What Happened to Us? How Gamification Is Reinventing Love & Relationships

The last evening of the vacation, we're having dinner and I remember that point where Liron, my wife, looks at me at the end kind of, and she says, babe, what happened to us? Like, why do we need to kind of to orchestrate all of that? Just to remember how great it feels to be together and really invest in our relationship. And that's how Aria came to life.

Welcome to the venture capital podcast. Today, Peter Harris and I are joined by Felicia Ko. She's a general partner from Playventures and Offer. I'm gonna ruin this. You who die.

You did it.

You told me beforehand your parents can't listen to this, but I'm sure your parents like listen to all of it. And he's the founder of Aria. It inspires imagination and better partnerships. It's an app that provides an intimacy concierge. And the purpose of this podcast today is, is Felicia specifically focuses on gamification as a large part of her thesis for her VC fund. So Felicia, do you want to start talking about your thesis and your background and why Offer's company was a good fit for that?

Sure.

Happy to. So first of all, Play Ventures, just some background for everybody. We're an early stage VC fund. We have roots in gaming. Our founding partners were gaming entrepreneurs for decades. And so, you know, we have a good solid experience in free to play gaming. And every time we hear the word gamification, we kind of like cringe a little bit. But, you know, we're trying to be better about it, I think just because, you know, I think when people think about gamification, they think about leaderboards and badges and it's, you know, anyone who comes from free to play gaming knows that it's a lot more than that. Right. The way gaming works, especially free to play gaming, is, is extremely interconnected from user acquisition to, you know, segmentation, personalization. How do you design an in app economy to make free to play monetization work? How do you do ad monetization? An area that Ofer is probably really, really familiar with. And then, you know, where do you integrate game design techniques and mechanics to basically help with engagement and also to help with monetization. And it's, it's, it's a lot more than, I guess, the typical thing of let's, hey, let's put a leaderboard. How can we put badges on it? Which I guess is, is, is a good thing if you, you appreciate the value of those things. But it does come across sometimes as perhaps understanding the form more than the substance. You know, how would A game designer for example, approach these things. So think about your early user experience, your mid game experience, your late game experience and figure out how you layer all these things together to make a really compelling product. But anyway, the long story is, I apologize.

It's a very, it's a very, very complex system making apps, engaging. Preparing for this, I was listening to a podcast from the founder of Shopify and he was talking about how all of his kids are dyslexic and how the game, the game process can make it enjoyable for his kids to learn and become proficient in areas they probably wouldn't have been. And his opinion was along with their thesis is that so much of the world should, I've called it gamification, just should have have those type of mechanics.

Yeah. And then it's exactly right. I think we see gaming as the operating system for user engagement monetization. So when you view it from that lens, you know, we're not talking about just pure mechanics but really and the spaces could be anywhere where you want something to be a daily habit. Right. It's learning, it's, it's, it's, it's you know, working on your relationship, it's your you know, investments, wellness, it's, it's everything that, where you know, you think end user, you want to encourage that to be a daily habit. Games is a really good way, does that really, really well and encourages kids. That's how I also kind of encourage my nephews to kind of learn how to read better. I'm like if you want to play this game you kind of got to know what the buttons say and that's like much better motivation for them than you know, just pure telling them like you got to learn how to read, you gotta learn how to spell better. So yeah, I totally I think resonate with what the Shopify CEO was talking about.

And then tell us, tell us what got you excited about offers company because it's and I know we're talking about gamification but it sounds like you guys do some investing in video games specifically. But his is anything but that, right?

Yeah. So I think we started off roots are in gaming. We invest in gaming content makers, publishers, gaming adjacent technology. And look, the truth is free to play gaming is a mature market right now. So as gaming investors we're obviously thinking we gotta evolve or go extinct ourselves. Right. And we looked at hey, what are free to play game makers really good at and what are transferable skills. And then we looked at the consumer space and back in 2022 I think consumer in app purchase spend was half of that of gaming. But we saw a lot of opportunities. We knew that, hey, you know, look at Duolingo doing an amazing job, right? But we also knew that, you know, most consumer apps, for example, operate from subscription. And we know that that caps ltv. We know that, you know, it's not so easy to design an economy. It's not like you just spin up a web store and start selling power ups and suddenly everybody's going to buy it. That's not how it works. You do have to design an economy where there's reasons to buy this. Right? Where are you going to spend your gems on? What does it do? What kind of actions and behaviors do the gems encourage, for example, if we're going to do that? And so we started looking into the consumer space. I actually started out looking at the dating app space, which is, you know, I don't want to talk too much about it, but it is highly competitive. It's extremely saturated. It's like every niche you could find has probably been done and been purchased by Match Group. And I started thinking about it as, you know, okay, well, dating's really tough, but like, what happens after the dating when people get into relationships? Because I've been in with my partner now for like 12 years. I know it's hard. It's, it's difficult. You know, we have like date night ideas and we're like, yeah, we should go out, we should do this. And then three months later, like the, the date night idea list is still there. Nope, we just haven't done the work. We haven't done it to, we haven't planned it. We default to like going for dinner dates, which is fine in itself, but like it's not, you know that in that lacks that intention. Right. Of like, what are you really trying to achieve with this dinner date? And so we started looking this space and here comes Ofer. He was actually referred to us by a good friend and another founder in the portfolio, Mar, and we started talking to him. I have been doing my homework in this space and I really, really liked their approach of thinking about how do you use play online offline, Help people, help people in relationships come together and keep it fun. Reduce the mental load of having to think about what to plan and just kind of create that environment for people and couples to come together. So that's basically how we went into that space, did our homework. We realized there was really nothing in this. This was a blue ocean and an opportunity to create, I guess a category.

