Lyubov Sachkova is the Communication Manager at dating app FEELD. I met Lyubov through the Exposure Therapy community, and was excited to speak with her.

I think as you know, I always start with this question, which I borrow from a friend of mine who helps people tell their story. I love it so much, but I always end up over-explaining it, because I want you to know that you're in absolute control. You can answer, not answer any way that you want to. And it's impossible to make a mistake. Where do you come from?

Yeah, you know, you really get people thinking with that one. And I've been hearing that people do start with the location. So I think that that is indeed very important about where we come from.

So I'm originally from Bulgaria, and I grew up my first 19 years. I was there nonstop, and didn't even travel that much abroad. But something that's very important about Bulgaria is like, not a lot of people speak Bulgarian.

So you have to learn foreign languages. For me, the first choice was French, then English, and then consequently also German. But that was kind of like my first 19 years, where I focus on basically adapting to other languages and other cultures, even without being part of it.

And from there, I've developed to, you know, then go and study in some of these places and really embed myself in the culture. So I think that kind of makes me a bit of a chameleon that can adapt to different places in a way. But I think my journey is also very much about now returning back to the roots and reexamining identity from a place where it's like, you come from somewhere, you've adapted to other cultures, but then you kind of are seeking a return back to the core of where you come from.

So I think it's, for me, it's a cyclical experience where I come from.

Yeah. And you say roots, have you returned back to where you grew up?

Well, I'm very fortunate to work from wherever I want. So I actually do travel back and forth pretty much all of the time, which is like, you know, roots are also something that it's like, do I really have any right now? I don't think I do because I travel all the time.

But yeah, I do go back to see my family in Bulgaria very often, and now I extend my stays of like a few months at a time.

And do you, when you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? Do you remember?

Yes. I hear you ask that question to other people. I think I was quite a creative child, which didn't quite translate so well as an adult, or at least it's not capitalized on yet.

So I really love to do performances for my family. And I had my cousins and my sister be performers alongside me. So I would organize them.

But I think the dream was to be a fashion designer, which is something that I then kind of transformed in my career. I think both the organizational skill and the wanting to be in fashion both kind of found their way into my career later in different forms.

And tell me, where are you now and what are you doing for work? What are you up to?

Is that where you are now physically?

Yeah, exactly. Now we're coming back to Earth.

Okay, okay. So currently I'm calling you from Vienna because I'm actually here with family and friends. We're doing a little trip.

And yeah, I'm also working on my, you know, as I said, I work remotely. So currently I work for a company called FEELD. It's a dating app for the curious, as we say. And yeah, I'm on the communication side and brand side of things at FEELD.

And when did you first discover, get into this kind of work? When did you first get into sort of brand and communications?

Yeah, you know, as I said, like the organizational skills and the fashion thing. So I first started in fashion PR actually, it was kind of that was my study. So, you know, I had the, I ended up in the position of being able to actually practice what I learned for, which was very nice.

And in an industry that I was really drawn to. So I started in fashion PR. I worked first in Berlin, then I worked in London.

And I think kind of what drew me to FEELD was a variety of reasons. But one of them was that as part of my masters, I did write this thesis around how to make sustainable fashion cool. It was kind of like the topic that I explored with my, I think graduate school, you said, in the U.S. Here it's masters. And so I was exploring basically the concept of cool and I applied it to the idea of sustainability because the Berlin showroom I was working for had like all of these amazing brands.

But then my boss at the time, who was the founder, had all of these sustainable, amazing, beautiful brands that he was showcasing in the showroom. And I just kind of noticed that none of the magazines would like really want to get samples from us. And I was like, why is that happening?

You know, it's beautiful there. There was one designer that had crystals grown on a dress, you know, that's kind of incredible. And she was this amazing, super talented lady.

