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One Leg Up on Dating With Chivy CEO Nikko Shkreli · OneLegUpAlex Media

• 0:02
  Here's your host, Alex Garrett, and as promised on the Alex Scatt Podcast
• 0:09
  Network, a little bit of a five minute fixed at six. We'll go
• 0:12
  a little longer with my next guest though, But tonight it is Valentine's Day
• 0:16
  night, and if you are out there and wondering if you'll find maybe that
• 0:21
  special someone, maybe Fifth and Mad will be a great place to go tonight,
• 0:26
  because I understand there's a big event for Shivy, the professional dating app,
• 0:32
  and I've got the CEO right now, Nico Screlly. First of all,
• 0:36
  congrats on launching this app in New York. Thank you, Alex.
• 0:40
  I appreciate it. So how does shivvy let me go right off the bat
• 0:43
  here, how does shivy give you one leg up on dating? If you
• 0:46
  will? Well, should differentiates itself, you know, based on mostly our
• 0:53
  security are in person events and also our selectivity. We help users pretty much
• 0:58
  stay selective within what they're actually looking for. You know, a lot of
• 1:00
  the apps kind of you know, throw you into an area where there's too
• 1:04
  many choices. It becomes work, people end up not using it, and
• 1:08
  no success, you know, is what usually occurs after that. So we
• 1:12
  kind of try to make it as a successful as possible and also enjoyable experience
• 1:19
  of the user at the same time. So we kind of, you know,
• 1:22
  took an idea. We looked at all the problems I was able to
• 1:23
  identify with the current dating apps and then try to find a solution for each
• 1:29
  one, and then also looking forward, you know, how could we improve
• 1:32
  it and beyond the digital interface. And that's kind of where we came up
• 1:34
  with the idea of you know, meeting on a digital interface such as an
• 1:38
  app is great, but how do you actually make those in person connections?
• 1:42
  And you know, some people may be not as great on the digital interface
• 1:45
  on an app as well, or they may be better in person, which
• 1:48
  you know gives a value proposition that they could be a Shivvy member. And
• 1:52
  also let's say they don't want to use the app as much, but they
• 1:53
  would love to be a member and attend all these events. You know,
• 1:57
  this is the type of thing that we would do to make sure that you
• 2:00
  know, all of our users are at least more successful in finding that special
• 2:04
  somebody. Well, I have to believe, being that it's a professional setting,
• 2:08
  you have a lot of requirements that need to be met to join the
• 2:12
  app? Is that right? Well, we have we are a premium subscription
• 2:16
  membership, so there is a course to enter that. It's correct. Yeah,
• 2:21
  but like these requirements, it's not just any dating app where it's just
• 2:23
  a regular i'd say regular person, but it's not like a regular swipe.
• 2:28
  These people are driven people that are looking for each other. And how do
• 2:31
  you find Tapping into that community? Is going? So far? Well,
• 2:37
  so far? You know, we we use a lot of our branding as
• 2:38
  well throughout the app and the onboarding experience and let users know that we are
• 2:43
  pretty much, you know, looking, We are trying to help users are
• 2:45
  specifically looking for long term, meaningful relationships. You know, we are kind
• 2:50
  of trying to bring about that that classical you know, courting romance of dating
• 2:54
  as with the modern age as well, you know, a perfect blend of
• 2:57
  both, if you would. And that's kind of where we got with our
• 3:00
  slogans. You know, Shureroy didn't die and moved to Shivvy, and I
• 3:02
  think that's kind of where we're going with this this angle of our app,
• 3:07
  and you know, it's exciting right now. So far, we are we
• 3:10
  are very fresh, very new. We launched the evening of Friday, So
• 3:15
  very very new. We have less than one hundred users, so we are
• 3:17
  very small still, but you know, it's not it's not too bad for
• 3:22
  just launching, so we expect we expect to grow pretty rapidly within the next
• 3:27
  twelve months. Do you see dating as the main thing? Is? When
• 3:30
  I see professional, I think of networking also, So is there a networking
• 3:32
  potential that you see with this app or is it strictly dating? Ours is
• 3:38
  strictly dating. We're not trying to I know, some of the other apps
• 3:40
  they do, you know, they help people find friends, they help people
• 3:43
  find business partners as well, or networking. We strictly are just trying to
• 3:46
  help people find you know, we assume we're not sure yet, but we
• 3:51
  believe that our target audience is probably going to be somewhere between twenty five and
• 3:53
  forty years old. Single professionals that pretty much have everything going on their life
• 3:58
  pretty well. The only thing I think it's kind of finding that that's some
• 4:00
  one that they can call their own. And I think this is why,
• 4:03
  you know, should is kind of ideal for that kind of relationship with the
• 4:08
  digital interface to help them succeed at their goals. I'm guessing you feel like
• 4:12
  dating has taken dating apps have taken away the chivalry, chivalrous aspect of that
• 4:17