Leader yeah, that's awesome offer. Could, could you share maybe a little bit about your company? I always love hearing, like, how you came up with the idea. I find that there's always some interesting story behind great companies and then what's the vision and how does it all tie in with gamification and play and everything else?

Let me give you the spoiler. My wife told me to and that's how everything started. But I, I'll take you to the beginning. Eventually we talk about gamification and who play games and humans. And we are all humans. You know, I'm 44 years old, I have four kids. They may kind of pop up in the background because there is no school today. And you know, like Phil said, being in a relationship requires work. I spent the last 20 years before Aria in gaming and edtech. So I had two companies that were both acquired for more than $700 million. And I was lucky enough to work with gaming companies and brands and apps that really, really took off so I could see how they're doing it. And after my second company was acquired, I really didn't know what to do. Like, my notepad was empty. I had no ideas, seriously. And that was a good moment in time to tell my wife, Lirone, hey, let's take couple of days, just you and I and do a kids free vacation. Now I'm not sure how many kids you guys have, but a kid's free vacation when you have four kids doesn't happen a lot.

Okay.

It's quite, quite a work. And we had a great time together. I flew my parents over, they babysit. We had a great time, my wife and I. And the last evening of the, of the vacation, we're having dinner and I remember that point where Liron, my wife, looks at me at the end kind of, and she says, babe, what happened to us? Like, why do we need to kind of to orchestrate all of that? You know, just to remember how great it feels to be together and really invest in our relationship. To Phil's point, you know, it's another task when you have or don't have kids. Between life and hobbies, it's a lot. And that in that moment in time where I said, hmm, like, yeah, I need to solve it, my wife just asked me to and it's probably a really big problem. And that's how, how Aria came to life. And my good friend Tomer, who also is a father of four daughters, I shared a story with him. He immediately related and that's kind of how Aria started. And and just to connect the dots, I mean look, consumers, they, they spend billions on their wellness, right? We spend billions on how we sleep. You see all the sleep app and smart mattresses and we spend billions on how we look, look at the GLP1 so we can find love online to Phil's point. And spend billions there. But no one teach us how to stay in love.

Right.

Like in the movies, everything happens miracle and spontaneously. Right. There is a scene and the couple is happy. Like no one ever happily ever after.

Yep.

No one shows a wing between. I mean, let's be honest. You know, when I put the kids to bed at 9pm, now I'm cleaning the kitchen sink. You know, it doesn't just happen the same way that my, you can see, but my six pack requires work. They don't just magically appear. I have to invest to get all the six pack. Relationship is just the same. But really, when, when my wife told me three years ago what happened to us, I went online and there was nothing I could find, like not in the level that I have for my workout and my, my nutrition and all the books I found on Amazon and like different card games I found felt very dated, like the 80s. Like it stopped for many reasons. You know, the taboo, the stigma, the shame, just people didn't want to touch it, but it's so important. So again, my wife asked me to and fast forward three years put aside, I think I'm, I'm, I'm a very happy husband. I think my wife is also very happy with our relationship. We're also making a lot of other couples a more aware and happier kind of investing in the relationship the same way they do with their personal wellness.

Yep. I love it. Well, and especially your point that like we spend a lot of money to find love and we spend a lot of money for happiness and health and relationships are such a key part. Right. Like all the studies show that one of the most important factors to living a fulfilling life and to living longer and to having better mental health are really tied to the relationships we have with others, particularly those closest. Right. So yes, I love that perspective.

And I remember when we first started talking about investing at the seed round, I remember the first MVP that Ofer had was like overtoher had this type form and I'm going through the type form and I'm like, okay, and I'm going back to them. I'm like, I'm sorry, but people are, people are paying for this with this Typeform experience. And I remember you saying, yeah, and we're like, really surprised too, because we just turned it on and thought we'd see what happened. And I was like, well, that's a great validation point for like you having something that really meets demand and a need out there. Even in its extremely rough form, you know, Typeform is a beautiful product, but still for a product, it's still pretty rough to have an MVP on Typeform. I remember that was something that was really, really impressive for me.

Yeah, I love it. So, so give us some details on what the company actually does. Like, how do you, how do you help couples, you know, build intimacy and, and relationships?

