Bonobos founder Andy Dunn’s newest enterprise is leveraging AI to assist customers make real-world buddies.
If somebody is having bother making buddies, a brand new social media app leveraging manmade intelligence could possibly assist with that.
It’s referred to as Pie, a platform designed by entrepreneur and one of many co-founders of Bonobos, Andy Dunn, to foster real-world friendships by curated group experiences and sensible matching know-how. It developed from his personal need to re-connect with buddies within the post-pandemic world.
After greater than a decade since co-founding the boys’s attire firm, Dunn relocated his life from New York’s concrete jungle to Chicago in 2021. Whereas throwing himself into writing a memoir about confronting his battle with bipolar dysfunction whereas concurrently constructing an organization, he confronted one explicit drawback: he didn’t have any buddies.
“For me, it’s simple. Build a company based on a problem that you personally have. And after 15 years in New York City, I moved back home to Chicago. I thought it would be great because I’ve got family here and friends here. And then I realized I missed, I missed that something, which is I actually didn’t have friends here,” Dunn mentioned.
That painstaking realization turned the catalyst for his social media app, which is on a mission to defeat social isolation. Isolation can happen throughout main life transitions, akin to transferring to a different metropolis, relationship, getting married and having children, in accordance with Dunn. Recognizing there was not an organization that addressed this want, Dunn set out on a mission to fill the hole out there.
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A shot of Bonobos and Pie founder Andy Dunn in 2022. (Pie)
Dunn acquired an organization referred to as Sparked Connections, to create an AI-powered quiz that matches a gaggle of people that will probably get alongside, as he constructed out his platform. With Sparked by Pie occasions, customers reply a couple of questions on their pursuits and preferences earlier than being matched with like-minded individuals for curated experiences akin to group dinners or actions like trivia or pickleball.
When somebody has been to a minimum of three group occasions, retention has been over 70%, in accordance with Dunn.
Concurrently, the app gives alternatives for individuals to attach with like-minded communities at occasions hosted by what Dunn calls “real-life creators.” These creators publish their occasions on the platform with the purpose of bringing individuals collectively on a reoccurring foundation for various actions. The perfect of them host gatherings each week, he mentioned.
Kyle Casaccio, a creator primarily based in Chicago, is certainly one of them. He kicked off Sunday Morning Membership in Chicago as a New 12 months’s Decision and as we speak, it’s pulling in individuals from close by states trying to make buddies in an period more and more consumed by life on-line.
Kyle Casaccio’s Sunday Morning Membership in Chicago. (Kyle Casaccio)
“Like most people, I spent every Sunday being hungover – laying on my couch, watching Netflix, ordering DoorDash, and doing a whole lot of nothing,” Casaccio instructed FOX Enterprise. “I decided that I wanted to take back a day in my life and wanted to get something out of it, instead of wasting it. I thought why do we waste one day out of the week? It didn’t make sense to me. I decided to do the opposite of that, spending quality time outside, eating healthy, meeting new people and being active.”
What began with solely seven individuals, quickly grew to a whole bunch by their fifth assembly. One individual drove 5 hours from Dearborn, Michigan, to the meetup spot in Chicago simply to affix in, Dunn recalled.
“That was one of these moments as a founder where you realize, okay, what I think we’re building actually is something people really, really need,” Dunn mentioned.
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For the primary two years, although, Dunn admitted the idea didn’t work. Initially, the corporate centered on one-to-one matching, although Dunn shortly acknowledged that “you can’t cram a dating experience into a platonic friendship formation like that.”
He modified course after studying therapist Dr. Marissa Franko’s guide “Platonic,” which emphasizes that friendships are constructed by repeatedly encountering the identical individuals in a gaggle setting and finally, opening up to one another.
At present, his app is accessible to customers in Chicago, Austin, Texas, and within the San Francisco Bay Space, nevertheless it already has over 250,000 individuals viewing plans every month, with 50,000 actively becoming a member of.
“Those folks have learned, okay, this isn’t just an events platform. This is actually an answer to how I build a better social life,” Dunn mentioned.
A bunch gathering for Kyle Casaccio’s Sunday Morning Membership in Chicago. (Kyle Casaccio)
Dunn has no plans to cease right here, saying that when he figures out “how the monetization engine works,” referring to customers buying tickets for group match plans by the Sparked by Pie product, he plans to begin rolling out the app to extra cities.
The corporate can be exploring AI-generated bios for person profiles and piloting AI to assist seed group chats earlier than members meet in individual.
A bunch gathering for pickleball at Kyle Casaccio’s Sunday Morning Membership in Chicago.
“You can do magical things with AI to create great outcomes on human connection, with the focus not being on connection in the app, but getting people in the app and then off the app,” he mentioned.
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