Reinventing Love with AI: Eric McHugh on Disrupting Intimate Connection in the Digital Age

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Pope Replace Podcast Show. I'm your host, Paul H. Flowers Jr., and this segment of the Everyday Entrepreneur is featuring none other than the esteemed Eric McHugh. This gentleman is a creator like none other, amazingly talented. Founder and CEO of DataEng, and I'm looking forward to seeing exactly how we're going to bring some things together, so to speak. So Eric, welcome to the show. How are you, my friend?

Hey, Paul, thank you for having me. I'm, I'm really grateful to be here and I'm doing great. It's a beautiful sunny day in California, so all things working well. How about yourself?

Excellent. Excellent. And it's funny, I usually say that I'm all is well in proverbial Hollywood. I have to say proverbial Hollywood because people think that I'm actually in Hollywood. So curious, what part of California are you in?

I'm in a town called Palos Verdes, so it's a suburb of LA. So it's more, it's more like, it's more out of the way. It's more naturey, more on the hill by the beach.

Beautiful, beautiful. Well, you know what, one of the things that I've noticed about connections that I've come across in California, in and from California specifically, is that they just have the coolest and most chill vibes that I've ever come across. So I'm looking forward to a great conversation today. Definitely love to go ahead and turn it over to you to really get us started with talking about what you're up to right now, kind of where you at and where you've been.

Sure. And like you mentioned, my name is Eric. I'm 31 years old, blessed to be living in beautiful Southern California. My main hobbies are chess, Muay Thai, reading, pretty much anything under the sun, and meditation. I got back— I recently got back from a Vipassana meditation retreat. It's one of the most beautiful transforming experiences I've ever had. If it interests you, I encourage you to check it out. And that's my just Vipassana plug. In terms of work career, I went to UCI. After that, I worked at Snap Inc., helping craft their ad algorithm. Then after that, I became a consultant because I'm like, hey, that probably pays well. And then that's when I started to do my own thing. So as a consultant, it didn't really fulfill me. So I quit that job without a plan in place. My passion was cryptocurrency. I started going to local cryptocurrency meetups in my area, met the original ShopX Aces split team. There's been many companies. Been building that for a while. And the cool thing is, while we were building that company, we had another idea that we were— we had another idea that was just on a random whiteboard that got some traction, got VC funded by one of the best incubators in the world. And an incubator is essentially startup school. So you're— it's like your clump of startups is next to another clump of startups, which is next to another clump of startups. So at a young age, I was surrounded by many, many CEOs, CTOs, within different companies and different verticals at different levels. So I learned a ton from that experience and that actually accelerated my career. Fast forward a bit, we've been building ShopX for a while. I was on a podcast tour a while back, closer to the last crypto bull run, getting attention around the podcast. I went on this one podcast by this dude named Mark. We kept in touch after the show, and then months later, this random AI-looking thing started following me on Twitter. I'm like, oh, what's this? He's like, oh, this is this AI dating app I'm thinking of building. I'm like, oh, I can get users. I can help out. Let me jump on that with you. So I've been building both simultaneously.

Love it. Love it. Love it. Now talk about a transition. I mean, you've got crypto experience, you've got incubator experience, you've got startups experience. You're— and only— I like to say only, um, because it happens now so quickly, it seems, but At 31, man, how do you handle it all?

So, I mean, to be honest, I love it. So I just kind of do what interests me because I view, I think everyone has an inner purpose and I think everyone has an outer purpose. I think everyone's inner purpose is the same and our inner purpose is to raise our own level of consciousness, which raises the level of consciousness of those around them. And that's why I like going on podcasts so much. So if someone leaves this conversation slightly better off, what does that do? They leave the this conversation, they interact with people in their world and their vibe is raised. So it raises their vibe and it creates like a nice positivity upward spiral. And the outer purpose is how do your natural God-given gifts help with your inner purpose? So this just happened to be a crypto startup as well as an AI startup. So yeah, it, it's really just me following my natural talents and I, I also believe in the power of authenticity. Okay. So I'm the number one me in the world. You're the number one you in the world. If I try to be you, I can't beat you at being you. But if you try to be me, you can't beat me at being me. And I also think that people are happiest serving other people. So if you want to serve as many people in the world as you possibly can, the only logical way to do that is to do what you're number one in the world at, which is being you. So that's why it's important to follow your natural gifts and curiosities and see where that leads you.

Well, I'm definitely glad that you followed those gifts and curiosities that led us here today. And yes, I will definitely be the number one me. And though I cannot be the number one you also, I definitely want to give you a shot at chess because that's one of my favorite pastimes. I was literally playing a match on chess.com before we started the recording here. So definitely make sure we exchange and I'll get you on an online game. Now you might beat me because clearly you and algorithms tell me that your brain works very strategically and I play casually. Okay. So don't, don't, don't beat me too bad, but needless to say, and so you've taken a journey. So to speak, coming from that corporate space and then leaving there to become a consultant. I've got to ask, how did that feel in terms of fear and faith? And I ask it in that realm specifically because many of the entrepreneurs that may listen to the show or individuals that endeavor to be entrepreneurs, they may be in that 9 to 5. And it's tough when you've got the comfort and the familiarity of the people that you're around and the conversations you're used to having to then having a dream, a goal, a passion, and wanting to go out and do it on your own. So what was that like for you transitioning from that corporate space to essentially freelancing and going into consulting?