  romance scene, right, yeah, of course. I mean I'm sure you've
• 4:21
  seen that as well. You know, on the I think eighty nine percent
• 4:25
  of users on a few pole recently said that they are unsatisfied with with what's
• 4:30
  available on dating apps as well as with incompatible matches, so you know,
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  and there's over fifteen hundred dating apps on the market right now. So for
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  whatever reason, you know, users and users and people as well, people
• 4:42
  are not being a service the way they should be. And I think it
• 4:46
  has a lot to do with just not understanding the customer as well, and
• 4:48
  you know, trying to be too much maybe revenue driven, and trying to
• 4:53
  do too many things as opposed to really just focusing in and dialing in onto
• 4:57
  what their real needs are of the customer and how how do we actually satisfy
• 5:00
  those needs. And I think I think we're on the right page. You
• 5:02
  know, time will tell, but I do believe we are. We have
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  had a lot of great feedback already when we don't even have enough users,
• 5:09
  you know, to make a larger sample pool. But just from the initial
• 5:13
  feedback, even from just our interface, our onboarding experience, and our branding,
• 5:16
  we've had a great amount of feedback that people love what we're doing.
• 5:20
  I guess the other question is have you found any couples that have been matched
• 5:24
  through Chevy and that you have a story to talk about it in its early
• 5:27
  infancy here now you Unfortunately, we did launch this past Friday, so I
• 5:32
  don't have any of those stories yet, but I will definitely, you know,
• 5:36
  you definitely should. We should set up another call hopefully within a month
• 5:40
  or two, maybe we'll have some of those stories to tell. How about
• 5:43
  you? Did you have experience on dating apps that sort of led you to
• 5:46
  create your own if you will, Yeah, it was actually a part of
• 5:50
  the creation pretty much around I tried someone the dating answer around COVID time when
• 5:56
  you weren't really allowed to go out as much, you know, most businesses
• 5:58
  were closed, and I I kind of saw a lot of you know,
• 6:01
  pitfalls that you know, and I wasn't able to find a lot of compatible
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  matches as well as a professional you know myself, I work a lot of
• 6:09
  long hours, and then when I would end up trying to use the apps.
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  You know, I spent a lot of time just wiping aimlessly on you
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  know, people that I wasn't interested personally, you know, not doing wrong
• 6:18
  with these people, but just wasn't what I was looking for. And a
• 6:20
  lot of people that I did match with, I also noticed there were a
• 6:24
  lot of boss on the apps. There's a lot of cat fishing that was
• 6:27
  going on, you know me. You know, there were also a lot
• 6:29
  of instances where let's say, you would match with someone and then when you
• 6:31
  meet up with them, you know, they maybe didn't look the same way
• 6:34
  they did in their their profile photos. And we have solutions for all those
• 6:39
  kind of problems. And I think it was kind of just like a light
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  bulb went off my brain, you know. After I used them a little
• 6:45
  bit, I spoke to friends and family and I got their anecdotal research about
• 6:47
  what they were experiencing. And then also I did market research and it was
• 6:50
  kind of universal, you know, men and women had some things that were
• 6:54
  the same, some things that were different, but overall, there were a
• 6:57
  lot of pain points not being addressed, and I kind of really wanted to
• 7:00
  take a shot at it and see what I could do, you know,
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  and I think that's kind of how Shivy was born. All right. I
• 7:06
  like that. You know, I believe relationships are about compromise too, but
• 7:12
  you say this is about those refuse to compromise. What do you mean by
• 7:15
  that? Well, we should be things that you know, relationships should be
• 7:20
  based on, you know, high standards, you know, people with high
• 7:24
  standards and an emphasis on value system. And I know there's been a lot
• 7:27
  of movement towards you know, the hook up culture and the kind of ghosting
• 7:30
  culture and whole bunch of other things. I mean there's some you know,
• 7:33
  you you could go on other dating apps and you'll see a lot of people
• 7:36
  that have built signed up for a dating app just to put down either like
• 7:41
  you know, not on this app, message me on my Instagram or my
• 7:45
  only fans as almost a marketing tool. And it was kind of hilarious to
• 7:48
  me that, like, you know, these dating apps have become this total
• 7:50
  other platform that wasn't really what it was intended to do, but that's what
• 7:55
  they became. So we kind of just want to make it for people that
• 7:58
  kind of are just not happy with what's available currently on the market and they're
• 8:01
  just not willing to compromise on just like you know, just settling for anything.