And, you know, we weren't getting many requests. And I really wanted to explore what about the perception of these brands is stopping magazines from wanting them and making them a desirable product for other people to want to purchase. And so I explored that from the lens of like the communications and brand perception and just overall perception of the idea of sustainability and the desirability and what actually makes it cool because ultimately I think who was a big driver of people actually adopting something with virality and, you know, it kind of growing in culture.

And through that work, as I was living in London, I met the founders, Anna and Dimo, who, you know, were friends of friends. And Anna kind of, I think, took note of my work and was like, keeping in touch throughout my studies. And I was working simultaneously and still in fashion.

But once I finished the study, she was like, are you interested in joining the team? You know, we could really use someone like you. I think back in the day, we were like less than 15 people.

Now we're close to a hundred. So we've grown quite a lot internally and externally. But yeah, that's the point of me kind of transitioning into that work and then starting to work at FEELD.

Yeah. So we met through Exposure Therapy, right? We're both part of this community. And I was super excited to talk to you just because FEELD has been, you know, just the transformation, the revolution in how people sort of date and relationships and everything is shifting so much. And FEELD has sort of been at the center of that or the forefront of that. So I'm just curious, what has that experience been like?

What's it been like to be on what I imagined was kind of a rocket ship, a FEELD, and then to be at the intersection of so much cultural change, too, as a communications person, must be pretty intense. Yeah.

I think, you know, thank you for this question and also for acknowledging FEELD's place in culture. I think I still kind of have to pinch myself when people say that, because as you say, I've been in it in this transformation. And to me, it's kind of like the only natural thing to happen.

But I do understand that culture could have taken many different terms. And we could also totally not be in this reality and be in a different reality of things. I think people definitely needed a transformation to happen.

And I'm going to bring up another taboo topic for everyone now, which is the pandemic. You're like, our collective PTSD doesn't allow us to talk about it much. But I do think it was like such a transformational moment for a lot of us.

And a lot of people we've noticed definitely took that as a moment of introspection and a moment where returning to yourself and really re-evaluating everything that you're doing in your life, there was a moment to do so. And it accelerated things that were already in place that were happening at FEELD at the time. For instance, this growth towards relationship styles that exist outside of monogamy.

Because I've grown up, and I think a lot of us have grown up in a reality where there's the relationship escalator. You go, you study, you then find your partner, you buy a house, you have kids, you send them to college, you retire, and blah, blah, blah. And right now, I think a lot of people's lives are totally not like that for a myriad of reasons, including the fact that a lot of things in life are completely unaffordable now that used to be very affordable for people.

So there's one economic element of everything as well as the fact that our desires have changed. And people no longer want to abide by just one rule that then establishes the entire structure of your life afterwards. One thing that I do is work with this network of researchers from the University of Leeds called the Ethical Dating Online Network.

And I work with Dr. Natasha and then Dr. Luke. And I really enjoy working with them. Luke brought up something very recently that is so stuck in my mind about the transformation we've experienced, is that we're actually living the longest lives ever on Earth as humans.

So our life span is longer than ever. But with that, also, the duration of the time that we're actually dating is the longest it's ever been. So if it used to be that you date and court people for one to two years before you get married, right now that can actually be one to two decades, which is an extremely long time of our lives.

And that's what the role of dating apps is. And that's kind of why we're seeing dating culture have such a profound impact on culture at large. And to me, I see your expression and I'm like, I know, I know, this is crazy.

Well, what you just did, and tell me if I'm wrong, because you were using your hands a little bit, but you just pointed out that courtship has expanded from one or two years to a couple of decades. We're in constant courtship, is that what you're saying, in a way?

No, I meant more than courtship dating, the process of basically finding your prospects and then becoming engaged or married to them used to be a very short period of time. And now it's a very lengthy period of time of actually finding that person and deciding to settle. If that even ever happens for some people, we've seen the conversations about celibacy and demisexuality where people are like, I just want to settle with people that I really feel comfortable with emotionally before I even give you anything else. Or I choose to just be with myself and have a great time in life.