Yeah, so I really love that fact that you use the terms fear and faith, because I think those are two different mindsets. So there's a fear-based mindset and there's a faith-based mindset. I think the fear-based mindset is draining you and keeps you in the known, which is great, but then there's no growth. And I view the unknown as where the growth happens. So the more in the unknown you are, the better it is. And the reason I transitioned out of the consulting job is just because, no, don't get me wrong, like, it's a great, it was a great gig, like, it paid well, the people are very smart, you got to work with some enterprise clients, but it just wasn't my calling. So I just, and I also believe in like, I don't want to get too esoteric, but I also believe in like God or a creator or like the universe or some consciousness or whatever you want to call it. I'm sure there is no name to actually call it, but like, I view that whatever it is has a plan for me.. And I may be too small to, or too dumb to understand that plan, but the plan is always working in my favor. So even if something happens that I perceive as not great, that's still for my greater good. So like, for example, someone, maybe we're looking for investment and then the investment, and this has happened in the past too, the investment falls through at the very last minute. That seems like a bummer, but at the same time point, that re rejection is really just redirection. We avoided money that wouldn't have helped us in the long term. So that's just how I view it.

Beautiful, beautiful. Well, needless to say, such wisdom at— again, I refer to it as such a young age because I got you out a few years, but not many. And it's really interesting to note that at this time and space, in the way that our world and our country is growing, that there's still opportunity out there to branch out and do something different, especially again, as a millennial, right? We kind of get this rap. The younger and older millennials that, hey, you guys are kind of washed up. You don't have any work ethic, but here you are having started, built, gotten funding for, and have now currently concurrently creating multiple entities at this time that look like they're getting a lot of traction. So with regard to looking forward in terms of where you see Data-Ing as well as aces.fund, um, cause I know that's another project as well. Um, how do you manage those in your day-to-day? And also what type of product— excuse me, program management, project management is the word I want to say. Uh, what type of project management are you utilizing to keep yourself organized as you do this again in such an efficient way?

Yeah, so I would say my day-to-day is pretty similar. So I have a morning routine and I have a nighttime routine and whatever happens during the day, I just jump around and whatever most— I tend to follow what excites me most about the two different companies because whatever excites me most is likely what's the the most valuable thing for the company. And of course I have my calendar too. So like I live by the calendar. If there's something on the calendar, I show up just like this podcast. I'm here because it was on the calendar. So my morning routine is I wake up at 4:20 because I find it funny. And the logic behind that is like when you first start getting up kind of early in the morning, it's like, oh, this is, uh, you know, this is whatever. But if you can start with a chuckle, that's a good way to start your day. So the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is I write down 3 things I'm great at. And again, this is a bit like cheesy, but it's what I do. The first thing I do when I wake up is I write 3 things that I'm grateful for. And a lot of times it's something simple, like I have water, I have working legs, I have a bed that I can sleep in. And not everyone has that. So if I'm grateful for that, that puts me in the gratitude vibration. And then it attracts just more in my life after I'm, after I write my gratitude vibrations, after I write my gratitude down, I meditate for around 15 to 30 minutes to get me in the right headspace. And I usually do like a guided one, a binaural beats one, which is 2 different frequencies in different ears to balance you out. Or I do the Vipassana, and then I close that meditation with storing my energy in my forehead and wishing everyone in the world peace, love, and happiness. And the cool thing about that is the universe is a reflection. So if you wish good on people, you get good. If you wish bad on people, you get bad. And I go to the gym, do that. Then I have my workday. Just honestly, it's a bunch of different departments for a bunch of different things. So whatever I need to do, I get done. And then I close my day with Muay Thai. And the important thing about closing with Muay Thai is It's a set class at a specific time, so it keeps me on point with eating too. So if I eat poorly during the day, I'm gonna get hit, which is annoying, and it forces me back in the present moment. So if like I'm thinking about work, thinking about something that happened, I can't properly hold the pads for my partner. If I'm sparring, I just get hit more and I'm like, okay, this is stupid, this is annoying, I don't like getting hit. And then I focus back on the present moment and it's the best way to close the day because of how powerful a workout is. And honestly, martial arts, it just, it's, it gives you discipline and it's just a great group of guys. Well, there's a couple girls, but mainly guys to just be around. So that's how I like to close my day.

I love that. So listeners, if you weren't quite paying attention to that, let's recap. There is a morning and an evening routine. I'm usually familiar with hearing entrepreneurs that are very successful that have the morning routines, but it's not often that I hear about that sandwich effect where you start and end the day in a very structured way, of course, utilizing your calendar along the way. And that's been something that you can attribute to your success. Now let's talk about the systems themselves, the Dataing app and site, uh, dating, right? It's got its ups and downs. And I mean, with there being so many options for dating apps, how do you set Dataing apart from the rest of them?