So what we've built, we've built a, a companion for couples to help with all things intimacy and relationship health. And I'll explain what we are solving and also how it's connected to gamification. I'll take you one second. You know, back to when everything started. Tomer and I met dozens and dozens of couple therapists and intimacy coaches just to understand if there is, what is the underlying issue here. And basically I'll give you two examples of, you know, where we as couples struggle. First, the enemy is routine. You know, in any game you have the enemy, like the boss who we're trying to kill at the end, right? Every level. In Arya's case, it's the routine. Here's what happens. You fall in love, butterflies, stars, everything is amazing. And then, you know, those hormones fade away and routine comes in. And it's a good thing because routine provide safety. Routine is good for us, but it also kills the passion. That's the trade off. So good couples know how to find novelty. So we have to fight routine. That's the enemy. Now the enemy, like the big boss, always have those kind of mini, you know, mini level that you have to fight. And those are the awkward conversations because even if I tell you you have to fight routine, and I will give you the exact script, having this conversation with your partner does not come easily for many people. You know, we've been dating, we've been together for maybe two years. Maybe we have a kid, maybe we have a dog. How do I bring up a conversation about breaking the routine in our intimate life or relationship health? It's awkward, it's strange. No one ever gave me those prompts. No one ever taught me or gave me any insight into how my partner will react if I say this or that. Now from here, you can start to understand what are the gamification elements we've built into Aria. Even in that MVP Phil was mentioning, we said, okay, we can find a routine. So we will onboard you via a type form and we will introduce this concept of your concierge, that companion that based on the learnings of you and your partner, will take the guesswork away and introduce an idea on how to break the routine at least once a month with the promise that I know you, I know your partner, so I'm in a position to make a recommendation because I know you too. Now. There is a psychological element behind it and you know it when, when you have a friend. I know I have this friend, let's call him John. When John, he's a funny guy. John. When he, when he gives us a gift, it's always a very funny gift. Sometimes embarrassing. And it's always like, oh, John, you, you, you know, you. You know that whatever he gonna give you is going to be, you know, borderline embarrassing. In the same way, I'm sure you all have this friend. In the same way. When Arya knows you and Aria makes a recommendation, if it's a good recommendation and the couple is happy, it's a win for the couple. Like, we did it. We took Aria's recommendation, it worked well. We are both happy. Good for us. If it wasn't a good recommendation. The shame and blame is on Arya, not on you. You have done nothing wrong. You just listen to Arya and next time it will be better. So what we are doing is basically a win, win. If it's a win, it's a win for the couple. If it's a lose, it's still a win for the couple for trying. But Arya takes the shame and blame for perhaps recommending not the right activity for you guys right now. And we get better next time. So all those elements basically help us find the routine and learn how to avoid awkward conversations. Having that, you know, friend or companion or concierge that makes those recommendations and then build trust. Because every win, every success, bring the couple closer and closer together because they see, hey, it's actually working. We are following and it actually works. So that's how everything eventually. That's the mechanism behind Aria just giving away our secret sauce.

Yeah. Just to, I guess, double click on something that Ofer said. Like two things, right? Like the way Aria works, which I think was really interesting, is that it's a cooperative game. Like you can use it as a single player, but in ideal world, you're using Aria with your partner and so it's cooperative. And number two, it's like your effort can lead to a controllable outcome that is delightful and, And Even when it doesn't work, there's still some moments of delight there. And that's, I think, what we look for when we talk about gamification outside of, you know, regular, free to play games into other consumer spaces. Like, those are things that we look for, something that's inherently social. We're not trying to shoehorn it in and make it super awkward that it's multiplayer or cooperative. It's very natural and to, like, you know, if you put in the effort, you can have some sort of feeling of progression or I'm improving or something like that. I think that's really, really important qualities.

Absolutely. I'm curious. It feels like gamification was really a hot topic a number of years ago, especially with, like, the advent of, like, apps. And obviously, like, Duolingo is a great example of this. And there was this belief, like, oh, we can just gamify anything and, like, people engage. I feel like, I don't know, I'd love your perspective since you're a lot closer to this. Of, did that kind of go away? Is it still, like, more important than ever? Is it that it just actually got used by everybody and is now kind of the status quo? I'm just curious, like, why we don't talk about gamification more often now, like, we used to. Does that make sense?

Yeah, no, that. That makes a lot of sense. I think it's. It's. It's a few things. I think one is like, that. I guess it's a very rudimentary understanding of what gamification is and when it's appropriate. Like, if you look at a game, right, like, you consider player motivations, is this a game where it's more competitive? Is it more of a cooperative game? Is it more of a cozy game? If it's something. If that's your player motivation and they're doing it, they're playing Candy Crush to relax. Like, trying to introduce a competitive element to it just doesn't work. In fact, it's just detrimental. Right. So I think it's being more sophisticated and understanding in the entire toolbox of game design. What is appropriate, why is it appropriate, and when should you bring it in? You know, you don't bring. You know, I think you don't bring it in at the early onboarding when people are trying to figure out what's the value of Aria. You don't want to make that too complicated because it's very overwhelming. And then eventually they're like, okay, I get what's going on here. Like, I get what's going on with Duolingo? I start to have like more depth to it because otherwise it gets monotonous. Right. Routine again and you get bored and you won't come back. So then you have things like streaks and leaderboards to kind of keep you going. Even Duolingo is not. It's not like people are learning and they want to see how they're doing and progressing, but it's not like very, extremely competitive. If I compare it to some, you know, very, very competitive, you know, shooter games or whatever like that. And then, you know, how do we make it more social? Like, how do we bring in a community, how do we bring in a cooperative player to help make it more social? I think it's about knowing the nuances of game design and when it's appropriate to apply it. But besides that, I think it's also, you know, sometimes I think it's hard for people when they don't come from gaming or they're not big gamers to understand again, the nuance of when is when is right to apply something. And then there's a whole other equation of gamification which we think is not talked about enough, which is everything is connected. How do you acquire your users? Where are they coming from? Why do they. Why do. Why did they install Aria or why did they sign up for it? Why did they sign up for another app? They came through a different creative. Maybe we need to onboard them in a different way. They have different motivations, you know, and then how do we, how do we keep them going? Because most people will get. It's inevitable. We all start, you know, new year. We'll start with like the new fitness app. I'll be really, really good at it for two months and we have the best intentions, but we just churn because, you know, it feels bad. And how do we get people to come back? How do we re engage them? And for those most engaged users as well, like, their product experience and their game experience will start to look very different from somebody else who's not so much of a heavy user. So I think it's, you know, everybody having an evolution in their understanding of what gamification is and what are the lessons that we can transfer there. If you're building a product and you just say you don't consider all these things and you just put badges on like it's not going to do anything. And I. So I think many people kind of just maybe say, ah, it doesn't work, it's not that good. It's like A fluke. You know, Duolingo did it and it was a fluke. Maybe it just wasn't the right thing for your particular product in your use case.

