Learn about Peppermint, the Virtual Clubhouse, with Rich Maggiotto

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Here's our host, Dr. Joseph Casciani.

Well, hello to everyone joining us today on our podcast. You're listening to one of our successful aging episodes this month on the Living to 100 Club. And I'm your host, Joe Casciani. Each week, our conversations educate and inspire, helping you get the best out of all the years we're given, regardless of what obstacles come our way. Today's podcast introduces our listeners to the new world of peppermint. A virtual clubhouse for the senior community. Yes, that's clubhouse. Our guest is Rich Maggiotto, CEO of the company. We explore the opportunities for the members of Peppermint, the classes and workshops it offers, and how it brings together those with shared interests and the upside to collaboration between the experts and the participants. Can we really create an online community for those who want to explore new topics learn new skills, and interact with their peers? What types of content are there on the site, and how does someone access it? Why are engagement and connectivity so important to the builders of this program, and how do the Peppermint members benefit from this increased connection with others? Be sure to tune in. First, a little background. As an experienced operator and entrepreneur, Rich has built and collaborated with high-caliber global cross-functional teams that increased consumer growth, revenue, and stakeholder value. Before founding Peppermint, he was head of platform at Tastemade, a global media network that offers lifestyle programming for online audiences, and prior to that was CEO at Chef's Feed, which was acquired by Tastemade. Rich has also co-founded and served as CEO of the digital publishing platform Zinio and worked with a variety of media and internet businesses ranging from Hearst to AOL. Rich is passionate about leveraging new technology to build community and to create innovative consumer experiences. Rich, welcome to our program today.

Thanks for having me, Joe. I look forward to sharing my story.

Well, you're very welcome. I look forward to our conversation as well. I always like to open by asking our guests to tell us a little bit about the journey that brought you to where you are today. I covered a little bit of your history, but what are the, what are the highlights that brought you to where you are today?

Yeah, definitely. I think of my sort of career as sort of the melding of a lot of technology experience around my passions. And so I got really interested in longevity. I've been interested in sort of the concept of longevity for a while. So my personal journey, Joe, probably spans about 3 or more decades, but I'll, I'll be really concise and sort of wrap it up. So I think in the '90s I visited and studied in the, on the island of Sardinia, Italy. I kind of got fascinated with the density of centurions, people living over the age to, to age of 100 or over.. It's now known as a blue zone, but I kind of fascinated by sort of the lifestyle habits, what they ate, you know, how mobile they were, their sense of purpose and community. And so ever since then, I was sort of fascinated with, you know, the, the idea of aging well. In the 2000s, I watched, you know, personally my own parents and relatives retire and saw the big difference between those who retired with lots of hobbies and activities versus those that maybe sat on the armchair and watched Fox or CNN and saw the differences in just sort of their physical well-being and mental well-being. And so kind of also got sort of fascinated on sort of that decade watching that happen. And then now personally myself, I recently turned 50. I got lots of over the hill cards. I didn't really understand what hill they were talking about, but selfishly I wanted to create something that I wanted to use in 10 or 15 years. I think life is refreshing. I have that energy. I created Peppermint with a great team that agrees, and that's our tagline: life is refreshing.

Life is refreshing. That's great.

Yeah. So, so Peppermint, you know, obviously is a virtual clubhouse. We'll get into that and why we call it that. But the idea is that as you start to enter this new chapter in your life over the age of 55, 60, how do you stay engaged? How do you pursue your life passion or learn, learn new ones? How do you do so in the company of others who share them? We wanted to build a clubhouse that offered these kind of things, these workshops and opportunities to learn, to connect, to grow, where collaboration was at the core. And that's kind of how we got from, you know, where I was when I was a student in Sardinia, Italy, to now as an entrepreneur starting a new platform called Peppermint.

Yeah, all these events really pave the way, don't they? I mean, there's always some critical element that helps the story unfold.

Yeah. And I was lucky as I sort of to talk through and think about what we were doing. I teamed up with a group, Redesign Health in New York City. Yes. And another, and another group called Primetime Partners kind of focusing on longevity economy and the idea of longevity around preventative medicine, right? Focusing upstream that the best form of healthcare is never getting sick in the first place. And so we wanted to create someplace that really had people lean into being active, being curious, being connected to others.