Uh, so the, what sets Dataing apart is I would say the intention and then the execution of the intention. So there, what Dataing is, it's the first ever AI-powered matchmaking service. What we do is we auto-generate profiles and matches based on your digital footprint and your chatting with Cupid. So it's constantly updating. And the cool thing about dating— so for example, if you would create an account, Paul Ukraine account, you link your social media accounts, your photos, it creates tags based on your social media presence and it gives you a correlation of those tags. It'd be like 0.7 runner, 0.8 reader, whatever, like just a bunch of tags. And then it creates matches based on those tags. And as you evolve, as you do more things as you're looking for different people, your tags are always constantly updating and it's creating matches based on those tags. So unlike other dating apps, the longer you're on the app, the better it gets at matching you. So you're likely to leave the app because one of the biggest problems with dating apps is, well, I'd say there's 3 main problems. The first is it's hot or not. Like, let's say you go on Tinder or whatever, it's basically like, are they hot? Yes or no? Swipe left, swipe right. The second is it's a skewed marketplace. So on the apps, there's like top— the top 5% are getting access to everyone on the app, which is creating an imbalance, and everything tries to revert to balance. And I would say the third and most interesting issue is the incentive behind the app. So if you think about it logically, if Tinder were to match a happy couple, what happens? That happy couple then leaves the app, and then that results in Tinder losing a paying— a paying customer, right? So they're reliant on something called churn marketing, which is essentially keeping someone on the Ferris wheel. So like If you ever hear about someone downing the app, deleting the app, downing the app, it's all by design. Whereas dating, not only do we put you in like, we put you in the best position to succeed by matching you based on your actual core traits as a person, but after the match is made, you can switch to a relationship butler and then it can help you along the way. So for example, let's say I go, um, I'm on the app, I meet a person, she's like, okay, you matched because you both go to a bunch of national parks, great. Oh, you both linked your Apple Music. Did you know there's a concert coming up where you both listen to this artist quite a bit? Would you like to go on this date with Jane? I say yes. We go on the date, we fall in love, we get married, and then Kube can act as a butler from there. So like, oh, you guys have your anniversary coming up. You always forget this. Don't forget this. Oh, she just added this into her Pinterest board. It could be a good gift. Or, oh, the place you had your second date is having half-off steaks or something. May I suggest that? And not only that, is you can ask her relationship questions. You can ask it really whatever you want. You can ask it, hey, me and Jane are put us in our— what movie do you think we would like? And then put us in the story behind that. And the really cool thing that people miss about the dating app is it's actually— think of dating as like a layer 2 on top of ChatGPT. So we've built it in a way— ChatGPT, I think, is the best one right now. But if something becomes better, we can just move our technology on top of that. It's actually a high— it's, it's probably the most personalized AI assistant in existence right now. And that's because we get so many data sources. So we get all the benefits of ChatGPT, but combined with yourself. And what's different about us and like versus ChatGPT is, you know, like some people use ChatGPT to ask questions about relationships and all that stuff. It's become more and more common. What's really happening with that is you're just asking questions and it's giving you a, it's giving you an answer through your own lens. So like if I were to ask ChatGPT, it's like, because I know people take screenshots of messages, like how would I respond? Hey ChatGPT, how, what's happening here? How I respond? Yes, it's answering the question, but it's based on what it learned about me. Whereas dating, since we connect two different people and two different data sources and we connect a lot of data points, it's not just about me, it's also about the other person. So that makes it a better way to plan the dates. And then we're always, we're building in group chats too. So like you can, like me and my friends tested out, like it's just in beta right now, but we're using it to like roast each other and stuff and just like make fun of each other. So we find it funny.

I like that. I like that. So it seems like it's a lot more integrative than just, hey, I'm looking at you and giving things that I think you would want to say. You're actually then taking into consideration how the other person receives communication also. Uh, and if we want to, you know, slap the love language label on there, are you saying that from an AI standpoint, uh, Dating is able to integrate again the way that they communicate what's best for that other person, and can it integrate things like their love language also?

Yeah, no, it can. So just the more chats you have, the more data sources you have, the more you tell it, the more it learns about you. And those tags are constantly updating. So you may tell it something different and then your actions may show something different. It may ask you about it, then it would update based on that. So yeah, we're, we're integrating like astrology, we're integrating love language, we're integrating personality tests again, cuz what AI is really good at I mean, AI is a great tool. I think, well, technology itself is neutral. So there's good ways to use bad AI and bad ways to use the AI.

Exactly.

Yeah. But like, it's really good at pattern recog— analyzing large datasets and recognizing patterns at scale. So because of AI, we can dump a bunch of data into it. It picks up those tags and then it'll notice correlations amongst those tags that us humans would've missed. And the cool thing is like, The more I put in, the more it's learning about me. Great. The more you put in, the more it's learning about you. Great. And then it picks up patterns between both of us. So it's like, hey, maybe people who wear black shirts tend to like people who wear green shirts. That's a cool thing. But then, so that scales across like thousands of users. So like, yes, we're both using it. It gets smarter. But like the more people on the platform, the more they chat, the smarter it gets and the more effective it gets at matching. And long-term, you can match friends and you can do whatever you want. It can be a communication It can be a connecting app in general.

Well, again, I, I've gotta throw this little wrench in there in so much that it's 2025. Obviously I will date this particular episode as 2025, and there is an emergence of what's considered ethical non-monogamy. So we're talking about people that are entirely fine with having multiple partners in an ethical sense. You'll hear the term polyamorous most specifically. With relating to being able to love more than one person. So how does an app like this broaden itself, or are there capabilities of this app to broaden itself to actually handle multiple relationships?

