Ep 174: Eduard Titov & Jurate Plungyte
“Every fifth person is lonely and AI won’t replace the relationships”. Getting 20K users in 4 months with no marketing budget & tips for working with influencers
Eduard Titov and Jurate Plungyte are the co-founders of Joiner App, an innovative socialization platform designed to help people connect and form meaningful relationships in their local communities. With backgrounds at companies like Tinder, Uber, and Ogilvy, the Joiner team brings a wealth of experience to their mission of addressing loneliness and fostering genuine social interactions.
On this episode we talk about:
Why Build Another Social Network
Challenges of Launching in a Saturated Market
Growth Strategies and Marketing Tactics
How to Build User Experience and Product Design That Works
Building in Trust and Safety in Social Platforms
The Role of AI in Social Interactions
We are on YouTube and Linkedin as well
Watch select full-length episodes on our YouTube channel > https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP6ueaLnjS-CQfrMCm2EoTA
Connect with us on Linkedin > https://www.linkedin.com/company/pursuit-of-scrappiness/
Read the full episode transcript below
Uldis (00:03.074)
Hello, hello, hello, dear listeners. Welcome to another episode of the Pursuit of Scrappiness podcast. Whether you're building a business, running a team, or just starting out in your career, we are here to bring you scrappy and actionable insights to help you become more productive. My name is Uldis Teraudkalns and my co -host is Janis Zeps. Hey, man.
Janis (00:24.548)
Hey everyone.
Uldis (00:26.926)
Before we jump into today's topic, don't forget to subscribe on YouTube, on Spotify, on Apple podcasts. In return, will hear more than 170 episodes that we have recorded over the span of three years of ageless wisdom, of founders, VCs, industry operators, evangelists.
helping you with all kinds of actionable insights and advice to build your companies, to run your teams and to become better at what you do. So subscribe and be the first one to know when we come out every Tuesday and you noticed that we are on YouTube now. So go on YouTube, click that bell, click that subscribe button and see us talk to the great founders of our generation. So about today's topic.
Starting a consumer app in our world, in our over -apped world can be intimidating. Starting a consumer app in social interactions can be even more scary. And starting a company in a category that is allegedly dominated by a few massive incumbents, like are you crazy? But in order to make it big, you have to aim big. And VCs are
mostly very excited about B2B SaaS companies, right? But actually many unicorns and many of the Baltic unicorns actually are consumer companies and most and many of the big tech companies actually also started as consumer companies. So today we want to talk to a team that has stepped on this very ambitious path to redefine how we make social interactions with people online.
Jurate (02:02.081)
off.
Jurate (02:12.461)
you
Uldis (02:17.72)
So please welcome Eduard Titov and Jurate Plungyte, co -founders of JoinerApp. Hey guys.
Jurate (02:24.777)
Bye.
Eduard (02:25.766)
Thanks for inviting us. Happy to be here. Welcome and greetings from Warsaw, from Poland, 18 .4.
Jurate (02:34.293)
Greetings from Vilnius.
Uldis (02:37.25)
All right.
Janis (02:37.609)
I also look so awesome. was like we were interviewing a guy from Dubai yesterday and he had also skyscrapers and but your view is close to that almost.
Eduard (02:47.078)
I'm surprised how good Warsaw is.
Jurate (02:47.095)
you
Uldis (02:49.356)
I'm not sure it's being marketed as the Dubai of the North, but it's a line I have seen. so Joiner app is a socialization app that allows you to explore and organize social gatherings in a designated city or area.
Janis (02:57.232)
Dubai of Poland for sure, at least.
Jurate (02:58.879)
Dubai of Poland, yes.
Uldis (03:14.022)
The idea united a team of pros from Tinder, Uber, Ogilvy and IT companies. So from the official launch, the app grew tenfold in two months by word of mouth, helping expats to integrate into local communities and people just connect with new people. Not necessarily for the intention of having sex. So, which is kind of what the meeting online has been, I think, predominantly.
about for the past X years.
Janis (03:46.118)
Every app is a dating app if you're brave enough or something like that. The people were trying LinkedIn for that as well.
