goal is not to incentivize spending, but to reinforce helpful behavior in moments that matter.

What Makes HERQ Different: Lost and Found as a Network

What sets HERQ apart is its people-powered approach. It does not rely on tracking hardware or constant engagement. Instead, it is designed to be available when something goes missing and to work through collective awareness.

HERQ functions as a practical tool for real-life situations. Users may never open the app until the day they lose something or find something that belongs to someone else. In that moment, the platform becomes valuable not because of features, but because of participation. Each person who joins strengthens the network’s ability to turn “lost” into “found.”

Building a Shared Recovery Network

HERQ is grounded in the idea that recovery works best when responsibility is shared. Every user contributes simply by being part of the network, increasing the chances that lost items are seen, recognized, and returned.

As more people participate, the system becomes more effective not because of scale for its own sake, but because lost-and-found success improves with visibility and human involvement. HERQ was designed to make that involvement easy, visible, and appreciated.

Designed for Growth, Built for a Clear Purpose

HERQ is designed to grow, but its purpose remains focused. While the platform is built to adapt to different locations and use cases over time, its foundation is intentionally narrow: helping people recover lost items through others nearby.

Any future applications are extensions of that logic, not departures from it. The lost-and-found use case remains the anchor around which everything else is designed.

Usability Over Dependency

HERQ’s strength lies in its restraint. It does not ask for daily attention or habitual use. Instead, it is built on availability ready when needed, unobtrusive when not.

This approach addresses a common problem in modern apps: fatigue. HERQ respects that most days are uneventful. It exists for the day something goes wrong and for the people willing to help make it right.

How It Works: Simple by Design

Getting started with HERQ is simple. Download the app, register, and become part of the network. There is nothing else required. You may never need it but if you do, the value comes from knowing others are there too.

Each new participant increases the likelihood that lost items find their way back. The system depends not on constant use, but on collective presence.

A Founding Vision, Still Taking Shape

HERQ’s vision is intentionally grounded. It is still early, and it is still being shaped but its reason for existing is clear. By focusing on lost and found first, HERQ is laying the groundwork for a platform where contribution comes before reward, and usefulness comes before scale.

As it evolves, HERQ aims to stay true to that founding principle: people helping people recover what matters, one action at a time.

Explore HERQ today:
Download for iOS or Android 

For more information:
HERQ Website