Yeah, I really appreciate how you spoke about, almost with gratitude about culture, that you recognize those things, I feel like sometimes culture, nobody knows what you're talking about when you talk about culture because it's sort of intangible or invisible. But then something shifts and all of a sudden you're in a different reality that wouldn't have been possible before. And I know, I don't know what your experience is, but the most recent election, you know what I mean? On Monday, we're in one world and then on Wednesday, everything's changed, you know what I mean? And that's like a visceral, that's like what culture is for me.

Yeah.

I love just how sensitive you were to culture. I really appreciate the pandemic taboo. I'm curious, can you tell me more about how you think about the role that the pandemic played in creating the conditions for all of these changes in how people's partnership?

Well, I jokingly say taboo because I feel like we all avoid talking about it, you know? Or at least that's what I've noticed. I work in communication, so I do a lot of this, right?

It's like I prepare for interviews, I listen to them, I consume media, and it feels like it's kind of like we're existing in the reality pre or after, but not in. And rather dealing with the preconditions or the consequences. But I think the moment that we were all kind of caught in that moment, it's like you couldn't help but have to think like what is my life? Like what am I doing? Where am I heading? What does this mean?

Who am I now? Because you can't help but have to look around yourself and there's not much to see or there's a lot to see or you see things you don't like. And then that prompts questions.

And I think questions are really important when they stem from the individual. One thing that we found out, and I'm sure we'll get to this later, but we did a rebranded FEELD because we knew that something has changed in culture and with that we also need to reconsider how we present ourselves. And this is the reason why I also ended up in exposure therapy.

I had the amazing opportunity to work with Jasmine and Jean-Louis from Concert Bureau and their team. And they helped us do that. But this idea of personal growth and transformation became central to what we do at FEELD.

Thanks to the acceleration that COVID, in this moment of stillness, allowed everyone to kind of look inwards, ask themselves questions, and honestly not necessarily even having the answers. It's just like the process of asking questions and examining became really important. And we knew that. And it's now part of our brand.

I remember in the pandemic, I mean, there were so many thought pieces and hot takes that were written, but one of them was about the word apocalypse. And it was sort of saying that we were in an apocalypse. And I get, I think the etymology of apocalypse is sort of revealing the cracks.

That was the argument that it made. And that was insightful to me. And you reminded me of it when you, what you're pointing at, that the taboo sort of just revealed all these cracks in our expectations of what a relationship is supposed to be and what's possible. Yeah. What do you love about your work? Like, where's the joy in it for you?

I thought about that, actually, preparing for this. I think a few months ago, or maybe it was years actually, anyways, a long time, some time ago, I was speaking to this person as part of this kind of me and strangers for lunch kind of thing online. And I didn't really click with him as a person, but he said something that stuck with me so much because it was so unexpected.

He was like, it must be so amazing to know that you've actually changed people's lives with what you do and the product that you create and put out in the world. And it must be such a rewarding thing to know and to be able to do every day. And it's true.

It kind of struck me as like, well, it is actually true, like identity, sexuality, desire are such important parts of our lives. They're such intimate parts of our lives. It's like the parts that will keep us closest to us, sometimes even, you know, most people sometimes their families don't know what they're going through when they're kind of exploring their own identity, trying to understand what is it that I want?

Who am I? What do I desire? Who am I attracted to?

I think to have the privilege to be so close to people and to impact their life in this way is something that definitely gives me a lot of, makes me very humble, makes me be very grateful for my job. And it also brings human joy when I do get to hear some people's stories about, you know, how FEELD has changed their lives and how it impacted their experience of who they are in the world around them.

And what, tell me a little bit about you, how do you think about the work that you do? Or what's your sort of day to day? Where's your head at when you're working?

Day to day is never the same. And I think that's what, that's the answer you get from any communications professional or anyone working in brand or strategy, I guess. I think there's two modes.