Uldis (03:51.768)
You
Jurate (03:52.715)
Yeah. Yeah. Yesterday I was reading the last article and it was an interview of a guy who said that Instagram is the best dating app that he ever used in his life because you can have like directly contact and you can check already who the person is. So as you say, like every app is a dating app if you want it, of course.
Uldis (03:55.054)
That's true, that's true.
Uldis (04:15.19)
Yeah, so today we want to talk about the state of online dating slash socializing and interactions industry, how to build products when Gen Z is possibly your biggest audience and how to make and market consumer apps among other things. So let's jump into it. And yeah, as I said,
Jurate (04:38.636)
Uldis (04:39.062)
a seemingly very saturated market, online dating, online interactions, social networks, read articles about how it's a dying industry, although it seems very alive and dominated by a few mega players. How did you decide to get involved in this race?
Jurate (04:54.061)
Thank
Jurate (05:04.927)
Adore it, Wally.
Eduard (05:05.196)
It started with me and yeah, so I just didn't think about it. I saw a problem I faced and I decided just to do it. So when you think too much, when you are too smart, you don't do anything because you're overthinking. there are a lot of players, it's impossible. And of course we hear this every day. But when you feel the real problem, when you are just a small user,
You don't think that, you know, I'm surrounded by tons of apps or like huge, huge companies there around. So yeah, I faced a problem in Kazakhstan when I stuck there for four months during COVID times, you know, and I realized that how difficult is socialize with people, even though we have like old school, I don't know, apps or products like Facebook or Tinder and so on and so on. So of course I use it and I realized it's...
still quite difficult. For example, if you use Tinder to socialize, it's impossible. You waste so much time, you know, through this path, you know, to actually meet. And you need to swipe a lot, you need to wait when they swipe back. Then you chat a lot, like the same questions, hi, where are you from, blah, blah. So you waste really a lot of time, you need to pay to do it quicker. And then, yeah, I was fed up with this and I realized, fuck Tinder, will create a joiner.
So I will eliminate everything what is needed and just make like super simple product where you can just in one click in one minute, you know, socialize. And it was initial idea. I draw it on the paper. I came back to Willness and in one year realized I didn't do anything about the project. So I like pushed myself and started to do it, you know, and my skills, my experience helped me to...
move quite fast, you know, and to attract cool people around. So like Ogilvy, they believed in us, they helped with branding. And then Eurata joined, she used to be a CMO at Uber and I saw her path in Uber. So she's crazy, like one of the best I've ever seen. So, and then my mentor, business mentor, he saw opportunity to make it global. And he said, I mean, you know, I will...
Eduard (07:24.888)
even give a small investment, angel investment, and I want to be a co -founder because we can make a global product together. And he runs businesses with 300 people under him. when you have like a small set of people, but you know, you have belief already that we can do something big because I believe in that people. And this is how we started. So yeah, we don't overthink. If you believe in something, just do it. And if you do it right way, so people will follow you.
Uldis (07:54.104)
So let's talk a bit about that launch. what is it that you actually launched? How refined the product was? When did you launch? And I mentioned some numbers, but maybe you have more updated numbers with more color on how that initial kind of expansion or catching the attention of users happened.
Jurate (08:04.332)
Okay.
Jurate (08:15.597)
Well, we started in our own country, in Lithuania, back in Vilnius, so we do truly believe that if we can do it there, in our own field, we can do it anywhere. So it took some time to develop the app and we launched in Lithuania, I would say, like maybe four months ago, like on the full speed and we got like over 20, 20k users. I mean, it was...
I mean, it's unbelievable how you see how it grows. I mean, we don't, we didn't waste like, for example, big budgets. don't, we don't really believe in that because if you have something that's truly yours, that you truly believe with, we do a movement. I am more of a movement person, not like really traditional marketing that doesn't really work. And it's not interesting if we are talking about the Gen Z, right? So they are like fast users. They believe in stories and they want to get the result like straight away.
and to see interaction and to see how it works and if it's interesting, if it has a story, then they use it. So this is where I step in and because I believe in that too, even though I'm not a, I didn't see anymore. But I mean, this is something that really works for us, like do viral stuff, do crazy stuff, do something out of the market, someone that doesn't do anything.