Yeah, so it can handle— again, so we're building it out for a lot of people, and our advisor is actually really deep in it. One of our advisors is really deep into the space, just because that's not a space we personally know. So if you're looking for monogamy, that's great. If you're looking for same sex, whether you agree with it or not, that's great. If you're looking for polyamory, that's great. And again, that's where the user has to be honest and just tell them what they're looking for. Or if it picks it up from the pictures or from their conversations, it'll pick up, oh, this person's into polyamory, and then it would tell the other person, if this is what you're into, then we can match you as well. And then from there, it's just like a normal dating app where you can create— let's say it's me, I have a harem of 5 girlfriends. I can either have individual chats, we can have a big group chat together where it's like, okay, me and my 5 beautiful women, where do we want to go on vacation that satisfies everyone's needs? What restaurants do we want to do? And it can help in that sense. And the cool thing is, dude, like, I was testing this out with a coworker. Yeah. Where we're just like, we're messing around with it. So we're just like having fun. And she's like, okay, how would we introduce another couple into our relationship? And can you do it in a fun way? And the advice it gave was actually pretty good based on our personalities. And it's just a fun game where we're watching a movie where we have Italian food because that's all we like. So it can help in that sense. So maybe one person's more advanced. It's like, is Cupid— we have a feature where within the match you can just @Cupid and ask it questions about people. So you're like, hey, what should we do for dinner? What should we do for hiking? What movie do you think we would like? But you can also ask questions about that where it's like, okay, we're introducing— we're thinking about adding another couple to our relationship. How— what's the best way to do that based on our personalities? And it can help. So that's— that was a cool, unexpected feature.

Uh, very much so. And I can see some really, really interesting, uh, partners and avenues to even continue the testing if it's not totally in production as far as that capability, but also expose it to. So yeah, definitely want to see more and, and actually hop on the app and, and thumb around a bit and make some recommendations because I think that this is amazing to be able to take that level of intricate detail about a person and match them based on all these other characteristics. Because again, Eric, you're exactly right. AI can take all of these points about a person, and then it reminds me of the movie, um, with the big gold sphere, Eagle Eye, uh, back in the day. I think, uh, Shia LaBeouf was in that one. Um, but basically it took all of his digital footprint and it can tell him about himself in seconds. So As it would take for us, again, using our human brain, so long to get to know someone, to figure out if we're a match, and then you go through and then up using time and money and the only resource that we have, our energy, in order to find out, eh, I'm not really compatible. Utilizing AI that actually takes a digital footprint, again, from honest input, it seems like a much more efficient way of connecting, which is really strange to say considering It's leaning on, again, quote unquote, artificial intelligence versus humans and the natural feel of things. So I'm curious, you know, when was the moment for you that you realized that, you know, the current way of dating apps and the current ways that they've been servicing the marketplace were broken and that you could actually be the person to fix them?

Yeah, so I'd say it was a while ago. So I'm 31 right now, but it was my freshman in college where I started getting into the marketplace and reading about it. It's like in freshman, like, you know, like guys have girl problems. I'm like, oh, what's wrong? Why can't I get matches on Tinder? How come this is so poorly? And then you start searching for answers. Yeah. And then you start going down that specific rabbit hole and then it gives you the issues and then you start looking into it and you're like, oh God, this is actually not great for society. And I like the way you said it, where it's like your energy is your most important resource. And a lot of times time, energy, because it's time and energy spent on the wrong person. Is an opportunity cost. An opportunity cost is time spent on the right person. So that's a big problem with dating apps. And not to mention, on the current apps, there's lots and lots of bots. And with AI, the bots are getting better and better. So imagine, like, you're spending time on an app talking to a bot. That's just not time we're going to get back. So that's where dating comes into play.

Well, you know what, and you bring up a really good question because I've seen that. And of course, I'd read a lot and kind of investigate some of these arenas before having these conversations with those bots. I mean, it seems like it's a money grab and, and with all due respect to creators of data apps, excuse me, uh, dating apps and sites, it almost seems like it would be advantageous for the creator of the site to instill these bots within the community so that they're preying on the people that are going to be paying mostly because typically, you know, the, the females may have, uh, or those who identify as female Right. May have the free sites or freer access and the gentlemen or people who identify as male might have the paid sites or might be more prone to pay in order to find that connection or whatever it is that they're looking for. So as a creator, how can you ensure or assure, I should say, how would you assure the audience that, you know, you're not sprinkling the bots in there so that they've got to pay more to have more engagement?

Yeah, and you picked, you picked up a really good point there, whereas pay more to get more engagement. We don't like the pay-to-play model, meaning like if you pay more, you shouldn't get access to more, more matches, which is their model. It's basically like they dangle fake bots in front of you. Oh yeah, a bunch of matches, pay more to see them. So the reason why dating is better at date, um, preventing bots is because you connect so many different sources, because you're constantly chatting with people, you can pick up on bots. Like for example, I could actually whip up like 50 Twitter bots pretty easily with just like a number, auto-generate AI profiles with one one picture, just create 6 different photos, this caption, vary it all, and just create accounts en masse with Twitter. Whereas dating, it really like, it's harder to create a fake profile if you need like a Twitter, you need a Pinterest, you need a YouTube, you need a calendar. So it's a lot easier to pick up on fake bots if there's only one account, whereas we have multiple accounts and we have a flagging system in place for those that could potentially be bots. And then at the end of the day, a human will check it out because again, like I also don't feel like you should just randomly ban people off an app, even if, like, you never know, like, they may have one, they may have just a Twitter, but, like, at least that person is flagged and then we can check it out. And it's also a part of our model too, where we don't want to have people pay to play, meaning you can't— you shouldn't be able to pay more to get access to more people on the app. So what we're going to— that's where we have the advantage because we have so much data. It's getting so smart. It's so— it's learning about people. We can offer them access to more data for, like, a nominal fee. Like, for example, if you and your wife or partner or whatever you call it, you're on the app, it's like, okay, well, something's coming up, give me a 2-page summary of this event, what we should do and how it integrates into our life. You can pay for that access to that data because we already have the data on the back and we can just spit it out for you. It's like, okay, give us an in-depth summary on how our, our signs match. You can pay for that extra data. So, and the way with that model, it doesn't interfere with the core matching algorithm. And the core matching algorithm is based on personality traits, which is always learning about you. So that's cool.