One is extreme adaptation to your circumstances. The other one is intentional impact. I think extreme adaptation, you know, it's kind of actually part of FEELD values is the constantly evolved part, which is sometimes things move so fast, you have to just react to culture as it's happening to you rather than you trying to shape it.

So I think one of the examples I can think of right now is I mentioned celibacy. Earlier this year, obviously, the conversation about celibacy was sparked through billboards from one of our competitors. And then TikTok started having a reaction.

And then the whole internet had a reaction to the fact that people felt shamed about the choice of celibacy, which I can see how things could have been perceived that way. And as a team so quickly, we put together a response. We shaped the messaging around it.

And we said, like, hey, on FEELD celibacy is cool. You can add it as a desire on the app now, because we've added that for you. We're here. You know, it's like there's nothing shameful about this. And, you know, I think this did several things for us. Basically it normalized something that was at the time perceived as being ostracized in some way.

You know, it's like there's a move away from celibacy. It's like this is not a valid choice, essentially. Which then received criticism.

Which then we were like, actually, we're an inclusive platform. You can be celibate on the field. You don't need to be searching for that sexual interaction or whatever.

This is not what we're for. We're here for everyone to explore and ask the questions that they want to ask about themselves and find the answer with themselves through others, with connections with others. So I think that's one mode of doing the work.

I think the other way of doing it is by creating intentional impact. I think that work is obviously the one that you sit and have to think harder about and to form relationships, to form connections with your community, as well as with people that shape the culture that you want to impact. You know, I mentioned working with the researchers that you had called Dating Online Network.

I think that connecting with people that are basically thinking on an academic level about the impact of dating and dating apps on culture is the type of work that is really, really important about how do we actually shape this forward? Because for the amount of articles that we get on how FEELD is changing culture and being mainstream, we get that many that criticize the industry or even more that criticize the industry as a whole of like, there's hookup culture and everybody is like, you know, we live in a reality that is not good for people and the apps are bad in design. Like we get that criticism and it's, you know, it is there, it is valid sometimes.

And we want to know that we have an impact that shapes this for the better for people. And that's long tail work. I think our rebrand was part of a work that shapes a reality where people are free from these expectations that sometimes transactional relationships that are associated with hookup culture, I think, shape. And we want to create a reality where it's not binary choices that you have to make.

I think I'd forgotten that concept Bureau did the rebrand when Tim mentioned it. And with that story you told about being able to respond to celibacy so quickly. What is it about your, what is the role that brand plays in allowing you to move so quickly or so, you know, to mean to respond quickly to culture and how does it, how does, you know, what role does it play internally?

Yeah, I think there's so many things that go through my mind by now. I think what we found out in one of the biggest revelations I think from that work was the fact that personal autonomy, the individual autonomy is so important for people when they're And that is their desire of actually forming a relationship because they want to get to know themselves before they actually commit to a relationship with someone else. And that is now a part as valid as if not for our members, even more important than the outcome of finding the one, you know, we have other apps for that.

We do not feel this for something else. And I think finding that out helped us to be able to narrow our offering different differentiation so clearly that we know that it's no longer about the relationship. It's about the individual and we're able to respond to culture in ways that kind of reinforce that messaging, reinforce that idea for people in many different shapes and forms.

And, you know, our product has a certain set of features. We can play around with them in certain ways. And celibacy is an expression of that.

But I think, yes, it's this revelation that people are actually people on FEELD, people that come to us are not so interested in achieving one type of outcome. They're much more interested in the journey and curiosity is, you know, as I said, the dating up for the curious. Curiosity is a driver for them to be on our platform rather than, you know, I want to find the one or I want this outcome instead of that outcome. That's now what interests them so much.

Yeah. And how do you learn? How do you keep learning about your customers, your users? What's the role of, I'm thinking sort of FEELD generally, but also you. How do you learn about what's happening out there?