I mean in that field. So whatever crazy ideas we think the more crazy it is the more we believe in those so for example we did We did movement against loneliness in the city in the center of the of the city with all the How to say with them billboards, you know people's like
Eduard (09:56.241)
It was a protest.
Jurate (09:57.685)
It was a protest, yeah, a protest against loneliness, against dating apps, and the TV came to take interview. This is something that really makes us go further. When people are gathering in those crazy ideas, we really believe that we can go viral anywhere. So at this point, we decided that we are ready to go to other markets. So we chose Poland, Warsaw.
At the moment, Edward is there and trying to do big things, meeting interesting people. And I think we're going to go really, really big and interesting there as well.
Janis (10:39.822)
Yeah, mean, Poland is probably a nice market, right? A lot of people in the country. Interesting you mentioned loneliness. We spoke to an Italian company, we wrote they are like also very successful in traveling and one of their success reasons because they also realized they are more, we're going to talk about Gen Z's a bit, but like they are more towards millennials who also are very lonely generation and they started grouping people together and sending them on tours together. honestly, for millennials, very few ways to meet people these days, you know, now it used
to be in office at least you can get some friendships but like now you're remote how big role does this like Gen Z or millennial loneliness overall play?
Jurate (11:11.639)
Yeah.
Jurate (11:18.035)
Like very, very, very big. We got the research and I mean, I'm reading a lot about this. for example, Lithuania, every fifth person is lonely. Right? So I mean, this is a huge number. And if we take it worldwide, I mean, this is, this is unbelievable. And it wasn't that we went straight away for this, for this message, right? It wasn't, it wasn't like this that, I mean, we created an app because people are lonely and no, first of all, it's fun.
because it's fun for us, this is our way how we live and how we see the world, right? And then we shared and we saw that people are sharing their stories on how they cannot socialize, how lonely they are, how hard it is to use dating apps on meeting the people, like for the real connection, right? You can meet someone, you go to the date and I mean, it's nothing or you spend as Edward said, like, you know, weeks and weeks like chatting and there is no result.
And when we got the feedback from our users how much it helped for them to socialize, how much it helped for them to create communities, to find friends, to get involved into interesting events, to have a life out of it, then it was a click. Like really, then it was a click for us that, I mean, we really go the right way. We really have like the path that we believe in, we have like...
bunch of people that believe in us as well. So whenever the hard thing is, because having the startup, is hard. You have a bunch of problems and things, but when you turn out and again, like here, whenever you go to the event and people come to you and they say, thank you, thank you guys, thank you for this, thank you for my friends, thank you that I'm here, you saved my life. And then again, I mean, you stand out.
Eduard (13:01.152)
You saved my life, say. Yeah.
Jurate (13:07.445)
And again, you do what you do because this is something that you know it is in your heart. So whenever you ask in the beginning to stand out when there's a bunch of apps and big companies around us, it doesn't really bother. It doesn't really bother because you have your inner gut to do something that people love. So guess that's the main machine.
Janis (13:34.67)
I guess it's actually time for me to ask one question. We usually don't go into specifics of the product, because it's more interesting to learn about your experience, because that is applicable to other businesses. But about the product, I mean, what kind of use case, like, do people meet just to hang out for a beer? Do people meet to network? Do people meet to date? All of this, like, it's just to sell B2B SaaS to each other, like.
Uldis (13:58.624)
to sell B2B SaaS.
Eduard (14:01.98)
No, the thing is, we found kind of our niche that people want to just live, know, every day they want to have interesting life for them. So we have so much noise around us. We have patterns from different angles that, you know, people push to do us like you need to study to learn to run, I don't know, whatever. But when I talk to people, even now, I'm talking with influencers here in Warsaw, and I also like constantly asking them.
what would you like to do in the evening? And they started to do some basic stuff like, I wanna do this and this and I'm asking, no, no, I mean, everyone is talking about this, but really like, what would you like to do tonight? What drives you? What you were dreaming to do and you forgot about it. And then like one person said in the end of conversation, I would like to drink just upper all in the evening with my friends or with other people.