Okay. Okay. That, that's really good. So being able to have all these data points and then essentially for y'all to run additional programs or processes, it, there'd be a fee for that, but that in and of itself does not interact with actually connecting the people. So it's more like a, once you're connected, then if you want these additional ways to strengthen a relationship, find more things to do, uh, better identify pluses, minuses, in-betweens for that couple. Okay. You can pay there. But that's not saying that, hey, we're going to charge you more to get more access to people on the app. I like that. That's actually pretty cool. So tell me, for a, um, a person who's in this space now, right? You said you started taking a look at this back in your freshman year of college and you've gotten to a point where, hey, you've created a better way of doing this. Now, throughout that process, when you're dealing with something as sensitive, we'll call it. As human emotions and love, there have got to be some things that you pick up along the way. So being able to tie the, you know, the AI space with human emotions and specifically love, you know, what was something that you may have learned about love from machine learning and those integrations that surprised you personally?

Yeah. So in terms of, it is a sensitive topic because a lot of people are just like, I don't want to trust AI with these. Thing. Like, it's my love life. I, I want it personal. I want a human-to-human connection. And that's where I switched the marketing aspect on how I personally talk about it. Whereas the intention of the app isn't to keep people on the app. The intention of the app is to put people in the position to get a match that fits them as soon as possible so they get on that date as soon as possible. Because I've learned that, yes, you can have all these fancy numbers, you can, you can have the perfect match on paper, like all the stars, all the data points could align, but the only real way you know that you match with someone is when you meet face to face because then you can pick up on their energy, you can pick up on their vibe, and then you can make the judgment based on that. So I've, I view this as just another simple way to match. It's another way for people to meet their potential person. Like, I'm still a big advocate, and I personally just, I personally meet people better in person. Like, I'm walking around the store, I meet somebody viable, we go for the, we go for that approach. Great, if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. No real big deal. But the reason we created dating is more and more people are going to the online dating world, and the reason more and more people are going to the online dating world is because there's no real rejection. Like, it takes more, I guess, courage to go and approach a woman in real life versus just swipe endlessly, swipe endlessly on an app. So people are doing that, we might as well give them a better option. And something interesting I've learned from the space is— and this is all this kind of conspiracy theory, but I think it's accurate— whereas like most of the apps are owned by a specific company, so it's somewhat of a monopoly. So it's not like you're going from different app to different app, it's really just the same person. And I think they've created a funnel type of thing. So I've noticed when I, when I download certain apps, I put in my profile, I put in who I am, I put in what I'm looking for. And then within my ad algorithm, I start to see specific dating apps for that. So for example, if I say I'm looking for Asians, I get specific Asian apps, right? And again, all conspiracy theory, but I suspect that they're using our data to populate different profiles. That's so now I pay money for that Asian app. And then I get no match because no one's really on it. Then that sends me to a more obscure one. So I was getting like Ukrainian ones, blah, blah, blah, all the way down to the funnel. I think the end of the funnel is like the OnlyFans pay-to-play, that type of thing. And I think that's where they're making a lot of money, which I don't agree with, but is what it is.

You know, that brings ethics into play. I actually had a couple of questions, so I'll start off with the ethics questions. Then we're going to move on to another piece that, that again, it's, it's It's pressing, but I don't want to forget this piece about ethics. So you have, again, a development right here in front of you. It's right there at their fingertips. What kind of ethical concerns that have you come across where essentially you're saying that AI can, you know, understand what it means to be compatible? So, you know, talk to us a bit about how actual understanding of compatibility from an artificial source can really take place.

Yeah. So I, I would say AI, I'd call it more like upload intelligence where versus artificial intelligence, like, I mean, they're both just made up words, but with our AI, you're uploading your digital presence. So it's more of an upload intelligence. So the source is more based on you. So you're uploading your profile, you're uploading your information, you're uploading things about yourself, and then tags are getting generated on the backend. So it's not like we can see all your data. It's just like a scan. The tags are generated and then that's the source of your profile and the source is what you've said about yourself online. And then you can always optimize, you can always add, you can always talk to Cupid to switch those changes. So putting users in like a power position, we found helpful just again, because like a lot of people— I mean, when we first started this thing, not too many people trusted AI just because it was newer, but more and more people are trusting it. And as more and more people trust it, they get more comfortable with that. Another thing we've put into place that's been kind of annoying for us to deal with, but I think it adds to the ethical, I mean, nature of our company is when a user deletes their profile, their profile is gone. It's not saved anywhere. They're just like, they're not even on the backend anymore. So I think that's a cool thing. And regarding ethics, I think having a spiritual base is extremely important because I think if you put good intent, like the intention of dating is to match a billion happy couples, we're putting our users in the position to succeed. Because that's our intention, ethics, products, how the tech works is all centered around that. And I think it shows. Okay.

Well, and so another question about that, when it comes to the logging in and being able to scan your specific profile, I can't help but think about that famous television show, uh, Catfish, right? How do you prevent catfishing in the world of, again, the ability to create a fake profile from somebody's actual real profiles— Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and, and the like? You know, how do you actually prevent a catfishing situation knowing that anyone can essentially clone somebody's profile, steal their pictures, pop up another couple of 2, 3, 4, 5 sites and, and then hop on your site.