Yeah. I think the biggest learning was in my 20s, having been on dating apps. And I think one of the big reasons for me to even have an interest in dating apps was, you know, the fact that I was on them and I was on them with my, with the early experiences of some of the big ones coming to market and still being cool, you know, it's like cool plays a role in my choices of anything.

And I think I love the stigma actually. I think, I think playing with the stigma is like really fun when people are not there yet or like the majority is not there yet because you get to behave in ways that you get to have permissions to do things that are not bound with social expectations because overall that area is like, you know, not something that people want to interact with. So I think early dating apps had a little bit more of a fun side to them, which was the reason why I wanted to join FEELD steam because they were very, very early stages when I met them.

And I think I just saw the opportunity of keeping that fun element as part of the experience of the app. And yeah, I just really, that kind of really drew me into the industry. Can you remind me of the second half of your question? I feel like I started on a tangent and now I'm lost.

No, it's fine. That's how it's supposed to work. That's completely fine. But you mentioned playing with stigma, which is how I'm fascinated by. Can you tell me a story about what that means and what that looks like?

Well, I don't know if you've interacted with dating apps, but I think at the beginning, you know, it's like obviously we know it first all started with websites. And I think websites were for people that kind of had a different commitment level to their dating experience. I think with dating apps, the experience was much more mobile.

You know, it's like you would pretty much do it and swipe on people anywhere. And it's like the access was completely different. I think for me as someone that in those days of my life, I was moving between countries and cities quite a lot.

So I would kind of like to go and live in Munich for a year for my studies. And then I would live in Berlin for two years. And then I moved to London.

It's hard to make friends. So I was using the dating apps as a means of getting introduced to people that I really found could be my people. And I think that there's like a language of learning what a profile of your person looks like.

So I think I had, you know, it's like one thing I'll say that I think tests well to this day is like always looking at the last picture. Like honestly, the last picture is the most important one of someone's profile. It just tells you so much about that person because first of all, it could be the picture that they paid least attention to when they added it, because they were probably a bit tired of building their profile.

So they've either been sloppy or they've revealed something about themselves that they might have not thought about so hard. So you may get to learn more about them from that last picture than from any of the ones before. Yeah, I think it was a way to make friends and find community in places where I knew nobody.

And I think that was fun. And the taboo of it was that now a lot of people are doing it. You know, it's, you know, it was a few people that would speak about it out loud. I think a lot of people maybe were doing it, but less were talking about it.

Yeah. I mean, how would you describe where the category is now? Like it seems it's evolved, it's matured. Like you say, there's all these questions about, you know, we sort of peak dating apps almost, right? Yeah. What do you think about where you are now? And what do you, yeah, how do you define the challenge moving forward?

I think if you look at the financial reports, obviously not having a great time as an industry right now, you know, for those that publicly report on their earnings, you can see that the industry is definitely struggling. But I think that's also an effect of how it skyrocketed during COVID because it was a means for people to stay connected even at a distance physically. So I think we're seeing a return to baseline in a way for the industry in terms of what the value of the industry is.

In terms of culture, I think we're about to enter a stage of real reckoning with relationships and what do they mean for each individual? For each individual, what does it mean for me, right? Rather than what do I do that's right by society?

I think something that I thought about referencing here for an earlier question, but I didn't get to it, is we did a report recently that I was leading on the comm side of things and it's called The State of Dating and we interviewed over 3,000 people that use Feels from over 70 countries from 18 to, I don't know, the oldest people over 60 that we have on our app, it's like a real good range of all the people that we have on our platform.

And we found that the thing that struck me is like I'm a millennial generation from the generational split. So I'm always very fascinated with Gen Z because I think growing up as the millennial, we were the new generation and now Gen Z are like completely blowing everything out of my head and I'm like, oh well, I'm old now. Anyways, so I think what fascinated me from what we found is that for us millennials, we were kind of fighting to get into this state of we have E&M as like an option in our relationships, which is ethical non-monogamy and any form of it could be being in a three-way relationship, being in an open relationship, an open marriage.

