In this episode of the My First Million podcast, Sam Parr and a guest brainstorm a startup called “Just Talking,” a platform designed for people aged 50 and older who feel lonely but are intimidated by traditional online dating. The service would let users connect anonymously via audio or text, without sharing real names or arranging offline meetings, providing pure companionship rather than romance. The conversation explores why older adults are underserved (cultural unfamiliarity with dating apps, fear of meeting strangers), cites market signals such as TV ads, the show Love Is Blind, and existing senior‑focused services like Papa (grandkids‑as‑a‑service) and Honor (on‑demand caretakers). They also reference Relationship Hero, a coaching platform for younger daters, as a comparative model. For go‑to‑market, they suggest seeding the marketplace with paid operators (drawing on lessons from historic sex hotlines), using Facebook ads to attract users, and positioning the product as a marketplace that can be “faked” initially until network effects kick in. Monetization ideas include subscription fees and possibly ad revenue. The overall tone is enthusiastic and supportive, treating the idea as a promising niche opportunity.
Chapters
Couple others. Okay, so here's an idea. So I was talking to my cousin and so we were talking about like one of my cousins, he's young, he goes on dates, uses the apps, boom, boom, boom. And then like our aunts and uncles are always like, oh my God, look at him. He's just swiping left and right. He goes on dates. It's like really foreign concept to them. And, uh, so that was one data point. Okay. Just kind of noticed, wow, my aunts and uncles, they really don't get it when it comes to this online dating thing. Data point 2, I'm watching the debate and, um, it was re— I watched so much shit online that when I watch traditional TV, first of all, it's so slow. And secondly, I start to see the commercials and I'm like, oh, this is what's being advertised to mainstream America.
Like cars and stuff.
It's very fascinating. So like Noom was on there, which is like the diet, like like nutrition plan thing. They do really, really well. Noom. Um, we should break them down later.
They advertise.
But the other one was some, uh, it was this gray-haired woman comes on the, on the screen and she's like, oh, online dating, where do I start? And then it's like, well, open up your browser, type www. and then the URL. It's like, and then start clicking around. Like, that was literally, that was the ad. Was like, how do I even get started? Like, here's how you get started online dating. I don't remember the name.
Oh, come on.
It wasn't like a match or, you know, I had never heard of it before. So I started thinking and I was like, um, you know, there's so many people that are sort of in my sort of, uh, extended family and whatnot that are divorced and they're alone. And so I was thinking about them. I was like, you know, it'd be great if they found someone, but the reality is they don't do a lot of online dating cuz it's so scary and foreign. And it's not the online part that's scary, it's the expectation that you then need to go meet somebody. And so like, let's take my uncle for example. My uncle's, I don't know, 65 years old. He is divorced. He gets lonely. His kids are all grown up. Everyone left the house. And, um, you know, he doesn't want to actually, like, it'd be great if he met somebody who was awesome and they could just like be companions for the rest of their life. But he's sort of like, dude, I don't want to get out there. Like, last time I went on a date was 40 years ago. Like, uh, I think I'm just out of the game. It's easier to be lonely than it is to put yourself out there. So anyways, long preamble for the idea. The idea is a service that's for older people. Let's make it just 50 and up as a, as a rule. And it's called Just Talking. And the expectation is you're gonna go on here with other people who are like you, who are sort of single, might be alone, looking for companionship, but it's just talking. You can't meet. It's not their real names. It's nothing. It's just somebody you could log onto the computer and just talk to either through audio or text. And you could talk to them continuously or you could switch and pick somebody else and talk to them. But it's just companionship as a service for— and it's not dating. You're not going to start going out with this person. You're not trying to get remarried.
You're just getting the reps in.
You just don't want to be lonely at home anymore. And honestly, you can have a virtual relationship, you know, through this. And it's because I was also watching Love Is Blind.
So good.
And I was like, dude, somebody should make an app that's just this now off the back of this show.
Such a good idea.
And so anyways, these are sort of some ideas.
Let me hear about it. I love it. I love it. Witter. That's a winner. Dinner. Um, what I would do is I would go and do research on the sex hotlines that used to exist that probably don't exist anymore, right? And I would want to learn how they worked. I bet they crushed.
So I'll shout out some, like, tangentially related— so sex hotline related, but obviously Masterpiece, the one that killed it. Then there's one, a startup out here in San Francisco called Papa. Have you heard of this?
Papa?
Yeah.
No.
Papa is, uh, grandkids as a service. So it's just young people, uh, that you— that will just come over to your grandparents' house and just do stuff for them and like talk to them, but like also do their laundry and like take out that trash. Are they doing well? I don't know if they're doing well or not. They just launched, they raised a bunch of money. And because there's this huge aging population of the baby boomers, and so there's this wealth of opportunities that are for the largest generation of people ever in America is now getting old. And I forgot, this woman was calling it the, The, the gray new world, and you know, for gray hair. And so she's like, you know, the gray new world opens up all these possibilities. So one is Papa, which is grandkids as a service. One is Honor, because I know Honor— there's a huge shortage of caretakers for, for the elderly. And so Honor is an on-demand caretaker platform that, you know—
but you're getting off track here. Are you going with caring for old people or helping people get laid?
I'm talking about just talking. That's my idea. But I was just tangentially saying there's some other businesses that are trying to help this relationship.
How about Relationship Hero?
What do they do?
Never heard of that?
No.
Jack invested in it and he says it's going well. It's called Relationship Hero, relationshiphero.com, and they teach you how to do online dating.
Oh, okay. Just coaching for online dating.
Yeah. Go— can you go to Relationship Hero?
Let's pull that up.
That's how it started as. It might be a little bit different as it's grown.
For young— yeah, this is— this would be for younger people though. It'd be for whoever. I, I think it could be I think if you did just talking and you ran a bunch of Facebook ads, you could get a lot of people to pay to be a part of a community of people where they can have these online relationships.
I love it.
Expectation is you do not go offline.
I think it's great. You know why I think it's great is because the way, the way, the way that you're positioning it is, is as a marketplace. Those are notoriously hard to make, but once you have 'em, they're great.
Yeah.
The reason why I like this is you can kind of fake it at first.
Yeah.
So you can just hire people.
You can have some operators.
Yeah.
That are, that are providing that companionship.
I think it's a great idea.
You could seed the marketplace with the operators.
Yeah, I think it's awesome. We talked about OnlyFans. Yeah, that's trending today on Twitter.
Is it?
Yeah. Worldwide.
Because of what? Some shit must have gone down.
I didn't get the joke. I clicked on it and tried to understand it and I didn't—
Right.
I didn't get it.
One out of three Twitter trends.
Yeah. Don't fucking get it. It was a top OnlyFans, which we talked about. OnlyFans, great business. But I love just talking. I think it— I think that's a great idea.