Yeah. So that would be the multiple data source point, whereas to create a profile, you connect your different sources and to connect your sources, you give Dating the permission to scan. So if you don't have access to the main account, you can't really like scan anything. So that part helps prevent. But let's say hypothetically, I'm like, okay, I want to make a Paul Flowers account. I want to completely impersonate him. I could copy your accounts, but then my accounts would likely have no followers. And if you ever got wind of it, you would tell me or you'd reach out to the company and then it would flat out, then a human would look at and you're just like, okay, well, Paul H. Flowers Jr. has much more than 2 followers across all his accounts. All the pictures may be the same, but that would— then we'd reach out and we'd do our due diligence and then delete the account off of there. And the cool thing about that is, honestly, to answer your question, we're not entirely sure. Like, our system's relatively new, and as we scale up, we'll have problems like that come up. So that's something I'm personally looking forward to solving, and I'm big on always having a human look at it. Because I've seen in the past where like, like I had a friend once, she ran like an Instagram business where she posted a picture with her and her son. The son was shirtless. They were swimming. So it's not a big deal at all. But then AI picked that up as illicit material and then just canceled all of her accounts. She had to go through the whole process and it took like, I mean, if you dealt with like Instagram or YouTube deleting your accounts, it's really annoying. There's no human you can talk to. So in the meantime, she was she was losing— it was her livelihood. So it was a big problem for her. And I think AI is going to scan and become more of like a policing force. That's why I think having the human aspect is good.

Good. Well, I'm really glad to hear that. It's nice to know that there's actually plans to keep people inside of these processes and not just turning it all over to machines. I mean, let's face it, it's still a machine at the end of the day, right? And, and I've experienced exactly what you're talking about with the outcome, the company formerly known as Twitter. And God, we do still never have access again to that account, no matter how many times I've asked for it, added people and all that. It's just, it's a lost cause. So I had to totally start over, which is a pain in the pill. So I thank you for, again, keeping people inside of these processes. So What's one of the features that are in dating that was one of the hardest things you feel to get right?

Uh, so one of the hardest features to get right is, uh, well, the matching algorithm is probably the hardest thing to get it right, but we luckily we have one of the best data scientists in the world coming up with the tags, creating the— so what dating does, it creates a bunch of tags and then creates clusters around those tags, and then it creates matches based on those different clusters, and it all levels down. So it can be like level 1 tags, level 2 tags, level 3 tags. So getting that exactly right is extremely hard, but we have the best person to do that in place. He's one of the minds behind like IBM's like AI system. So he helped invent that. Like he's the literal, literal just data science genius. Okay. So he's had like that. The group chats has been kind of, the group chats have been kind of difficult. It's more complex than we thought connecting multiple people in a group chat. So that's like, it's easy for us. So like within our Cupid AI chat, I can ask about different people, but then it can give me— and then you give me a description about those different people. So like you, my girlfriend, and your wife, I could ask about those, but creating that different chat separately has been more complex than we thought. And I would say the second, or the biggest issue right now, is just matching people in the right city, whereas we're getting a bunch of people signed up across the world, or I mean across the United States, but like it doesn't do too many people too good for matching people in like New York or LA. So the solution to that is following the In-N-Out approach. So we're focused in LA just because that's where we're from. And then we're going to focus on cities around there and kind of expand naturally and organically through that, through in-person events. And the plus is like, because we're having people organically sign up around, I guess, the United States, it's like we can see that and use it as a, as a heat map. To decide where to launch next. So it's like, oh, random people are signing up in Tennessee. Who would have thunk? Well, people are signing up. We should go there and just kind of stoke those fires.

Well, that actually makes sense. Taking a patterned approach and not just kind of letting people figure it out. Hey, you're in LA, you're in New York. Yeah, you guys figure out, figure it out. But instead creating a more concentrated group of individuals, like you said, through in-person events to just kind of get the feel and see how it, how it grows. I like that as well. A question I had about about just the experiences so far. Any weird or wild or success stories that you've heard of so far for people getting together, matching on the app, and maybe providing that feedback?

Yeah, so the cool thing about our, our app and with AI too, that VAD— with that AI, you can crank out code, you can crank out features incredibly quickly. So I would say we're in the new phase where people are just getting used to the app. They're just like, oh, what is this? This is cool, let me see what I can do. But a lot of the new features like the group chat, the date plannings, asking about other specific users has been— has been requests from our current user base. We've been rapidly entering. So I think that's the biggest success, to have people on an app actually care enough to give suggestions and they hear their suggestions being heard and then that makes them happy. Yeah, I know we've had a couple of couples match and meet in real, real life. They've tagged us, they posted about us. This group in Denver, they actually met. They— he's like, I'm going to this specific concert. Is there anyone who could go? So they created a group around that. I think that was pretty cool. And we've had great success too. Like, I, me testing out the app, I had a date like a couple, like a month or so ago. I knew I was going to go. I'm like, okay, I want to go here, but let's see what I can do. So I told Cupid about the date. I'm like, where would you recommend I go if this is where I'm at at this point in time? And they recommend the exact date I was planning on it. So I'm like, okay, that's a cool thing. But yeah, more success stories are coming in daily on a daily basis where it's like, oh, these are matched because we get to see like how many matches are being made, how like the conversations are going well and stuff. So like that's just been constantly growing where it's like, oh, people are on that, they're getting acclimated. Like it was, I think once they get acclimated, they start talking to Cuban more and more. Cuban learns more and more about them. It better matches with them.