There's like all these variations of ethical non-monogamous relationships that were getting normalized at the time that FEELD was early stages and our generation kind of getting into a stage of settling and building relationships that are of different style than monogamy, which felt like the only option for a lot of the generations before us like our parents. That we also saw fail from the divorce rates and so on and so forth. So there's like real reckoning of what relationships do we want to have because the relationships we saw failed a lot of the time.

And I think for Gen Z, we're going one level up from that. They're so, for them, ethical non-monogamy is the normal option. Monogamy is not the only choice.

And they're actually going back on that and saying like, we actually would like to be in monogamous relationships because we're now in those ENMs things. You know, they work, but they fantasize so much about having that option of monogamy. I think that's obviously a result of our culture being around nostalgia.

You know, there's like a real turn towards what used to be, how it used to be, the good old order, you know, when nothing was chaos and everything was certain. You know, as humans, our brains were wired to seek certainty. So I think that there's something around that there, but I think our desires are cyclical, but our culture is adaptive.

So it goes through cycles, but I think if we see monogamy come back as the default, it will not be the monogamy that our parents and previous generations have experienced. It will be something different, and I think it would look completely different. One hot take I have about the future is that I think we're, you know, and this is probably some distant future and, you know, I'll be happy to hear feedback on my prediction, but I think that we're going to enter a reality at some point in the future where, because of this period of like dating so long in our lives, it's going to be very largely normalized to have different stages of our lives with different people that serve a different purpose for us as individuals, as well as for our development and contribution to the world. So as our life expectancy grows, I think we're going to have a period where we're having kids. Then we have a period where we focus on our career.

Then we have a period where we focus on, I don't know, driving social and environmental impact, you know, and that partners for those different stages will be different and will be contributing to our lives in a different way. And I think there won't be this much drama around ending relationships actually, because they will be considered as stages rather than one set choice for our entire life. I think that idea will get challenged more and more, hopefully in a positive way.

This is why I think monogamy is going to be, if it comes back in this powerful way that it has ruled our dating and relationship lives, I think it will come back differently. And this is my hot take on how that might happen.

Do you have a way of talking within FEELD about what a relationship is? Like, is there a point of view that you guys all kind of share or understand?

I think I'll go back to the idea of a relationship being about the person. I think in our culture, currently we see a relationship as, yeah, something that you kind of have to build with someone else. And I think we definitely focus a lot more on, and that's super valid, you know, it's like it's not a copy of them at all.

It's just more, we focus on allowing people to build those relationships with themselves so that they can build those connections with others in a real, meaningful way for them. And we try to be as least prescriptive as possible because we do understand that relationships, desires, and identity take so many different shapes and forms. We need to allow people the flexibility, fluidity to basically choose their own adventure.

So you mentioned researchers at the University of Leeds, I think. You mentioned the state of dating reports. And I'm curious again, it's sort of about how you learned with the state of dating, what drove that research and how did you do it?

And then I'm curious, what's the role of qualitative? Do you do any qualitative research in your, let's just know I'm just meandering away from the question, trailing it off. What's the role of qualitative in the work that you do, if it plays a role at all?

Yeah, no. I mean, a hundred percent, I think. So obviously our product team has trust and safety, and have their own forms of learning, which are either through focus groups or doing user testing, gathering feedback, either through our reviews or just directly speaking to members.

So there's that whole side of the business that conducts research in a way that serves the purposes of the product and engineering and how we design our platform. That then reaches the marketing creative comps departments, but in a way that's already basically in some shape or form analyzed. I think where we learn and how we do our own research is obviously being immersed in culture, going to the events, meeting our members or just kind of like being in that surrounding community.

I think for me personally, the learning comes from sometimes I have to reach out to members because the media wants to speak to a member of our community about their experience on the app. Often it's quite precise. So we reach out to a group of our members, then sometimes when they're up for it, we kind of have a phone call to hear about what they have to say.