Boom, boom. So people just forget who they are and what they want to do. And joiner allows that, you know. Why people are so happy in joiner? Because they can do what they want to do without asking others. And you will always find someone who will join you. And then you become more happy, you know. You're like a Fisher guy who is waiting for a Monday morning, 5 a Because you know that you're gonna be happy because you spend time for yourself, what you love to do. And joiner allows you to do it every day.
So like think about yourself, don't think about your friends, if they can do it or not, you can do it anyways, because people will join it. And most probably that those people will become your friends, because they are based on common interests and you spend time, you talk to them, you know. Now my circle of people around me, like 90 % of people are from joiner. I have new friends, so cool people, it's crazy. I cannot believe it.
Jurate (15:56.589)
I'm really waiting for the moment when we will be in different markets and when people have opportunity to travel and to meet local people or other people who are traveling in different countries like joining joiner app like using it and gathering into events. That's gonna be a different angle then.
Uldis (16:20.746)
How do you approach the language question? Are you localizing to local languages or are keeping it in English or what's the approach there?
Eduard (16:32.942)
Yeah, we started with the English language, but then we noticed that, you know, we have many experts speaking different languages. We have a lot of Ukrainians, Belarusians, we have Russian speaking people, we have English speaking like Turkish, Indians, whatever. So we decided to localize and we so far we created when you create event or any activity, you can select what language you would like to speak during that event.
And only people who speak that language, they will see it in the feed. So then yeah, it narrows a little bit because before we didn't need that. We didn't have many events. We didn't have many activities, many people, and we just kept everything in English. But now we have diversified it. And when you download an app, asks you like, first of all, what language of the app you want. And second, what languages do you speak? So when you select it, it's going to be going to simplify your life.
Uldis (17:27.944)
and how much more complicated does it make your work to provide? Do you also provide support in those languages or how does that work for you?
Eduard (17:37.77)
No, it's quite simple actually. So we prepared everything from our side and we need to just upload as many languages as we want and no problem at all. To support, we don't have so many texts to change something, you know. And also it's quite early bird product so it's okay if you have some mistakes and typos, whatever. So we don't care much about it. It's just people. Yeah. Yeah.
Jurate (17:59.351)
Yeah, at the moment we really keep it simple.
Eduard (18:05.173)
Don't overthink, don't make troubles where you don't have troubles, so it's okay.
Uldis (18:10.226)
Yeah, I think that's very important to not make trouble for yourself by overthinking and over over complicating things. So
Jurate (18:14.046)
No.
Jurate (18:18.273)
Because if you want everything to be perfect, you will never launch. That's the main thing, I think.
Janis (18:25.22)
Yeah, super impressive. Like four months you guys just already like you so many companies would spend four months just doing like a design and logo check checking logo options and
Uldis (18:32.69)
ideation
Eduard (18:35.176)
No, no, no. The thing is that before we created MVP and it took like more than one year, but it was kind of secondary products for everyone. We had businesses and so on. And four months ago, we just started to spread to people. And four months ago, we started to work full -time on this product. So yeah, before it was kind of just for fun. We wanted to test.
Janis (18:51.502)
Okay.
Janis (19:00.428)
nice. Makes sense. Still impressive. I think it also takes, of course, time to build the app prototype as well, but still impressive.
Uldis (19:09.845)
In terms of
Eduard (19:10.066)
Yeah, it's quite a big product, even though it looks super simple. But you know, it's quite a huge product because it's a social network. I can follow you once you create any activity, I get notified about it, you know, we can socialize, chat between each other. So and a lot of things there. Yeah, algorithm. So it took time.
Jurate (19:28.877)
You can even become an influencer in the app. That's also possible.
Eduard (19:33.662)
Yeah, we have already some stories like that. So when you create constantly activities like with 200 people, so businesses start to notice you and say like, come to us, know, create our venue. We can give you something for that.
Uldis (19:38.09)
Okay.
Uldis (19:53.988)
Maybe it's a premature question given that you are early in this product, besides the whole mission and problem that you're solving for probably also younger generations in terms of loneliness and connecting with people, have you had any conscious decisions when building the product, how to build it so that it's...
really works for Gen Z or millennials, still, I hope we still matter. So how do you think about these generational things? Are you building it for everybody or you're focusing a bit and does it somehow drive your decision making?