• 8:05
  You know, people that are just they're looking for something more or something
• 8:07
  serious and they want they know what they want, and that's why they choose
• 8:11
  the joint chivvy, you know. And that's kind of why we also have
• 8:13
  a premium subscription price, is to make sure that you know, everyone on
• 8:16
  SHIV is serious. We don't. We don't cater to one side more than
• 8:20
  the other. We think regardless of them there people should be you know,
• 8:24
  serious and have skin in the game. And that kind of I think will
• 8:26
  help allude to you know, these people are serious and they're actually looking for
• 8:30
  something, and you know, because they have intention, a serious intention,
• 8:33
  our goals helped, you know, make them achieve that. What are you
• 8:37
  looking forward tonight at the Valentine's Day event at fifth of Match, Like,
• 8:41
  what kind of results are you looking for? Results? Are you looking for
• 8:43
  actual matches to happen in person tonight? That would be excellent. You know,
• 8:48
  we didn't have an Unfortunately, we didn't have as much time as I
• 8:52
  hope for the marketing of this event, just because we launched a little bit
• 8:54
  later than we had a planned. Initially, we had a little bit of
• 9:00
  launched delay, but you know, with four days notice for you know,
• 9:03
  six days notice, I'm hoping it would be nice if we can get at
• 9:07
  least one hundred hundred and fifty people to the tennis event, that would be
• 9:09
  nice. And if Matthews are made that would be even even better, you
• 9:13
  know, that would that would kind of solidify what our intention was with the
• 9:16
  in person events. All right, Well, I've I've talked with CEO,
• 9:18
  so I want to know about your experience leading up to this meeting. You've
• 9:22
  obviously run a business before or is this your first venture as an entrepreneur.
• 9:26
  I have run other businesses as well. I've done I was involved with a
• 9:31
  tea business at one point called TNC that I had, I sold real estate.
• 9:37
  I had a little bit of project management and development in real estate as
• 9:41
  well. And I also helped my family business go from a brick and mortar
• 9:43
  business to also having an online presence. So you're you know this and I'm
• 9:48
  sure at the backing of this app, I mean that did that come with
• 9:52
  time that you were able to get the backing to launch this app because the
• 9:56
  people had to invest in this app right to make it work. Yeah,
• 10:00
  course, yeah, so we initially the concept came maybe two or three years
• 10:05
  two and a half three years ago, and from that day I was able
• 10:09
  to maybe gain the pre seed money within probably three months of concept, and
• 10:13
  then from there we started building on an MVP. And you know, I
• 10:16
  don't have a technical background, but you know, I'm very hands on regardless,
• 10:20
  and I'm a fast learner. So luckily I was able to kind of
• 10:24
  bearhead the whole process and learn who to hire who not, you know,
• 10:26
  and it was a big learning curve, you know, the whole time.