So yeah.

Okay. No, no, no marriages as of yet, but that, that's the goal. I want my, personally, I want to see one person match on the app, create a successful relationship and have a kid. Because I think that's a really good way to leave a legacy. I imagine like Dating's overall goal is to match a billion happy couples. If that results in a bunch of families that are better off than they would have been without the app, I think that creates a general impact of a good general, a good generational impact.

Now that's a different level when it comes to a dating app. So this isn't really just, just right, a dating app. Essentially, if that's a part of a mission or vision statement, to create a million happy families throughout the world, or a billion happy children are being born. I mean, you can literally, utilizing again these large language models and AI, began to help better shape and rebuild societies from the ground up. How would you say that this app and its functionalities may help to help, again, society grow in that respect? As well as reduce what we see all the time right now, which is divorce rates.

Yeah, and I love that you bring up the point because I, I view the family as the backbone of society, and I think there's been certain powers that, whatever the case, for whatever reason, divorce rates have been skyrocketing. And I think that happens a lot because you're matching with people that you shouldn't really match with, whereas our algorithm, it gets smarter and smarter, so it'll match you with people you have a high chance of working out with, whether it does or doesn't. Great, but let's say it works out. It can work. Then from there, I think that's where that relationship butler feature comes into play, where it's like, okay, it's been our year. What should we do? How do people— or like, I'm having a kid. What should— like, you know, like if you have a kid, it's like, I don't know what I'm doing. But then you can ask Qubit AI, what should we do about specific situation? And then you can give it really good data. You can give it exact scenarios about your prompt, and then it can give you answers based on you and your partner. And the fact that it includes both your partners is really important because like marriage is a two-way— actually, we've talked about this, right? We're like, players become the believers, right? Right. Let's talk about traditional marriage. It's like a two-way street. Not one person is right, not one person is wrong. So if you're going to incorporate both your personalities while planning dates, while going through issues, it can be really helpful in that sense and create a stronger foundation for your marriage.

And this is, this is really interesting. Like I said, I can't wait to really get on here and, and utilize it, uh, personally. Now I do have a few questions before we start to land the plane here, just out of respect to your time. Uh, you're also founding and building currently Aces.fund. Can you share more about that?

Yeah, so Aces.fund is a crypto project. It creates a derivative market for e-commerce products. So the long-term vision from this is— and this was an evolution of ShopX, so this isn't like a new thing, it's the same team I've been with a while. So what that is, it's basically attached— it's tokenizing a real-world asset or physical product, creating a digital equivalent to that. So let's say hypothetically, um, we tokenize a Nike shoe. What does this mean? There's now a physical and digital equivalent. So Nike could sell that product 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 times. They can get all that data, they can program royalties if they want. Me as a customer, I can take out a phone, I could scan that Nike shoe, I can trace it all the way back to Nike to ensure its authenticity. If I want to sell that product instantly, I can sell it online. So it essentially creates It makes everyone their own Amazon store. So like if you want to sell Nike, if Nike wanted to sell Lululemon products, they could add Lululemon to their site. The Nike customer comes in, they purchase the Lululemon product from the Nike site. They, I get the product, so I'm happy. Lululemon gets the sale, they're happy. Nike gets the commission, they're happy. And if everyone, it increases the liquidity of products. So right now, like if you want to sell an e-commerce product, there's not too much liquidity, but this just increases that. And on top of that, it adds all the stock features too. So if you think like specific, like, who's famous right now? Like, I'm glad I don't know too many celebrities, but let's say Leonardo DiCaprio. He sells his car, it's tokenized. You can also purchase a token based on that car. So he sells his car, the price goes up, the value of the token, like his Lambo goes up, his holders are happy. I purchase a Lambo. Now I have an ecosystem behind Leonardo DiCaprio's car. I get the social media account. So it creates more of like a hype around the tokenized products. So if you've seen the craze in meme coins and cryptocurrency, it's like that, but with real-world assets, real-world assets tied to that. And that's, that's in development right now. So we're gearing up for, we're launching that with luxury items like Birkin bags, like high-quality cars, because that creates headlines. And we're, that should go live in a couple months. But after that, we're going to scale it to pretty much every product that can join.

Okay. Okay. And talk about something that is going to take a bit of education for the masses. And again, just again, respect the time. A couple of quick questions about ACES still. How do you plan to notify the masses if at best, but also educating them on how this works? Because, you know, luckily I'd been in crypto. I've done some coursework on AI and cryptography. So I've got a baseline understanding of it. But the average layperson, you know, we're talking 99.9% of the folks out there. Might have trouble really conceptualizing what it means to tokenize a physical asset and turn it into a digital, right? So if you could talk about that education process and some of the things you might foresee as far as bringing people up to speed.

