Latest / The Action Catalyst / Romance in the AI Age, with Eric McHugh (Dating, Technology, Internet, Blockchain)

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Romance in the AI Age, with Eric McHugh (Dating, Technology, Internet, Blockchain) · The Action Catalyst

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  Host: We are joined today by Eric McHugh, a digital
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  entrepreneur with time spent at Snapchat cart, rev and others.
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  Eric is now the president of shop X, a web three powered e
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  commerce platform, as well as the co founder and chief sales
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  officer of data in AI powered matchmaking. Eric looking at
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  your profile, I see roles like chief growth officer, corporate
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  restructuring consultant, it seems like you excel at shaking
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  up the status quo and things need to change. That's when you
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  get to call.
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  Eric McHugh: Yeah, pretty much. Um, honestly, I just kind of
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  fall on my intellectual curiosity. wherever it leads me,
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  that leads me up to at least disruption. That's disruption
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  for positive reasons, then so be it.
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  Host: Before we really dive in. I've got to ask you were a dark
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  matter researcher at Carnegie Mellon University for a while,
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  no big deal, right?
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  Eric McHugh: That was super cool. And as long as things
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  were, the universe just presents itself. So I'm very fortunate I
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  have a very smart family, both my brother and my dad went to
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  Carnegie Mellon, like after I was in college, my brother was
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  still there, the senior research team, researching the Dark
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  Matter thing. So they needed someone on the business side
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  just to like, write the reports to research. So I gotta go
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  there, hang out with a team, write the research reports, like
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  make it presentable. And all that jazz on this thing was we
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  got it. So they would use a supercomputer called the
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  lustrous to kind of map out stars, like map out where
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  everything is to find the dark matter, which is honestly
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  nothing, no one really knows what it is still. But we got to
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  like mess around with like, some supercomputer late and I was
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  like, just mapping out faraway galaxies. Like what do you
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  think, again, this is all guesswork, because it's all
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  based on equations. But it was just fun. There's a fun thing,
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  just playing around with that just like networking and talking
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  with all these really cool science people who happen to
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  have a lot of overlap with crypto. So we bought all that.
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  But it was an amazing experience.
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  Host: Man, we were really hoping you'd gotten to the bottom of
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  that dark matter business.
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  Eric McHugh: There is no bottom.
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  Host: So your area of focus is with web three powered
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  businesses, briefly explained for those of us less
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  technologically inclined what web three is.
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  Eric McHugh: I would say the key differences, ownership. And if
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  we go back to web one versus web two, web, web three, all those
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  are just convenient sounding names for the progression
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  they're not. I mean, it makes logical sense for web one to go
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  to web two to web three. And so what web one is, is I would
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  think of read only. So in web one, we could read content. And
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  that's all we could do web to read and write. So let's frame
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  it as like social media like Instagram, YouTube, even those
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  podcasts where we posted, I can post something that's me writing
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  content, you as a listener can read that content. The only
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  issue is neither of us on the content. So if I did a post on
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  Instagram, Instagram owns the content based on my data, they
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  make money from the parents purposes, or they can
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  retroactively canceling and take away your content. And web
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  three, I would say it's a read, write and own some what I can
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  write content, you can read the content, the only difference and
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  the key thing is we can own the content. And that's in the form
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  of an NF t. So let's say hypothetically, I create an NF
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  T, I now own this NF t, then you purchase enough t right? gifted
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  to you, however, however we decide to do that deal. Now
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  there's a connection between me and you, and no one else is
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  involved. So you're in complete control. And I like to joke
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  about Web Board web five. So I would say web four is NF T's ai
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  o and the metaverse all incorporated into one web. And
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  then as a joke, it's like web five is I think we just kind of
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  all go back outdoors. There's like enough of this. And web
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  three, I mean, with ownership comes responsibility. Like for
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  example, if I own the content, I'm responsible for the content.
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  And so that's where the biggest gap is. And that's what we're
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  doing right now. There are two main reasons web three hasn't
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  fully taken off. The first is incentives, meaning like, why
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  would anyone interact with web three? Why would anyone interact
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  with cryptocurrency? There hasn't been too many incentives,
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  shop X is trying to fix that by adding e commerce incentives for
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  that new product. But the bigger I guess barrier would be the
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  user interface meaning like, I personally would never send my
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  mom or my grandma to do what the product was like, Where's my
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  money? I don't know. How do I find? Who do I ask? Well,
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  there's no customer support, because as a budget, okay, it
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  looks like you have to go on Reddit and find a very specific
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  solution that some guy came up like five years ago, it'll get
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  fixed once the larger brands come in. And once they come in,
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  they have the capital and the resources and now the incentive
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  to make the system usable for the customers.
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  Host: So what sets shop X apart in the web three space?
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  Eric McHugh: Yeah, so in terms of what sets us apart from other
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  ecommerce platform for the brand side, we're we're the full
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  service solutions for like brands, and that T projects. But
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  the bigger thing is where the simplest and easiest to use for
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  their customers, customer wanting to purchase an IoT they
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  can do with credit card. So what Shopify is, is I want you to
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  think of that Google or Apple, but three long term are going to
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  be a suite of solutions for Brad to download a simple app, and
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  then interact within the web three space, getting different
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  benefits depending on their business need or the product.
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  Right now we have two products live. The first is reserve x. So
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  that's an NFT powered loyalty program. If you're a Shopify
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  store, and you want to enter that web three space, all you
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  have to do is download the shop X app, get their programmatic
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  tokenized software licenses, you can launch a NFT collection with
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  less than five minutes by filling out two simple forms.