So I conduct these like once or twice a quarter, for instance, there's been periods where it's more intense. But we do get to meet our members and talk about what happens with your experience on the FEELD when it comes to this and that. And we go into these in-depth conversations about their personal life.

And honestly, it's like, so it feels so, you know, you're like, how do I get to hear the story from a person that I don't know and they're so open with me? And I think the catalyst is the fact that they've had such often positive experience with the FEELD, you know, it's or it has contributed to a personal transformation that they're willing to talk about because I think often they probably don't have an example around them of what that could look like, you know, for instance, trying out a threesome for a first time or, you know, diving into a relationship with a person that you never thought you're going to be attracted to.

I think a lot of the time people are driven by a personal curiosity that then leads to a transformation. And we get to speak about that with them. And a lot of other things crossed my mind, and then I forgot what I wanted to add here.

But, yeah, I think part of the learning and the quality of science is definitely speaking directly to our members.

What's that like for you at that moment? To have that interaction with the customer.

Yeah, I think it's as you said, you know, I love to go deep on the conversations and people often are like, wow, you both said, why do you think so hard about things? But then try and speak into a FEELD memory, you know, they really go all out so quickly. But I think it's because our platform just welcomes that so much.

And obviously the context of my conversations with them requires that. But just the sheer openness, it's humbling. You kind of have to just be there, be an attentive listener, experience, empathize with what they've experienced, and see the value that they've gotten out of this experience and be able to further that impact to other members, essentially.

I think that's kind of what we try to extract from these conversations from a professional side. From a personal side, it's just humbling to know that we create a platform that can do that stuff for people. Because as I said, having used apps in the early days and still being a massive kind of supporter of the impact that they can have on a person's life in terms of connecting them with people they might not meet otherwise, I think I just am grateful that I get to be part of the people that drive that impact for others.

Yeah. And what does it do? I'm just curious, how does it change how you work, that knowledge, whatever you get from that interaction? I'm just thinking, imagine if you didn't have that access, how would it be different? I'm always, of course, sort of selfishly interested in what happens when you listen to somebody's story, that qualitative really can teach you stuff. I'm just wondering, what do you carry with you from those moments that makes you, I don't know, change how you work?

Well, obviously, you asked what drove my curiosity to want to, for instance, work on a project like State of Dating and connect to the researchers. I think it makes me more ambitious in terms of the impact that we want to have. One of the things that our CEO, Ana, often says is, like, we have no choice but to grow because if we don't, someone else will take our place.

And I think that I want to explain this because the emphasis is not that we have to grow at all costs. It's quite the opposite. It's more like we feel that we have something of value to offer to the world and we don't want someone else to take that place and then twist the entire space to become this transactional, prescriptive, transactional environment that actually does more harm than good.

So I think, for me, when I listen to the stories of people and I know, you know, I work closely with Ana and we discuss these things and we discuss culture and one of the things that come up is, like, we need to keep on doing this because we have impact and we have to protect our community, the values that we stand for, the value that we bring and the culture that we want to share, the future, the vision, you know, and I think this really, this is definitely the outcome of listening to a member's stories because then we find ways, like, okay, so how do we bring that ambition to life?

How do we create the best possible reality for the people that we serve? And that means listening to their feedback, means working with the sharpest, brightest minds that shape the thinking about how this culture is going to shift. Then thinking of ways that we can create that impact for FEELD, thinking of items that we can create and put out in the world like the reports that challenge the thinking that we have around the relationships, put out campaigns like celibacy that challenge the thinking around what is dating up for? And just continue to think of more examples to do that.

Beautiful. I can't imagine a better way of ending this conversation. I really, this has been a real pleasure. Thank you so much for joining me.

No, thank you. This has been so great. I honestly think that some of the questions I didn't have answers prepared, and I loved how it flowed for us and some of the things I even discovered while talking to you, so I appreciate that.

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Matti Friedman Introduces Us to Heroes

Totally Booked with Zibby

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