Yeah, we really are getting away from that old stereotype, and it's, I think it's given way to a very positive, you know, kind of period to celebrate our senior later years. And the old myth about decline and frailty and care and becoming a burden. I mean, there's still a very small segment of the population, of course, but we're now putting the spotlight on these upsides of aging, how to, how to really celebrate. And I, and I really, I'm anxious to learn more and we'll share more about Peppermint. But I, I think that's, that's certainly the trend that I see where we're so kind of connected to longevity. And we learned so much about the Blue Zones, as you said, Sardinia, and what we've learned about what works and what helps people reach 100 and, and beyond. So yeah, so Peppermint, great. When you and I spoke, I, I first learned about it and I'm just wondering why has it taken so long for this to become a reality? It's seems like such a basic fundamental need. Yeah.

Yeah, no question. I, I thought the same thing myself, but I think there's a, there's a few kind of macro trends at work here, right? So I think a growth of an aging audience is one thing. I mean, I think, you know, statistically, the 65+ population is exploding. You know, by 2050, I think the expectation is that population is gonna double. And they're both, as you mentioned, both more physically, more physically active online and, and than they've ever been before. And, and I think over the past, particularly past 5 to 7 years in my estimation, and I think sometimes you can sort of connect it to the pandemic, I think an older generation has gotten more technically savvy than ever before. We've looked at the research and 91% of our audience owns smartphones. 84% of them regularly post on social media. My mom, for instance, who's in her 80s, wasn't using FaceTime, wasn't using Facebook, wasn't using Zoom. The pandemic all of a sudden, because of the isolation, forced her to do so.

Sure.

And now I get regular texts, which I never got before. Lots of invitation to Zooms. I think right now that audience is much more technically savvy than ever before. I also think at the same time, you know, boomers and seniors now are spending 6 to 7 hours on leisure activities. That's like 60% more than, you know, anyone ages, you know, 35 to 55. So I think there's more time, they're more technically savvy. And so for us, I think the white space to get to your question, Joe, about why is it taking this long? I think there's been a missing online community that's specifically tailored to older adults where they can connect, share, and learn. I think there's existing social platforms out there. I don't think they're the solution. I think they're more about data collection and they're filled with bots and elder scams and things like that. We wanted to create something that was a safe place that was built by peers that was expert-driven. And ultimately we launched a, a solution that we call an online clubhouse that is, is Peppermint. And as you relate, we're over connect, engage, and learn.

So why, why clubhouse? Why do you use that term? I mean, it has a great connotation, but why? What is it about Peppermint that gives it that clubhouse feel?

Yeah. Oh, okay. The word clubhouse. So I think it's easily understood, right? There's like a real life corollary. I think we've all experienced clubhouses, you know, obviously a clubhouse houses clubs and that's what we're at our core, what we have. But yeah, a clubhouse, as you mentioned, it's like it's easily understood and, and it has been since the day that you, you and your neighborhood friends built one in the backyard at the age of 11, right? For me, me. I had a neighborhood clubhouse that had 7 members. We built that out of leftover lumber. We met a few times a week in it. We traded playing cards, we schemed, we talked about girls and sports. Basically, we connected, we played a lot, we learned a lot, and we did more together. And that kind of concept of doing more together is kind of really unique about Peppermint. It's about collaboration. We wanted to build it around a spirit of collaboration where you can connect with others that have shared interests, where you can do interactive activities, take workshops, do interactive projects together. So that's the idea behind Clubhouse. Where virtual comes in is obviously we're initially beginning online. Online is kind of a catalyst, and we built a website that is bringing people together to do this. But ultimately, I think our goal is for the website as a catalyst to bring people together physically in real life as well. So as we get geographic density, more people join in your city, your town, your neighborhood. We want to bring together clubs that might want to meet, you know, for coffee to talk about vintage cars, to talk about gardening, to talk about cooking, whatever it might be. So the idea is initially it's virtual, but ultimately we'd love for these virtual experiences to go offline where people have human connection.

Yeah, that's a great concept. So the virtual is evolving eventually. That's the plan into something physical, virtual space to physical space. Virtual clubhouse to physical clubhouse. That's great. That's great. So what does the visitor find on the website at Peppermint?