• 10:30
  But throughout the process we were able to build something really special. So yeah,
• 10:33
  we have. We have done a two rounds of raising family and friends
• 10:37
  as well as a pre seed money, a preseed raise. We are now
• 10:41
  currently seeking our seed round as well. How frustrated are you that a lot
• 10:46
  of this dating culture is on the app? Meaning I feel like it leads
• 10:50
  to lonely list, right, Like all these apps lead to some kind of
• 10:52
  loneliness, don't they do? With you more, that's kind of why,
• 10:56
  you know, we are driving that in person event as well. I think
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  there's nothing like an in person connection. And you know, furthermore, you
• 11:03
  know, at the very least you can't. You miss a lot of cues
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  that you would get in person that you can't get on an app, no
• 11:09
  regardless of how good it is, you know there, I think seventy percent
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  of all communication is non verbal when you're in person, so you miss out
• 11:16
  on all those body cues, body signaling. So you know, it's kind
• 11:20
  of tricky to do that. You can still make a great app, but
• 11:22
  you still need that in person component, I think to be successful. And
• 11:26
  I think that's why the in person events will kind of differentiate us and also
• 11:30
  help our user base be more successful than most of our competitors, the users
• 11:33
  on our competitor apps. Niko I got to ask this though on a general
• 11:37
  scheme of things, I mean, loneliness in New York City. Who knew
• 11:41
  that this could be a really lonely city at times? And sometimes it does
• 11:43
  feel like that. Can't we say that? Yeah? I mean, it's
• 11:48
  what's the word? You know, the New York City minute is the busiest
• 11:52
  minute in the world or something like that, But you know, it was
• 11:54
  recently vote voted I think one hundred and forty seventh out of one hundred eighty
• 11:58
  cities major cities and in the United States is one of the worst places to
• 12:01
  date, and you know, as a New Yorker, you know, born
• 12:05
  and raised in New Yorker, I kind of felt like that wasn't insult,
• 12:07
  you know, towards New York and I want to also teams that and I
• 12:09
  think we will. So that's why we are doing a launch initially in New
• 12:13
  York City, with plans to expand to you know, surrounding areas, and
• 12:16
  then we have plans to expand beyond that to you know, major metropolitan areas
• 12:20
  like Miami and Los Angeles. Did you ever think you play a matchmaker in
• 12:24
  real life? I mean this is Have you ever played matchmaker in your friend
• 12:28
  group, like you know, connect to people like this off the app?
• 12:35
  You know, I don't. I never thought this would happen. You never
• 12:37
  really know the director of your future. To be honest, you I never
• 12:41
  would have sold me being the founder and CEO of a dating app, So
• 12:45
  I'll be totally honest. This was you know, you never know which direction
• 12:48
  your life take. But in a funny sence, that kind of all culminated
• 12:52
  to this with different experiences, different education, and you know, different life
• 12:56
  goals. So I'm also in the age group as well as our target audience.
• 13:01
  So it kind of makes sense. You know, I kind of know
• 13:03
  exactly what most users are going through, and I kind of understand the solution
• 13:05
  as well. So it's easier when you can make something that you would use
• 13:09
  yourself, you know, as opposed to just making it for someone you don't
• 13:13
  know. If you trying to make something that you would be comfortable using yourself,
• 13:16
  or that you would be comfortable with your family or friends using, it's
• 13:20
  much easier, I think, to put that personal touch and that actual commandment
• 13:22
  to care to make as curated and perfect as possible. Now, when we
• 13:26
  when people are on the apps, do you look at the etiquette, do
• 13:30
  you look at the h do you moderate? How did you guys moderate the
• 13:33
  app so that it is a safe environment. So we we take a lot
• 13:39
  of precautions at the moment with verification, so our users number one, it's
• 13:45
  a paid premium membership, right so people are supplying a card to Apple.
• 13:50
  So that's one thing, So you remove a lot of bad actors right there.
• 13:52
  That's part of the problem with a lot of free apps. The other
• 13:56
  thing is we do a robust verification system where we do an identity document scan
• 14:03
  as well as a biometric liveness facial scan. So this way that you know
• 14:07
  nobody is even if you took someone's ID and you try to use it,
• 14:09
  it's not gonna work for you. And on top of that, we have
• 14:11
  a photo a photoshop photoshop proof selfie what's called we have we have we have
• 14:20
  a pretty much a photoshop selfie check that we make sure that no one is
• 14:24
  going to be using photoshop, you know, Photoshop proved selfie check. So
• 14:28
  it's pretty much it's very simple. Actually, we've forced one of the profile
• 14:31
  photos to use the take the take camera function, take photo function. And
• 14:35
  this way users you know, are not going to be able to edit that
• 14:39
  photo. They can't upload it, they can't edit it, so they are
• 14:41
  who they are. So even if the other photos they add are not let's
• 14:46
  say they're all uploaded, they're edited, they're professional, whatever the case may
• 14:48
  be, one of them is going to actually look like what they really look
• 14:52
  like. And I think that's important because if you're really trying to match with
• 14:54
  someone that you're interested in, you know, most likely you want them to
• 14:58
  know you look like anyways, right, you know, trying to be you
• 15:01
  know, playing like some sort of game where it's disguising. So and on
• 15:05
  top of that, we also have a feature too for our users. It's
• 15:09
  called Shitty Safety, and the idea behind it was and also the verification.
