mike ehrmantrout

The IRL connection economy is a $400B+ market. And companies are racing to own it. In the last 6 months, $800M+ in capital was deployed on "IRL" bets. @Tinder invested $60M into a new Events feature for connecting matches in-person. They're pivoting to IRL and offering experiences such as speakeasies, raves, and pottery classes. @222place: raised a $10.1M Series A to curate blind social experiences for Gen Z. Personality-matched groups sent to hyperlocal nightlife events. @JagermeisterUSA launched BestNightsVC - the only venture fund in the world dedicated solely to nightlife and IRL connection. 16 portfolio companies across 4 continents. @timeleft: dinner with 5 strangers, every Wednesday. €18M ARR. 6,500 dinners/week across 200+ cities. Dion: members-only social app where the first move is buying someone a real drink, redeemed IRL. 10K members, 30K+ on the waitlist founded by @revekkapal. Pie: Bonobos founder @dunn built an IRL friendship app. $24M raised. 130K+ MAU. @weroad_official: group trips for 20-30 year olds who don't know each other beforehand. $150M valuation. Matchbox: is an algorithm-powered matching platform for IRL events and has powered over 100,000 connections. founded by @liamjmcgregor (prev @MarriagePact) New dating apps like Known @Celesteamadon, Cerca @MylesCerca, and Ditto @AllenWangzian are aiming to improve connection amongst young people. Billion-dollar companies are paying $$$ for community and events leads: - @AnthropicAI: Marketing Events Manager ($255k) - @tryramp: Community Manager ($223k) - @tryramp: Events & Culture Manager ($181k) - @duolingo: Senior Community Manager ($193k) - @NotionHQ: Community Programs Lead Everyone knows the more time we spend online, the more valuable real-life connection becomes. The question isn't whether IRL wins. It's who facilitates it best.

I know a number of British people who lived 1 to 2 years in Italy and then came back. The constant is that they have young children. Whatever they tell you, if you ask them about the Italian school system, they will eventually admit that it was, if not the main one, one of the critical items for them. Italian primary school is much harder than the British one. An awful lot of Italian parents cope with that by literally abandoning their children to their own devices. Most take a more proactive stance, so they either start tutoring their children themselves (a couple of hours a day per child starting in year 1) or pay for tutors to do it in their stead. In primary school, British kids have homework once per week. Italian kids have homework once per day, doubled over the weekend. If you visit Italian homes in the afternoon and they have children, it is pretty standard to see the kids sitting at the main table with books and notebooks spread all around, with a parent or a tutor sitting with them for the whole session. Also, the amount of books they have to carry to school every day is borderline unbelievable. You would think they are training them to carry legionary backpacks. For people accustomed to the gentle British primary schooling, the Italian system feels borderline insane. Note also that it has massively eased up: in my childhood, we had to memorise a long poem every weekend (which back then meant Sunday, as Saturday was school day). h/t @GroovySciFi

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