Yeah.

How does Aria approach those type of elements and how does it bake it into the app?

If we take an example from a ready player, one life is a game. It's all about just having the right skills and the right tools to win the game or be the best in the game. And I think looking back in history or even at nature, I mean, we all play games to acquire new skills. Like, you have the setting, you have, you have the rules. So you play the game to get better at a certain skill. And I think here as well, I think fighting the routine and fighting those awkward conversations, I mean, yes, you can take a very educational approach and say, hey, John, Hey, Peter. I'm going to teach you the science behind why routine kills passion and why there is this conflict of being a partner, being a husband and a father, being a wife and a mother. We can talk about the science behind it or I can create an experience for you. Experience with some kind of a delight and reward at the end, which works very well on living creatures. Like, we love it. Like it's very satisfying. So again, the idea here was we wanted Aria to be a wellness product. This is not therapy, right? We're not here to repair, we're not here or fix a broken relationship. We want to create a habit or a pattern. When you and your partner take the time to invest in your relationship health, just like you take the time to work out, meditate, invest in your mental wellness just the same. So I think the approach of taking, you know, this wellness and experience approach immediately took us to gaming and maybe, Peter, to your question before about gamification. I don't know, perhaps gamification has been overused, but still the elements of game remains the same. Like there is a start, there is a beginning, there is some kind of a task. There is an interesting research from Washington University where they took a group of couples, broke them into three subgroups. One group told them, you know, keep living your life, do whatever you do every day, don't change anything. That's the control group. The other group was told to find one new thing and keep doing that one new thing all the time. And the class group was told, we want you every week to try something you haven't ever tried before, no matter what, whatever, cooking, walking, relationship, doesn't really matter. But every week something new. And they ran it for six weeks and then they Asked to kind of report back on their closeness, on the relationship health and like a bunch of parameters. And that third group that tried something new every week reported by far improvement in all the elements of the relationship health and closeness. So again, that feeling of trying something new, exploring a new territory, just like a game, you know, when there is a new level, I'm excited, oh my God, what's going to happen now? Who is the bad guy? Like, what can I do? Do I have a new, a new weapon or a new skill? It's very exciting. So it's really all connected eventually. I mean, we couldn't see any other way to build Aria with not kind of this wellness and experience approach.

Yeah, I think it's that idea of like that shared goal. Right. Like you see it in games, you might have a group quest. You see it in games as well, where there's live operations, you know, you have your usual core gameplay. But hey, during the weekend there'll be like a, you know, three, three hour kind of special. Or during Christmas there's like a Christmas, you know, event. And it's that idea, I guess. Aria brings in different things and the novel, novel experiences. So it's not always the same, same things again and again. Again.

I'll give another example. The concept of anticipation. You know, when Fortnite release a new, a new season and there is this huge anticipation about what's going to come next. You know, people, people talk about, people wait, people clear the calendar, stock food and water like it's coming in many ways when you date someone, you know, take you back to your dating days. Let's say you date someone and you schedule a date at five day. Now it's Monday. You have those four days to wait for your dating and you, and you plan ahead and you think, and maybe you kind of exchanging some messages in between coming to that Friday, the date night. And we want to bring the same excitement for on both Fortnite and your dating days to an existing relationship. And showing that Even if after two years together or 20 years together, you can still have that excitement. Ooh, something is coming. Let's work together with a mutual goal towards our planned Aria night and what we're going to do this time and again. Maybe stock some food and water, but that feeling of something is coming is extremely rewarding. And that's what we're trying to keep ringing up all the time.

Yeah, makes sense. Is there an AI component to which you guys are building?