Yeah, so if you go to www.mypeppermint.com, that's the website, you'll learn all about what we do and what all the different components are. But ultimately what you want to become is a member. Right now it's— the membership is as low as $9.99 a month. That gives you full access to everything along with a lot of other member perks. You also get like 20 guest passes that you can share with friends and family. So if you want to do a, say, a cooking class with your granddaughter, you could do that. It's perfect for a guest pass. Oh wow. But what does everything mean? So in, in Peppermint, you have clubs, and clubs are where members sort of connect and play and learn in these active communities. And these communities can be, you know, anything from foreign travel tips to backyard gardening guides to photography, for instance. Within those clubs, there's lots of workshops. Those are all expert-driven, so they're prerecorded and available for you to watch whenever you want. But there you can find new friends who share that interest in that workshop, discover new experiences, and do interactive smaller group sessions together. Everything in a workshop kind of culminates in either a collaborative project or a challenge to do together. So we, we encourage you to share and work together on different— those different things. And those are perfect for honing old, old talents or finding new ones. So it's all up to you what you're interested in. And then within the clubs, you have articles and collaborations. We also have live events. These are kind of weekly online sessions where people kind of in, in real life, in, in, in, in a live experience, kind of connect with an expert that talks about a topic. And within each, each of those groups discuss, you know, whatever that compelling topic of the day is.

Okay. So if someone were to join a club, say of photography, they're, they have a, interest in photography, these club meetings are scheduled in advance so people know, like every Tuesday at 11:00 AM or—

Yeah. So when you go onto the site and go into the clubs, we will talk about different live events that are happening, when they happen. We provide the link for you to connect with them and you basically just RSVP. So I'm gonna join that club and you let us know, and then you have that link to do so on that given time. The workshops though are, are what we'll call asynchronous, or meaning that You can join anytime and you basically go in and join a particular workshop, but those are all prerecorded and you can do it on your own time. So if you, if you wanna do it at 9 in the morning, do it at 9 in the morning. If you wanna do it at 11 at night, do it at 11 at night. Regardless of where you are in the world, you can take it on your own, at your own leisure.

Mm-hmm. I see. Okay. So there's gotta be a lot of opportunities for this collaboration, which is kind of the heart of Peppermint and people get to meet one another and share interests and share questions and share support. So how does that work? How do people access that kind of collaborative?

So as soon as you jump into a club, you have a form where you see, you see dialogue and people sharing and asking questions, and an expert, a resident expert for that particular topic or that club is asking questions and talking about particular topics of interest within that club. Then if you want to jump into a workshop, which is more of a classroom-like experience, Right in there, there's discussion. You can have discussion with the expert that's leading that club, or excuse me, that workshop, or you could do so with other members who are taking that workshop at the same time. So there's lots of different ways where you can connect, ask questions, share, post video, post audio, write anything you want, and, and really kind of engage in a forum.

Okay. So the workshop, you said asynchronous, meaning the person can sign up and take it anytime. There might be other people taking it at the same time? Okay. Yeah.

So, so the—

yeah.

So they're scheduled blocks. So this week I want to take a photography workshop with Mike Brown and there might be another 50 people that want to do that as well. And you're taking it together that week. And, and then where the breakout interactive sessions go is that we kind of match you up into more groups of 3 to 5 to do projects together, not a group of 50. So it, it does become more intimate once you're engaged in the workshop.

Yeah, well, I could see that a lot of opportunity for engagement interaction. So what do you, what do you hear from the members? What are they looking for? What are they, what do they want?

Yeah, so, so that's exactly, that's a great question. And, and it's one of these things that every single day and every single week we're learning more and more about what kind of clubs they wanna see, what kind of live events they wanna see, what kind of workshops they wanna see us create. So I can kind of go through, you know, where we are now, the kind of examples, and that kind of gives you a sense of how we're reacting reacting to that kind of feedback.

Sure.