Jurate (20:37.293)
I think that our decision is driving the user experience as much comfortable as possible, as much simple as possible, as Edward said, we do not overthink. We are users our own, we use the app every day, we go to events, we listen to people, what they talk, what they like, what they don't, and this is not something like going to Millennials or Gen Z or whatever, just doing something simple.
very usable and user friendly. So that's the main thing where it goes to the app of being nice and easy. So I guess this is the main thing what brings us out from the other companies.
Eduard (21:17.853)
of.
Eduard (21:22.724)
Yeah, simplicity is a key. when I started, you know, big experience in building some different products from design side. So I used to have a web design studio for eight years. I was running, working with the best designers. And of course you have already kind of taste and understanding like, you know, what works, what not. And when you use products, you kind of like in one glance, you can understand what to improve. And when I decided to create a joiner app, like first, like...
The keyword would be simplicity and I even started to count every clicks on the platform. So to make it as simple as possible. And still, you know, we have this philosophy in the company when we create new designs, whatever new pages. we always try to make it as simple as possible, not to make it complicated, unneeded features, blah, blah, blah. need like one, two clicks and you need to get to the point you want. So this is really important stuff.
And I was involved in design very much. I designed, like worked with designers days and nights. Our Tinder designer, he lives in New York and for me it was night. Still I was calling with him every day and that night, that day doesn't matter for me. I love what I do.
Uldis (22:39.638)
And besides that simplicity, is there anything else you have learned while building this or before? What makes for a good consumer app? What makes for killer app that people are going to love using?
Eduard (22:52.086)
And yeah, of course, you should understand sales points of your product. So we have free sales points pages on the platform and we focus like 90 % of focus goes to that pages. you thinking of every detail of every, I don't know, every pixel of it, every text, everything matters and you should check constantly and improve constantly those ones because...
You help people to sell their profiles, you help people to sell their events. If they don't have experience to create ones, you need to design such ways that whatever they create, looks attractive and you want to join them. So this is our work. And we clearly understand that.
Jurate (23:41.741)
So it's really living with the app and living with the people who use it. So this is something that truly drives us very, very far where we are at the moment. So Edward is one of the best influencers at the moment in our app. So, I mean, this helps a lot.
Uldis (24:03.852)
about trust and safety, something that is very big matter for social networks and social apps. And, you know, maybe companies like X can just remove all trust and safety because those people rarely meet that share all that content online. In your case, it's a lot different. There's a very high chance of your people, your users meeting in real life.
So how do you think about trust and safety?
Eduard (24:34.899)
Yeah, so it's a common pattern, but usually it's difficult when you meet one -to -one. But here, first of all, we have groups of people who meet. Usually it's from like four to 10 people, and there is a more safer place to meet. You don't have many issues. And second, of course, you have all the tools to control it.
But so far we didn't have many issues with that because, as I said, like you bit with others and you feel safer. before going, you can always check their profiles, their Instagrams, if they mention it and so on and so on. So you already understand who is it. And you know, people are friendly because they want to make friendship. They want to make friends. And it's not that they want to do something bad and go to the company, you know. And of course, you can block, you can do everything like, yeah.
Uldis (25:26.049)
Well...
Eduard (25:29.637)
No, no, but I see like this, we are kind of building a community where people are super friendly and they are on a good emotion side rather than on the bad. But we understand that the more we grow, the more issues we're going to have. And of course we are taking care and thinking about it and implementing some stuff to avoid and to support people.
Jurate (25:51.181)
We are thinking...
Uldis (25:51.276)
So you're saying that I cannot make a one -to -one event in a forest. Yes, you will not allow that.
Jurate (25:58.765)
Well, we track events. You can, of course you can, but we track events. We see what events are created. I will not lie, we had some strange events in the feed.
Eduard (25:59.92)
You can, you can.
Yeah, you definitely can do it.
Uldis (26:18.966)
Hahaha
Jurate (26:23.967)
interesting people as well but I mean you can block it, you always see who is joining your event, you don't have to confirm if you don't like it or I don't know like whatever it's up to you I mean we never had a single issue or a bad experience on this point for now because I yeah
Eduard (26:44.887)
Yeah, before someone...