There is. So you know, when, when Tomer and I started back then it was really like tomer myself in a type form, like, like Phil said, really to demonstrate that there is a pain and people are willing to pay to solve the pain, even if it's just a type form at the end. Then we've built a team. And the first team member was our head of relationship science that actually brought all that science into the company. So I can talk in confident about what makes couples tick. That's not my science, but there is definitely plenty of science. And in order to make that knowledge accessible for more than 20,000 couples we have right now, we started training models. The things with AI is that there isn't a single model today, not even aria to be transparent, that can handle intimacy and sexuality, A to Z without moderation and guardrails. There isn't like I wouldn't trust the model. And we all understand why. This topic is heavily censored and restricted. And as a result, most public models are very shallow. If you start a conversation with ChatGPT or whatever Grok, you will get your first, maybe second answer. It will be shallow and then you're going to stop and tell you, I cannot comply with your request anymore. You're going to hit that block very quickly. And we did not want to give that experience to couples and we saw it coming. So we are training the model and now more and more of those interactions can be handled with AI. And we are basically expanding the knowledge of our team of intimacy coaches. Our chief of intimacy, Shan Gudrum, like a lot of knowledge is now accessible through those models without having to wait for Shan to respond or Professor Pepper Schwartz to share their knowledge. It is now shareable via the IO concierge. But I will say we're doing it very responsively because we do not want. I think, you know, if I give you a bad recipe, you know, worst case, you don't like the taste. But with intimacy and more than that, you want to be very, very mindful on people. So we, we take a very responsible approach there.

Yeah, no, I think, I think that's important. I'm curious. So I posted an article today, or not an article a, a post on LinkedIn today around AI, because there was an article that just came out in partnership with OpenAI where they talk about like the top uses of AI. And one of the surprising findings is that AI, like basically 1 in 3 people or 1 in 3 queries on ChatGPT is really about learning. And like, it's. It's interesting to me because I think there's a bit of this paradox of we read stuff like the MIT study that says that we're losing our ability to think Critically thanks to ChatGPT, but simultaneously, a lot of people are using it to learn new things, whether it's a teacher, tutor, how to do something, how to improve your physical and health, your physical fitness and health and so forth. And, and so to me, I think, like, the big. One of the big opportunities is this idea of how do we. How do we move from an educational perspective of, like, we get up and we lecture at people to get them to learn something, to really, like, when education is the best. It's when we inspire people and we generate within them a desire to learn. And then AI and other platforms like aria, Right, tied in with AI, whatever it might be, can be, like, those mechanisms to do it. And I think, like, one of the ways in which you inspire, you can inspire and encourage people to really, like, dive into learning. And I think duolingo has done this successfully. Right. And others, of course, as well, is through, like, some gamification elements where people can get a little bit more of that feedback loop. It's like, I want to go test something, I want to learn something, and then I get that dopamine hit as a reward. That encourages me to. To do it again. I'm curious, Phil, are you seeing one, just what your thoughts and impressions on. On that are, and then two, like, are you seeing anything like that across your portfolio and the types of stuff you're investing in?

Yeah. So I think that's definitely part of the thinking when we talk about how can we use gamification to build daily habits. And you're right. Dopamine hits positive feedback loops. Near, we call them near wins. Right. All of those are actually really important, I guess, moments that we want to get people, you know, experiencing very quickly when they onboard. You know, you could call it the magic aha moment where they're like, oh, okay, this is fun. I. I got, you know, my. My duolingo, I don't know, question or, or level for that day. Correct. And I'm getting, you know, the fireworks and, and the confetti on the screen and make me feel good. Right. And then how do we keep that going and how do we get them that feedback loop? Even the near. The near wins, like we talked about, like, oh, you know, you almost got it right. Like, the way you present that is also important so that people don't feel like, oh, my God, well, that was like three hours of my life. I'm never going to get back. And don't get me wrong, in gaming, you do have those kind of games where the pleasure is the pain. But for most people, when you want to motivate them, like, that's not probably how you want to do it. And we see it across the portfolio and other spaces too. Like, we talked about this, Aria, for your relationship, we invested in a company. I invest in a company called Alinea that does investing for Gen Z and Millennials and specifically resonates a lot with women who have historically, I guess, under indexed on investing. Right. And so there's a wealth gap and there's a feeling of like, oh, I don't understand what this means. It's very technical. And historically, the investing world and the financial world has not really spoken in a way that I guess other people in this demographic have found accessible. And so here it's not, I want you to make trades and get confettis. Every time you make a risky trade, I want you to get into the habit of doing dollar cost averaging and into a portfolio of, let's say, stocks, bonds, whatever. And over time, that compounds that habit, compounds that wealth, literally compounds. And your, you know, financial wellness is a good thing. It's a good thing. I think it's. And it's also across the board. Like, I think there was this NBC news desk report that surveyed people across, you know, all political spectrums. And it was universal for women. Like, they wanted to kind of have financial independence and understand investing better. And so something like Alinea also helps to address that. And there, again, it's nuanced, like their feedback loop and when they get that positive feedback and the dopamine hit is different from when they get it from Aria, for example. But I think it's an example of how do we use these things from games to create great habits and have great outcomes for people and for society at large as well.