Oh yeah, I, I love that question. 'Cause I think edu— I think it's one of the reasons crypto's not been massively adopted is first, the user interface is just not there. And the second is incentive, meaning no person, like my mom has no real reason to have to interact in the crypto space. Therefore she doesn't really know about this. And this was a lesson we learned from ShopX where, so first off, when we launch ACEs, the target is going to be crypto-based people with high luxury crypto-based items like painting, artwork, and all that good stuff. But we've learned that how do you educate the masses? Well, you have to provide incentive for them to want to interact with the space. So for example, with ShopX, we worked with like Web2 shoe companies where they created an NFT, they attached e-commerce benefits on NFT, meaning you get discounts on specific shoes, you get access to early drops. His customer base wasn't really crypto savvy, but they wanted the actual shoe, they wanted the actual product. And that's where the education came in because they wanted to actually interact with the space. So how do we educate the masses? Is you provide them incentive and then they educate themselves. Because dude, if you're into crypto, I'm sure we've all been there where it's like, I'm going to teach you about Bitcoin. And they're just like, I don't care at all. I'm not learning about this. But once they get some skin in the game, it's like, okay, maybe that's a 0 to 1 moment. So, okay, maybe, maybe they want the Nike shoe because the Nike RWA or NFT gives them access to a Nike store early. Like, well, I kind of want this. How do I get it? Oh, this is how I get it. And the cool thing is crypto and Web3 is composable, meaning it's like based off the compound interest software. So as like one company figures out the user interface, people can just copy and paste that and make it easier for everyone. So it's going to be a gradually then suddenly movement Love it.

I love it. All right. So a few of these pointed questions that I like to ask toward the end of our show. And quite frankly, I think, Eric, you know, the first one, it's really straightforward. Basically a way to connect further our listeners to you. Eric, what's your middle name?

Oh, it's Douglas.

Okay. All right. Eric Douglas McHugh. Any story behind Douglas? Where it comes from? Is it a a family name? Tell us about Douglas.

No, I was named after my dad, so I do like the name.

Okay, okay, perfect. Does that make you a junior, or did we, uh, just take the first name, something like that?

Uh, first name inserted in the middle name.

Got it, got it. Interestingly enough, I found out most recently that a couple of cultures actually do that. Actually, two different cultures do that very same thing, so it's not just us. It's kind of a unique thing, uh, It's actually varied across several cultures. So I'm really glad to hear that. The next question— well, next, not question, it's more of a prompt. Uh, for just a minute or two, if you would just talk to our audience again, the audience being people that are interested in becoming entrepreneurs, they're entrepreneurs that may be taking themselves to that next level, might be in their teens, 20s, even 30s and 40s. If you would just spend a minute or two talking to them about what you feel is important. Again, I don't necessarily want to shape, shape it too much, but if you would just kind of open your heart, open your mind, open your expertise, and share with our listeners.

Oh, I'd love to. I think entrepreneurship is a great way because as an entrepreneur, you try to serve as many people as possible, and if you're serving people, you're happy. So I think it's a great way for a life of servitude and freedom. When you're creating a business or creating a lifestyle, I think there are two rules you should definitely follow. The first is don't harm anyone. Or so if you build businesses that don't harm anyone and don't take anything away from anyone, because I've learned that karma is a real thing. If you make money in bad ways, it'll come back to bite you.

But if you make money in good ways, it just comes palace.

So there's that. Uh, also the power of authenticity. So when you're not— like, we went over this earlier, but like, you're the number one you in the world, so only you know what you're really passionate about. So I would try a bunch of things. The reason I would try a bunch of things is you have desires. Some are programmed, some are authentic. Get— how do you know a desire is programmed versus authentic? Well, if you're doing a programmed desire, you started, you realize you don't care about it, then you try to find the authentic one. And the second advice, the most important advice I would do is just just start. Because the reason once you start, it's like when the student is ready, the path appears like, oh, I have an idea. What's the idea? Well, it's to do whatever. It's to build an e-commerce brand. Well, I don't know how to build an e-commerce brand. What do I need to do? Well, maybe I should create a Google Drive folder just with the name. Great. I have a Google Drive folder. What do I do? Well, I probably need different departments. Like maybe I need a biz dev folder. Maybe I need a development folder. Maybe I need a social media folder. Well, I got these now. What goes in a social media folder? Like I guess social media accounts, well, you should probably make those and they just kind of compound.

Okay. Okay. Good. Good. So again, listeners, I hope you all were taking some notes throughout this call and conversation. Again, a lot of it is going to be around, uh, what exactly Data Ing is going to do for you. So when you get a chance to definitely download the app, utilize its features and give feedback. But again, I'm really looking forward to seeing that mission to grow humanity in a, and not to say that was a mission. Sorry. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but that a part of this journey as something that you'd like to see is again the overall growth of humanity as a result of intelligent dating by design, if you will. Uh, with that, Eric, what's the best way for our listeners to get in contact with you and learn more about your site, your services? How can they reach out?

Yeah, so the best way to reach out to me would be LinkedIn, Eric D. McHugh. The reason I like LinkedIn is it's fun to meet different people, so if there's anything I can do to help you in the future, but Dating is live in the Apple App Store, so check it out. Aces.fun should be live in a couple of months, so the website will be aces.fun. You can just check out the platform yourself, maybe buy that Lambo token we talked about and get some skin in the game.

I love it. I love it. And then when I think about that, you said Leonardo DiCaprio in that Lambo. Of course, I think Wolf of Wall Street, right? So it's the white Lambo from back in the day. Oh, I love it. Okay. Well, again, Eric McHugh, thank you so much for being a guest on our show. And I'll make sure that again, all of these ways to reach out and connect with you are inside the show notes. Our listeners can follow up with you as well. Uh, ladies and gents, this has been another episode of The Everyday Entrepreneur with your host Paul H. Flowers Jr. and our platform, the Popa Replays podcast show. Thank you all for listening and tuning in. Bye for now.