But if you went on Peppermint and jumped into the workshops, let's say you're interested in cooking or baking, for instance, like we have Kathy Gunst, who's a James Beard Award-winning journalist, and she's the resident chef of NPR's Here and Now. She does a workshop on simple soups, how to create, you know, a, a month wor— month-long worthy series of different kind of soups from a basic stock. For instance, we also have, for instance, Brie Arthur, who's a TV contributor and author of The Foodscape Revolution.. She does a lot of gardening workshops, you know, container gardening, things like that. Just if you're interested, if you have a green thumb and you're interested in gardening, you'll love what, what Bree's putting together in different workshops. We have a, a holistic health coach, Jenny Eakes, who does simple tools to, to manage stress. And the idea is, you know, you take this workshop to learn how you can control and, and be better prepared for managing stress when it strikes. If you're interested in nutrition, particularly in nutrition as you age, Andy the RD, the, the, the registered dietitian. He does an Optimizing Nutrition as You Age and the idea of improving your overall health, including cognitive, bone, and blood pressure, for instance.

Yeah.

I mentioned the, the phone photography. I mean, you just go through lifestyle, creative self-expression. You're interested in, you know, changing your wardrobe and thinking about your own personal style. We have our Linda McIntosh who has a workshop called Dress to Impress. Ah, okay. And it's all about that. So Those are examples of workshops, live experiences. Again, it's everything under the sun. We have a live experience around the power of journaling with a life coach. We have a trivia night that happens. We just, we recently did one around navigating dating in the digital age.

Okay.

Good. We did that with G Stone, who's a therapist and sexologist. Mm-hmm. We do virtual tours. We had one about the ruins of Pompeii with an archaeologist. A tour of the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo, Japan, a tour of Camelbak live in the Great Pyramids. So, you know, we are really listening to what people are looking for and trying to create really unique and compelling experiences for them.

Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like it. So they voice their concern, their requests, and you really look to, um, kind of put that into, into practice for them. Yeah. So I, I'm always concerned about, you know, as a psychologist and kind of reaching people that are, not engaged and disconnected, maybe isolating. I know when you and I talked earlier, there's that thought too. How do you reach people that have retreated into their homes? And yeah, maybe they have internet access, maybe they have a smartphone, but they, they're not inclined to connect. How do you, how do you solve that? How do you get over that hurdle? That's a big one.

It's a big one. It's a really important question. And, and it's, you know, first I think we want to encourage people to get off the couch and turn off their TVs, right? We want them to focus on what we call lean forward activities. TV is a lean back technology. We want you to lean forward and, and why do we want you to lean forward? Well, okay, we think there are great risks to being sedentary. We think there are even greater risks to being lonely. I think a couple of months ago, the Surgeon General released some findings around loneliness and social isolation, right? That It's as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Right. So to your point, it's, it's really important to find, to find the kind of people that are still growth-minded but are kind of looking for that thing. You know, we believe the reason why we started off as an online website is, is really coming, coming outta a lot of studies that show that in the US over the age of 50, regular internet users are half as likely to experience dementia. Than people who don't use the internet. And so we kind of wanted to find a profile for those that wanted to lean forward. We're trying to reach them in different ways. Obviously, if you're listening to this and you know somebody in your life, a family member or a friend that might fit that, that profile of needing to lean forward, introduce them to Peppermint. If you're in a senior living community, uh, tell your activity director. We're working with a lot of different senior centers and senior living communities about getting Peppermint injected into their daily programming. We want to do more of that. So we are right now early and we're reaching out and trying to find those, those people that need it. But we are encouraging word of mouth. Tell your friends, tell, you know, listen to podcasts like yours. But yes, it's really very important that, that we, that we provide this opportunity for those that need it.

Yeah. In so many ways, COVID helped people become more familiar and comfortable with technology. But it also produced more of that fear of getting out and, you know, preventive step of just needing to stay indoors. So, you're dealing with that COVID factor as well. And I guess it's really just continuing to reach out and connect with people and through these different senior living settings and other messages, other communications. Yeah. So, where would you like to be a year or two from now? Rich, what do you envision?