Yeah, I love that. It's interesting you bring that up around women and investing because. So my firm, University Growth Fund, we teach students how to do venture investing. And so we have about 50 student interns. And we struggled for a long time, frankly, to get women into the program. We're based in Utah, and there's some cultural reasons why that's the case. So what we did is we launched a venture capital case competition because when we talked to a lot of women, when you peel back the layers, it was like, very clear that, that there was a perception of, like, risk, and they didn't want to take the risk of doing our internship and not landing the, you know, the full Time job at the end because you could just go do an accounting internship and the accounting firms would hire you. Right. It was like a very clear pathway, low risk. But like, frankly, like, no offense to any accounts out there. I'm glad we have accountants because I couldn't do it. But you know, it's probably not the right fit for everybody. And so we created this competition. What was great is that it became this like low friction, low cost, low risk way for women to like get exposure to it and then find out like, oh, actually, you know, venture capital is really cool as you know Phil. Right. And it's like really fun and, and a lot of women are incredibly good at it to the point that like the winning team every year has been either all women or mostly women. Um, but I, I think, I think that was really insightful of like, you need to approach it slightly differently and create different reward structures that help them. I don't know, you tell me. Like, it, my perception is like to get comfortable with the risk and maybe like that's where some of these gamification elements can be incredibly impactful.

Yeah, no, I totally agree on it. I think it's again, going back to your user and figuring out, you know, why aren't they doing something or why are they doing something and how do we get them there. And you know, it's that idea also in gaming where we kind of do a lot of personalization and segmentation and everything. Right. So your experience, if I'm going in and I'm saying, look, I'm, I'm very shy or I've never invested in my life, you know, I'm very risk averse, like we're not going to go throw you at the most difficult boss and say like, give me all, you know, give me 50% of your salary every month to, to, to invest in something. And we're not also going to throw like perhaps the most high level, difficult difficulty level scene from Aria to you, we're going to say, okay, how can we personalize this? How do we onboard you? And as you play and as you progress, we figure out, hey, are you getting more comfortable? Are you getting more confident? Where's your skill level at? And how do we introduce, you know, new aspects to the experience for you to, for you to kind of feel like you're making progress and you know, so, you know, you'll have women who start with, with just, yeah, doing dollar cost averaging. Let's just start with that. To. Then they're like, okay, like, tell me about bitcoin you know, tell me about, like, what is this? I've been hearing about this. And you're like, okay, great. So now we know we can progress you a little bit more. And everything is adjusted to your risk appetite. And it's, it's, I think it's personalizing that journey for, for people. But it's great to hear that your teams, like, you're seeing more women. I think we do need more women in bc. I think we just need more diversity in bc because I think it, I think everybody has their own personal experiences and that influences how we look at different opportunities and whether we dismiss some opportunities, you know, from the gate or whether we're like, no, actually that's really interesting, right? Like we talk about, you know, for women's health, menopause, like, is a huge, you know, every woman in their life will go through it. And so that's a huge female health opportunity that again, people don't really address or like, you know, we probably need more married couples or people in relationships so that when Ofra talks to them about Aria, I think, you know, people like, oh, yeah, I can relate. That's definitely a huge problem. I think when we have too much of something, then we all over index on the same kind of problems just because we don't understand the problem of somebody else. And that's, I think, very normal and very human.

Yeah. Well, I think Aria is a good example where clearly you, like, you identified this new blue ocean space, right? Where it's actually a huge problem and if you don't fix it, you end up having to go back to solve the problems of dating and looking good. Right. That, that you spent all that time, energy and money trying to solve earlier. And you know, it's, it's definitely the, I don't know, Aria is not like the typical deal that you see getting done in Silicon Valley. Right. And so I think it does require a slightly different perspective.

I will say, Peter, while it's not your typical Silicon Valley deal, I see a lot of opportunity in looking into what used to be taboo topic and using technology and good brand to unlock it. I'll give you a couple of examples. Eight, nine years ago, if you had anxiety attacks or stress, you went to see the shrink in New York and you surely did not kind of disclose to your good friend you were having a shrink appointment and you probably covered it in your calendar and you with a makeup name or whatever, right. I think now with the transition of, you know, how important mental wellness is and you see athletes openly share, you know, Simon Bells before the the Olympics. Like people actually share how important it is, allow all of us to openly discuss it and make it more accessible. And so I mean kudos to the early players. Whatever that's better help or headway that really kind of unlocked that's very important part in society. And it was a big taboo back then. And you talk about dating. I mean we, we treat dating and swiping is so normal. But dating someone you found online 10 years ago, you must have been a crazy person person. Like yeah, they have an AOL email and we're gonna meet in a bar. Hey Phil. I mean they're gonna kill you. Like who are you meeting? Who is this crazy person from the Internet? But now we talk about how swiping makes sense. I'll give you another example. There is an amazing app called Flow for period tracking.

Right.

Two brothers from I, I believe Eastern Europe that came up with this app to help a family member actually. And it was a, it was, I mean a big taboo. Why two men, you know, coming up with a peer tracking app which is now a multi billion dollar company. I think all those parts in society and life that are under discussed, that's where the big opportunity lies. I mean we all understand it's important. We all understand it's a matter of time until we, we unlock it. So why wait? And that's exactly where I place Aria. I mean couples need help. We can all relate to a certain degree. I mean just not because we are a bad couple. We are a great couple, but we can become even better. So how do we do it with Arya?

Love it.