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  And then from there err, you can add ecommerce benefits to this
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  to that collection for your customers. Our second product
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  which is squat X, the first ever blockchain based ambassador
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  program, so just like Twitter pays its creators in revenue
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  from their from their ad revenue we pay our community from for
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  helping our ecosystem grow from our reserve X revenue. The logic
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  behind that is it's a better to give than receive. And so every
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  time a brand makes a sale, our community makes money. They
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  obviously they make theory and they're happy about their
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  posting about their like bombarding brands like Twitter
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  pages, creating authentic organic content, thus attracting
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  more and more brands, thus getting them more more money
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  that's attracting more more brands. I think it's an
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  important concept because I believe in powerful
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  relationships, not force relationships. So in a forced
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  relationship, one party wins, one party loses. And it's
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  unsustainable, because like, we're in a forced relationship
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  eventually, like, the person's like, Nah, dude, I'm out. But in
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  a powerful relationship, which is what this podcast is, like,
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  relative winning, we're both gonna do we're keeping our list
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  and the listeners and everyone involved as a winning over
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  powerful relationship is like a mutual beneficial relationship.
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  So with our shopping ecosystem, we designed that in mind, so
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  we're just like, Okay, who's part of this deal? Shop acts as
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  part of it are we win because we burn money, the brands part of
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  it, they win because they increase customer lifetime
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  value. They lower customer acquisition costs, they earn
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  revenue, okay? Brands customers part of this deal, too. They
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  have to win too. And they're winning because they're going to
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  ecommerce benefits. And if they weren't winning, they wouldn't
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  obviously pay for it. So there's that part. But an important part
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  of this is the shopping ecosystem ourselves, like our
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  license holders, how do we get them to win? Okay, every time we
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  make money, they make money. So it just creates like, there's no
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  losers here.
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  Host: Let's talk about your other venture Dataing, an AI
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  powered matchmaker with the goal of matching 1 billion happy
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  couples. Ai matchmaking... is romance dead?
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  Eric McHugh: Okay, this is kind of funny. So it's the first ever
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  AI powered matchmaker. So I would say most people will try
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  to meet online right now. And I think that trend is generally
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  gonna increase. So it solves a bunch of the problems that's
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  presented by Tinder hinge and all the dating apps. The first
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  issue with like dating apps right now is the top 5% of users
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  get access to like 100% of the users on the app, creating a
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  skewed marketplace. The second issue is a it's just all based
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  on physicality, let's be honest, like most dating apps, it's like
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  Hot or Not hot swipe, not swipe left. And the third issue, which
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  most people don't know about is the incentive structure behind
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  each dating app. I like to think of it as a company that we put
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  our users in the position for them to succeed. I mean, it's
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  dating, you have to meet the person in person, and you have
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  to be friendly yet, you can't just completely rely on AI. So
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  as a dating user, you would sign up link your social media
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  accounts, and then it would auto generate a profile for you based
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  on your digital footprint, then it shows you three matches per
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  day. So you're not going to be bombarded with like messages not
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  going like 1000s or whatever. So to match with people who have
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  similar digital footprints. And our goal is for you to learn
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  more about the person who you want to match with. So let's say
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  I get Ashley Kimberly Jane as matches like, okay, James,
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  interesting, please someone world Jane. It's like an AI will
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  read your social media. It's like, oh, did you know that in
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  your top three, Spotify listens? You both listened to this one
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  random artist? Oh, did you know this random artist has a concert
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  coming up in the month halfway between both of you? Would you
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  like me suggest this day with Jane. The more you're on our
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  app, the smarter our AI gets, the better imagining you get so
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  the line more likely, and you'll take it off. So what we want to
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  do is be the app where everyone plans the date. So like, let's
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  say hypothetically and the J an example of the concert, we want,
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  we're going to do partnerships like taking baths or restaurants
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  and places where people can just suggest the date plan everything
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  that looks on both our calendars. And then that point
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  of time, we would take a commission based on dates.
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  Host: And virtual dates are also a part of this, right?
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  Eric McHugh: So, we want to be one of the first apps in the VR
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  system just so we're ready to go. And so let's say
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  hypothetically you match with a user, you have the option to
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  either have a FaceTime call, or if you want to be more
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  comfortable, you can meet in virtual reality. But again, the
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  goal is always to get that in all the data in real life. We
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  don't want people just kind of wasting people's time just like
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  chit chatting aimlessly for hours. It's like, no.
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  Host: So the waitlist is open to sign up for the app, where
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  should listeners go?
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  Eric McHugh: Dataing.io. And then you can just sign up for
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  the waitlist, we are manually selecting new users first. So if
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  you listen to this podcast to see Kate for this podcast, shoot
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  our Instagram DM saying I came from the podcast and then we'll
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  probably bump you up faster than everyone else.
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  Host: Awesome. Well, Eric, any parting thoughts?
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  Eric McHugh: Just be your authentic self. I'm the number
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  one Eric in the world. So if you try to be me, you can't you're
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  the number one you in the world. Yes, try to be you you can't and
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  I think whatever the Creator God, the universe, whatever you
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  want to call it. I think he blesses everyone with each
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  individual with very specific gifts with the goal of being a
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  service to the community. So the best way to be a service
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  community is just be yourself and just be positive if you're a
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  conscious creator. Don't take anything away from anyone and
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  don't harm anyone and use it gets.
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  Host: There you have it. You've all been listening to the number
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  one Eric in the world.
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  Eric McHugh: Awesome dude, thank you so much, I had a blast. Your
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  podcast is extremely well run. Yeah.