Yeah, I mean, I think if you're the kind of person that thinks of themselves as growth-minded and curious and you wanna stay active and you care about, you know, the idea of longevity, obviously you're listening to this podcast, you most likely are. We'd like you to join Peppermint. We'd like you to be a member. We, we would love to have you engage with us. The other thing was we would love is as we grow and as we think about our club expansion and our workshop expansion, we are looking for more and more people to be experts on our platform. So if you have an expertise or a skill, we'd love for you to reach out and get paid. You know, if you want to lead a workshop, if you want to lead a club, we'd love for you to join us and get paid for, for your expertise and your willingness to help. So where do we see ourselves? We want to actually want to grow our platform. We want to grow into more and more members, get exposure, build awareness, ultimately really fulfill our mission of providing a platform that really helps people age well and connects and has a sense of purpose. And ultimately, that's kind of our goal. And so we want to see this grow into that solution that we think is completely missing out there.

Yeah, no, I love that. I love that. We know that social engagement connection is so important. I think it's probably at the top of the list. And we learned from the people in the Blue Zones and the centenarians about, you know, what are the lifestyle factors. And, and one of them is that social engagement and just staying connected in community and volunteering, church, whatever is going on. So I applaud your, your efforts and I, I think your goals are right on track. I think that's just, just what we need to keep working on and get the message out and draw people in and say, look, here's others that you can connect with. You're, you know, they're not next door, they're not across the street, but they're maybe in another city and let's connect anyway.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, the simplest, simplest way to stay healthy is keeping the body and mind refreshed. And so I go back to life is refreshing, right? Yeah.

It's, yeah.

It's made more so when you stay connected to others and have a growth mindset and stay curious. And, and that's, that's what we're trying to do here.

Yeah. Yeah. And the cost you said is $9.95 a month.

$9.99 if you wanna have full membership right now though, your listeners will be happy to know that for a limited time we're allowing sort of 30-day free trial. So if you wanna just give it a whirl for free, go, go right ahead. If you go to the website again, mypeppermint.com, there's a join now button.

Mm-hmm.

You can do it on your computer, your phone, your iPad, whatever it is. But if you go there, go to mypeppermint.com and go to join now, you're given some options. One is a $9.99 per month full access to everything. And the other is we're gonna give you full access for a limited time for 30 days. So you can give it a, you see if it's for you. You can cancel at any time for any reason. It's pretty easy, but we'd love for you to check it out and see what you think.

And if they'd like to stay on, they pay that after the 30 days, that monthly dues.

Yeah, every— yeah, exactly. So it just renews.

20 guest passes, or what is that, 20 units?

Right now we're giving 20 guest passes away. It means that you can invite friends and family to join you for free for a particular workshop or or an experience for a limited time, but it allows you to sort of get people onto the platform that are in your, in your circle, your social circle. Yeah. So you can do things with them.

Great. I think it's great. I think it's a great bargain. It's a great program, great structure. And like I said, I think you're definitely on the right track.

Well, thank you, Joe. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks for interest.

Yeah. So if people wanna contact you, they can reach you or reach out to you at peppermint.com, mypeppermint.com.

Mypeppermint.com. There's different ways to say contact us. You can always send an email to info@mypeppermint.com. I'm hands-on, I'm the CEO and I'm getting this going. So I'm rich@mypeppermint.com if you wanna talk to me directly.

Okay. Yeah. You got your hands in it, so you gotta stay connected yourself. Well, that's great. Looks like we're outta time for our program today. Rich, thanks very much. Before we break, I just wanna remind my listeners to visit the Living to 100 Club website, sign up for my email list, download a free copy of my 9 Tips to Make Living Longer Enjoyable. You'll also see an option to contact me with your questions and comments. I welcome your feedback. Rich, thanks so much for being a guest on our show today. Again, the website is mypeppermint.com, and I appreciate your sharing this, and I wish you the best in the future. And maybe we'll have a conversation about my, um, offering some expertise as well on your site.

Oh, we'd love that, Joe. I look forward to that. Thank you. Thanks for having me on.

Oh, you're very welcome. And thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. Hope to see you next time.

Hey everybody, Jared Sylvester here, host of Retire Repurposed. This podcast is dedicated to help people transition into fulfilling and purposeful retirements. Retirement is a big life change. In fact, the two most dangerous years of a person's life are the year they were born and the year they retire. Few people could just flip the switch from working a career 30 or 40+ years, retire retiring on Friday without methodical steps to living what we call a repurposed retirement. To listen now, search Retire Repurpose on your favorite podcast platform, Senior Resource, or Life Audio.