I think it's also like the fact that Taboo mental wellness was taboo. Right. Taboo is also a very interesting moat. It's hard to build for. And so in also in ways like for a lot of investors it's like. But that also makes it really interesting, right because that's, that's a, that's a space that's going to be. Remain less competitive because it is difficult. It's new. Nobody wants to be the first. You know there's a saying also the second was it second mouse gets the cheese. That's also something new. So, so that sometimes is something that comes into consideration for investors. But I, I also just personally really love it when we can take lessons from gaming. We can take, you know I, I call it working with gravity which is basically like let's look at demographic tailwinds. Let's look at real world issue where people are motivated to, to pay or solve it. And let's combine that and I think there's a lot of opportunity there. And, and you know, I don't think it's limited to Aria. I don't think it's limited to investing. I think, you know, we have, in my opinion, feels like a pretty scary society. Every time I turn on the news, I just like, I think I want to turn it off again. And I don't like this timeline that I'm on. I want to be on a different one. But like, there's so many things there that I think we can use. How do we use all these things and actually solve real world problems? I think there's great opportunities there.

He can change your timeline.

Okay. If he can, he could take all my money.

I want to ask maybe, maybe a sensitive topic, but I think a really relevant one which is. So there's been a lot of pushback, right? There's a belief on gamification and a lot of concern that technologists are hacking our brains to make us addicted to things. And love to get your perspective on that philosophy. Like one, like, is it a real issue if it is? Like, how do we use gamification and our knowledge of neuroscience in a way that's responsible and ethical?

I think that's like a billion dollar question. I guess we, we like to me it's, it's a, it's a really good question because when I think about like, you know, we talk about society, right. And, and all the scary things, I think there was like something there around how in today's world there's I think, a gender gap between life goals. Now, for example, like more men are probably put having a family and getting married higher than most women. And that's like something that is very difficult to solve. There are other societies in the world where there's like, I call it hard coded gender, right? You just functional. You have for whatever reason more male babies being born than girl babies. And that's just something that's really going to be difficult to solve. And it's a, you know, a ticking time bomb. Because when you have big portions of society where they're not going to be able to have that dream life or their goals met, it's normally a ticking time bomb. And so that's something I'm thinking a lot about, like, can we use technology to solve this issue? Because it's going to be a very real issue and I'm always in favor of solving things that like, again, there's an additional motivation to it besides just let's be entertained and let's learn a language like can we solve something that's real? And I like to think that there are probably more investors like me out there who are thinking about it and more founders that are thinking about building these products that solve real world issues. But yeah, I think we have a really big challenge as society because I think also a lot of stuff around AI is the truth is these are all new spaces and it's evolving so quickly, far more quickly than regulation or us as human beings know how to wrap our heads around it. But I think the fact that we're asking these questions is probably a good thing. And I think it's important to be able to have these discussions and discourses because that's the only real way we're going to figure our way out to this. But yeah, I'm a big fan of all things in moderation. So even though we're a gaming vc, should your kids be on screens all the time? No, probably not. All things in moderation. There's value to gamification, but they still Is it as good as them going to the playground and playing with friends and learning social skills? Probably not. I think tech will can help to solve a lot of problems and I think it, you know, but in some ways it's just an imperfect solution as well. And I'm going to say something that Ofer is going to disagree with, which is I used to think like companion girlfriends and boyfriends and stuff like that. That was like haha. You know, it's funny but as I'm thinking about those, you know, gender gaps we're talking about, I'm starting to wonder if maybe, maybe those things, although imperfect, are a solution that we need probably a society because we have these issues that are otherwise the imbalance is just probably impossible to solve. But yeah, I don't have all the answers. It's just something that I think about a lot.

So I want to jump in. Thank you Phil for I was about to say that and you can. It's a nice connection. So listen Peter, there is nothing that worries me more then AI meets gamification than the concept of virtual companions that Phil just mentioned. I'll give you my take on that. Look, loneliness is a growing pandemic. People are lonely. You look at the birth rate charts declining all over the place as we talked before about gaming and acquiring new skills. You look at Gen Z, Gen Z is the generation that has the most. Is the most challenge in creating both physical and emotional intimacy with each other more than us and our parents and our grandparents just for comparison.

Yeah.

So we are lonely and we lack social skills. Can a virtual, can a virtual companion provide me, the individual, some kind of a moment of a temporary relief, you know? Yes, why not? It's a. By the way, that's the easy way. That's the hack. That's the scary part about, about gamification. That's the get me hook and addicted to someone that never challenged me. It's like sugar. It's always sweet. Why not?

Yeah.

Will it teach me the skill set to go and form real life relationship and skills? That's where I have my hesitations. I think AI and technology and gamification can help us fight loneliness together by bringing people in real life, whatever it takes. But I don't want to replace the real life connection with a virtual one.