Before someone goes, you have a waiting list of people who want to join you. You need to accept them or deny. If you accept, they go to common chat. if you accept that, only then they see address. So before that, they don't see. They have just a radius about five kilometers around. And that's it. So it's kind of first step how to make it more safe.
Uldis (27:13.954)
But you really piqued our interest. You really piqued our interest about those interesting events. So can you share some good examples of what kind of events are happening?
Janis (27:14.092)
Good point, so you cannot crash some party.
Jurate (27:26.105)
I mean different events from going to the concerts to home parties, pasta parties, like baking, don't know, meeting, golf playing, cinema nights, I mean all bunch of events and swinger party.
Eduard (27:40.065)
No, but you want it, yeah, yeah. We have such swinger, something, some politics shit, so we decided we removed it immediately.
Uldis (27:43.252)
The stren - stranger part.
Uldis (27:50.114)
Like a political rally or
Jurate (27:51.062)
Yeah, so we really try to Now we really try to track the events and check that it wouldn't be like some inappropriate or like for example, our app is people to people, right? So we do not let like companies to do events as a commercial. So this is not really working. So it has to be a person that has an interest and he invites or she to join their common interests.
Uldis (27:56.245)
Okay.
Jurate (28:18.957)
So I mean, that's also one of the feeds that really works well. So you always see a person creating an event.
Uldis (28:30.262)
No, that's, mean, well, now I think it's quite easy to manage. And obviously I probably also wouldn't advocate a fully liberal platform where everybody can do what they want. So yeah, it's just wishing you a good mindfulness and controls in place to manage these things when...
when you grow and when people are going to come at you and say that all you are limiting our freedoms and telling us what we can do or what we cannot do. And so I think these trust and safety issues are crazy.
Eduard (29:09.671)
You spend much time to create something from zero, you you risk a lot, you help people and then yeah, in some moment you become bigger and it turns to a bit to different direction. The people just don't understand that they need to support local builders as much as possible or even global builders. It's so difficult to start to do something. It's crazy. And when they read some bad comments, you know, we don't have much, but still like yesterday.
I read that some guy wrote that, I cannot download the app with particular number. So probably you're from that side. What the fuck? We're just building a product for you to make friends, helping you to live better life, to have every day Friday. And just focus on that side. If you have an issue, write to us, we'll help. We're happy to help. And from another angle that you mentioned, we are ready.
to grow. That's why we built a super team who has experience, our partner has 20 years experience in building different products and all the and so on and so on. He already told us we will face this and this and this and we need to be ready for that. And yes, we understand what it's going to be like and we are getting ready for that.
Jurate (30:33.897)
Basically all the mistakes are done already, right? In any angle of the business. So you just have to talk with people who made those mistakes and try not to be there for the second time. we really try to talk with different businessmen, with like startup owners, with investors to gather as much information as possible for us not to repeat the mistakes that were done rather than creating our own.
I wasn't done yet.
Eduard (31:04.953)
Yeah, also one of the best lawyers in Lithuania, well known, they are our advisors and they are taking care of all law issues and paper contracts, whatever, so to make it proper from the business and legal side.
Uldis (31:23.434)
Yeah, if only we could always learn from others mistakes though, That would make things easier.
Jurate (31:28.028)
It doesn't work all the time.
Yeah, it doesn't work all the time, but I mean the more you talk, the more you understand that I mean it's already there, so you know there always is a solution.
Uldis (31:43.434)
Okay, but then let's talk a bit about growth, getting the word out. So what kind of strategies worked for you besides a cool product and word of mouth? Did you employ some other tactics, low budget activities to spread the word?
Jurate (32:05.933)
I will not lie, we were struggling at the moment with this part as we really didn't understand the angle how we can start to launch our product and we changed marketing team maybe three or four times, like changing people, changing the attitude and what we really understood what works the best is
Influencer marketing. mean at the moment, I mean, it's it's not like really, you know, maybe popular to say or something Star way, you know or some Super super ideas, but I mean this is this is something that really works. So I mean talking with them Working with them creating some viral ideas as I said before like something different that do others So this is where the craft of course the creativity goes but really using the influencer marketing, I mean
not like usual advertising or meta ads or like whatever ads that at the moment try to use. It's really a waste of money. I mean, at least for us, right? At least for us, for our social app. So this is at this moment. I mean, I don't know how it will be further, but at this moment it really works well. It worked amazingly well in Lithuania and we see that it works same in Warsaw. So you can track how it goes along the way.