• 15:13
  All this touched real quickly on this. The way he came with some of
• 15:16
  these ideas is I'm not sure if familiar with those a Docus series called Tinder
• 15:20
  Swindler that came out. Yes, yeah, So he had gone around on
• 15:24
  all these apps, Tender being I guess the main one, and pretty much
• 15:28
  he was able to because they weren't verifying his identity. He was able to
• 15:31
  scan all of these women out of like millions of dollars. But that was
• 15:35
  one way so we verify who people are. On top of that, there
• 15:39
  was another another docum series called Like Dating Up Horror Stories that I'd seen on
• 15:43
  Hulu, which made me come to the realization of, Wow, these no
• 15:46
  app is actually doing anything to keep like some sort of safety solution or anything
• 15:50
  to check up on you when you're actually on a date with someone you don't
• 15:54
  know who they are, and if they're not verified, even worse, our
• 15:56
  users are verified. But we still thought, you know what, why not
• 15:58
  make that extra layer, right, So we made this future called Shouvy Safe
• 16:02
  Day. So while users are on their onboarding process, they put in either
• 16:07
  one or two emergency contact, and then before they go on a date,
• 16:10
  they toggle them. On a date, they get an SMS within twenty minutes
• 16:14
  checks up with them. It has a it's interactive, so pretty much it
• 16:17
  We'll ask you know, this is Shivvy. We just want to check up
• 16:19
  on you. Please respond with the correct prompt, the correct numerical prompt.
• 16:23
  She tide one with you alone, Everything's great, have a great time.
• 16:27
  You text back two. Well, lay your emergency contact to reach out and
• 16:30
  share your location. You text back three and we open up the ou wrap
• 16:34
  on your phone to schedule ride home for you. Wow, that's a really
• 16:40
  useful, useful help. I mean, that's that's great. Unfortunately, how
• 16:44
  many do hurt? Unfortunately, we don't want it to get to three.
• 16:47
  Right, that's the worst case scenario. I'm guessing yeah, no for sure.
• 16:51
  And like I said, these are precautions, and I think that sometimes
• 16:56
  it's the same thing with an alarm system in a home. Right. Your
• 16:57
  idea is that are to deter someone who might be willing to do some bad
• 17:02
  actors. You know, that's why people put lights around their house at night
• 17:04
  time. I think the more steps we put in to make sure that we
• 17:07
  can deter those type of people, the better job we will do it actually
• 17:11
  keeping the people on the app with the right intentions. And you know,
• 17:15
  we don't want to also be you know, there's obviously more ways we could
• 17:18
  go further with that, but at the end of the day, we don't
• 17:19
  want to be invasive either with privacy, right, so we want to be
• 17:22
  able to have a nice balance where the user feels safe or at least safer,
• 17:27
  but not you know, not be invasive as well. You know,
• 17:30
  people do have the right to privacy and I respect that more than anyone.
• 17:33
  So you mentioned the pandemic, and I feel like we are three years out,
• 17:37
  oh sorry, four years out from the pandemic. Three years is out
• 17:40
  from really things outstarted. So do you think there's a healthier dating scene now
• 17:45
  that we're back in person for the most part, or is there still work
• 17:48
  to go on that. I think it's better than it was right away after
• 17:53
  the pandemic had finished, but I do think there's a way to go still.
• 17:56
  I mean, I think there is going to be some users that probably
• 18:00
  want to build that relationship much more on an on the interfaith longer just because
• 18:04
  of you know, different fears, whatever whatever the case may be. And
• 18:07
  there's other people that may be like, you know what, almost like you
• 18:11
  know, you get cooped up, you that that that cabin fever where it's
• 18:15
  like I'd rather meet people in person. It's kind of also you know,
• 18:18
  a natural instinct, you know, it's a human a human need to connect.
• 18:22
  So I think a lot of people, I think once we actually take
• 18:26
  off and people are much more aware of our brand in our company, I
• 18:29
  think I think in person events will do very well with in New York City,
• 18:32
  especially in the hen Brooklyn. I feel like that's where mostly it's going
• 18:36
  to take off the best. Well, I wish you all the best.
• 18:38
  And by the way, how do it feel to get ap associated press mentioning
• 18:42
  your your app? That must have felt pretty good, of course it did.
• 18:48
  And then thank you, Alice, I really appreciate it, and thank
• 18:51
  you for having me on your podcast. All right. That was Nico Screlly,
• 18:55
  the founder and CEO of Shivvy, the dating app get chivvy dot com,