Well, I mean, yes, but I also think again, like just to be a devil's advocate here, like the fact is not, you know, as much as we want everybody to be able to go out there and get, you know, their social interaction, their social network and community, I think there's just going to be some people that for them, like, even though this is an imperfect solution, it is a solution. And maybe, you know, I remember a few, wasn't a few months ago where, you know, OpenAI had a chatgpt, became a bit sycophantics and people were like, look, this is creepy and weird. So that gives me hope for humanity. You know, maybe right now those companion chatbots are, are a little bit more sycophantic. They never challenge you, they never disagree, which is not healthy and not normal. But maybe, you know, as they evolve and you know that they can do that and you look at it as like an ideal world, those are training wheels for you to go out and maybe have a conversation with somebody else and grow your social network. But also I think there will be a group of people where maybe they're just not going to get there as well. And I feel like, yeah, maybe they should have that as a, as a solution. Devil's epic.

It was interesting. I read a report recently that, and this is just Utah, 1 in 3 single Utahns are using AI in some way related to the relationship. So they didn't distinguish between using it to help you in your Tinder conversations or actually using like an AI relationship and having a relationship with the AI. But either way, like a lot of singles are already using it to guide them and, and to pull guide them and also to use it in their interpersonal relationships, which is great.

This is great. Yeah. If an if an AI can help me become a better version of myself and then kind of present and create those connections, I mean this is awesome. That's what we are all hoping for. I think that's where tech can really make again help us live our life.

Yeah, well, I think there is also an opportunity for AI to like take care of a lot of the mundane things and as long as we don't fill our schedule up with other stuff should open up more time for intimacy and relationships in the real world. And I, I have a thesis that AI is actually going to drive over time more interpersonal experiences because those are the things that are going to be real. And I think you're kind of already seeing this to a certain degree with people like Taylor Swift who. It's not like anybody went to her concerts because they wanted to listen to the music. You can listen to the music basically for free now. You went to the concerts because you wanted an experience and maybe you wanted to brag too but like you wanted the experience and people shelled out thousands of dollars for that experience. Right. Live in person, can't ever experience that again. Right. And so I don't know. I, I'm. That's, that's my optimistic hope is that it kind of shifts us back to let's, let's engage in person and have real world experiences because we don't need to be like chained to a computer all day long. Like AI is taken care of a lot of things for us in that regard. As we wrap it up though, I want to do something fun and that is I want to hear what everybody's favorite mobile game is. What are you playing while you wait in line?

I'm, I'm so I'm a, I'm a, I'm a huge forex survival, apocalypse scenario kind of girl. So I'm still playing my white out Survival which is a light hearted version of an apocalypse scenario. I just want to say that I'm.

Afraid of that game.

I feel like if you like Clash of Clans for me and I'd be addicted for years.

I, Yeah, I. John, I don't think you should start then I think you.

Might become like deleted the game four or five times. And the only reason I broke the habit is on like when you're, when you get up to the top, it just took, I think you had to start to pay to play and I just, I wouldn't do that. So, so I didn't have the self control to stop playing. The system broke me. But like I would be on work calls all the time. Just like building my village. So that game's scary.

Well, you asked what is my favorite game and what do I play? And those are two different answers. Because even to date. And again, I'm 44. My all time favorite game that I was addicted to was Heroes of Might and Magic three. That was the best game ever, in my opinion. I see Phil is kind of raising her eyebrow, but it was an amazing game. Nowadays, I don't. I don't have much time. So I'm more of a hyper casual type of game. The one that you open up in 15 seconds, you kill 45 seconds, you move on. And all the friends again, all the friends in the industry that does all those kind of silly hyper casual games. I mean, that's. I am a sucker for those.

What are you playing right now? What's your go to?

Click it.

The one with the. It's. It's actually the one with the water slide. I forgot the name. I think it's Voodoo and the water slide. Water slide. Where you have to kind of beat people when you go down the water slide. Phil knows. Used to monetize it in the. In the days. And yeah, I'm very silly. But again, Heroes of Might and Magic was like, you know, night, white nights of playing with the friends.

I mean, I love it. I love it.

Peter, what's your.

A lot of board games. And I've been reading a lot on World War II recently. And so I've been playing a lot of Axes and Allies, which is this old school board game where it pits you in World War II.

Pretty old.

Yeah, it's pretty old. But they do have a mobile app, and so I've been playing that recently. So anyways. Well, this has been. Go ahead.

I think my classic one would probably be Civilization. That's my Clash of Clans, by the way. I cannot have that. I've had to delete that game off my iPad and everything. I can't be trusted with it. You know, there was no. Like, I'm. I remember one summer I was in Italy and we were in Venice for just about a day too long. And I was like, I'm gonna load it up. And I spent the entire day in my hotel playing Civilization.

It was spots in the whole world, and you're sitting in your hotel playing Civilization.

I'm like, I already. I already did the canal thing and I already went to the churches. Like, it's fine. Like, I think, you know, I'm gonna play Civilization. This is really important. This guy keeps trying to, like, invade my territory, and so I'm, like, at war right now. Don't talk to me. But, yeah, that's. That's my classic one. And, yeah, I'm, yeah, I'm playing Whiteout Survival, and I think there's another one called Towel Survival, which is basically the same thing, but just a different skin. So I'm. You could tell I'm just a sucker for that category.

You have a genre. I love it. Well, this is a super fun conversation. Really appreciate both of you joining us for the episode today and for the conversations and a lot of the insights. Really interesting to kind of see how you're both thinking about gamification and what the future looks like. So thank you for the time. Awesome.

It was really nice to be on here. Thank you, Peter. And thank you, John.