Eduard (33:15.284)
this moment.
Jurate (33:31.105)
And also, like we also use PR. We also use PR like talking about loneliness, about the topic, about how dating apps are dying already. I mean, this is happening and it goes down every year, even though of course it's still a big market, but it goes down because people are searching for a good connection, for a right connection and for the communities to be a part of.
So this is another part where we do talk a lot, where we stand out and we are really getting bold with the messaging, not like really wrapping it nicely or talking softly about it. So no, we have our own opinion, we see the problem and we talk about it. So guess those two main things for now really works for at least for our business.
Uldis (34:28.546)
Well, thank you for taking the bait. I wanted you to answer about that you use influencer marketing. So it's nothing controversial. So can you tell us some things to know when working with influencers? how does it work? What to expect? Maybe some tips on how to get most of it. So yeah.
Jurate (34:54.391)
I guess the new...
Eduard (34:54.653)
tell you how we do it in Warsaw right now. So first of all, we have kind of a list of influencers we might think they would work for us. So they should align your values, your brand, your kind of product, you know, it should be interesting for their followers. And the second you check all the metrics because a lot of influencers, they have fake followers. So probably most of them they have, but you need to understand how many of those.
So you check all the metrics before because some influencer, even smaller one can be more efficient than big one because they like more loyal people. And then what I like to do is personally meet because you select like the top 10 you want to work with. So you personally meet, you kind of sell your product, sell your idea. And if they really like it, it's going to be a good partnership.
And of course they can do some a little bit more for you when they know you personally, when they understand the mission, when they like the product. And it's not like we send the email and we want to buy an ad, know, no, no, no, we want to live together and have be friends together. So this is the thing. And in Lithuania, for example,
Jurate (36:10.093)
They become a part of our team. Yeah, so they become a part of our team.
Eduard (36:13.934)
Yeah, and in Lutania, for example, we have several influencers who are constantly using our app. It's so cool because it helps for them too. They are also people. It's not like they are providers of service. They are people. And it's really cool when I see we are going to kayaks and there are two influencers. It's crazy. I'm so happy about it.
Uldis (36:25.698)
Hmm.
Uldis (36:38.592)
And I guess it's also quite easy to track the performance, right? Because you have all of the numbers of the posts and they have probably promo codes or stuff like that. So you can like have very direct, very direct numbers, right?
Jurate (36:38.719)
First of all, we...
Eduard (36:45.53)
Sure, sure.
Eduard (36:50.467)
Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
Jurate (36:54.541)
So basically we have those influencers who like the app itself. So it's not that we work with the influencer who says, I don't believe in your app, but I will do some real or I will do whatever you need. I mean, it doesn't really work for us. So as Edward said, we already have a community. We have a community of people who have their own world. have their own users, as we say, right?
Eduard (37:10.359)
If they don't meet with us, we don't work with them.
Jurate (37:23.989)
promoting us because they believe in us. I mean, in some way they found something that they like in the app and they do the events and most of the time, even when we don't ask, they continue to do that because this is something that they start to live in. And again, this is what I said, it's starting to get a movement. that's why we don't, I wouldn't say that we invest again.
a lot in the influencer marketing, like overpaying for the big influencers. Rather, we are gathering people who becomes our community and they live this opportunity together with us and as a part of our team.
Uldis (38:11.884)
Yeah, that sounds like the right way. What about AI? How and if that has affected the way you build your product? And maybe have you noticed how AI is affecting social interactions between people, if at all?
Eduard (38:33.278)
No, actually AI is built to help and it's good. And we constantly talk about it and it's a big trend. It used to be a huge trend previously, but we don't want to have AI just to have AI, you know, and to sell that we have AI. No, now is the moment when we feel that we already need it. It's like a third version of it. And we are building right now because it's going to help people to see more tailored feet, tailored like better.
tailored people to meet with, we're gonna suggest. So now we have more and more data and we are learning users and of course we can help them to have better experience. So this will help us. Later on, how it gonna work and where it gonna lead us, we don't know yet. But of course we understood that AI helps us and we need to use it. Also when you create any activity, a description is built with AI.
You can use it if you want. So we can tap a button and it will create you in a second like a description for your activity. And it saves your time or you don't know how to write it. You're not salesperson, whatever. So yeah, of course we're using it.
Uldis (39:48.828)
And in terms of general, have you noticed, I don't know, some AI users or some kind of ways how people use AI to interact with each other, not just on apps.
Jurate (40:06.202)
Mmm... Mmm... I don't...
Eduard (40:06.519)
AI, AI.
Eduard (40:10.169)
Matchmaking, I think everyone uses it nowadays, all the big products, and even if you don't notice it, I think it's involved there.
Janis (40:21.574)
I'm just thinking what do you think there was this product that got shared recently? Friends come or something like this this fake AI friend friend like the the thing around your neck that kind of pretends to be of like is I don't really It is your friend sure. I mean, I I mean this is sort of the the Future that everybody who is imagining I guess in the future we talked to robots and they replace real humans
Uldis (40:29.961)
A friend. Friend.
Eduard (40:32.805)
Mm -hmm.
Uldis (40:36.768)
It doesn't pretend that he's your friend.
Jurate (40:40.599)
Okay.
Eduard (40:48.987)
Guys, I need to open the door. One sec. Sorry.
Uldis (40:52.364)
friend .com it's called.
Janis (40:53.066)
What's your thoughts on this? I can't believe it will catch on to be honest. It's not a real, but I don't know. What do you think?
Jurate (40:58.957)
I don't know. mean, if we, I mean, we go for the, the way that where people meet people, not people meet AI friends. So I don't think that we will move like to this direction. Really not. Or I don't really believe in that, that people will go that much, that much there and, and, know, try to, to use a virtual friends. I don't know.
Uldis (41:07.401)
I was about to say you're exactly the opposite.
Jurate (41:28.001)
I mean, that's gonna be a pity.
Janis (41:28.588)
Yeah, same, can't imagine this. I think it can work for a while, but it's like you cannot trick yourself. I don't know, can you get this emotional feeling from fake relationship with robot? I don't know.
Jurate (41:44.055)
I have no idea. For now, as we see, like we talked already about it, that people feel lonely and they search for connection, right? Rather than going and talking with the artificial intelligence or a surreal friend, you know? I mean, I think that like we are moving to another way rather than going to talk with the robots. I mean, this is something that we see at the moment. I don't know, it might change one day. Who knows? You know, the market is changing.
Janis (41:57.625)
Yeah, exactly.
Jurate (42:12.801)
very fast and we don't know what generation is growing now. know, have the Millennials, have Gen Z and whatever we will have now, I don't know. I can tell you, like, I have children of my own, right, and they are, very into the computer, into all these AI things, and, I mean, they don't really meet a lot. So what's gonna happen in the future? I don't know.
Uldis (42:41.81)
Anyways, thanks guys. Thanks guys, it's been a great conversation. I really wish you luck catching fire and helping people connect also in real life and to the listeners. Do check out Joiner app. I hope it's gonna be available wherever you are listening and connecting. So yeah, thank you guys.
Eduard (42:42.497)
It's gonna be interesting,
Jurate (43:06.349)
Thank you guys, it was super interesting.
Eduard (43:06.587)
Hey we are opening Riga as well, so welcome to download and join and create activities, any you like. We will have more and more people there. Yeah.
Jurate (43:15.213)
We'll wait for some comments from your side.
Janis (43:16.25)
Nice. Nice.
Uldis (43:18.41)
Alright, alright, alright, perfect.
Eduard (43:20.177)
Yeah, thank you for the conversation. Really interesting. You're amazing guys and good luck to your show. Yeah, see ya. Bye.
Jurate (43:26.189)
Good luck.
Janis (43:27.152)
Thanks.
Uldis (43:27.692)
Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Bye.
Jurate (43:30.765)
Bye.
Please note that the transcript text is AI-generated. We apologize for any potential errors or inaccuracies. Thank you for your understanding.
