Dating app meets relationship butler | Giant Improvement In Dating App with Eric McHugh

So I think people are happiest serving other people. And I think I'm the number one me in the world. I think you're the number one you in the world. How do you serve other people at scale to the best of your ability? It's to do what you're number one at and that is being you. So that's why it's so important when building like either businesses, content, whatever the case may be, follow your natural talents and curiosity because that's where you're going to crush it at. Hello, this is Raymond Aaron, New York Times top 10 bestselling author the world's premier podcast to ignite the fire to allow you to live life on your own terms. Every single Thursday, I bring you a multimillionaire world famous celebrity to teach you about the most fascinating ways in order to live a far better life. Every single Thursday, you just need to subscribe by hitting the subscribe button. I'll see you every Thursday to re-spark your life. Yes, it's Raymond Aaron, New York Times top 10 bestselling author. But heck, you know that about me. What you're wondering is who I'm bringing you. And I'm not bringing you my world famous friends. I know they're fun, but you know all about them. And you can hear them just by going to YouTube and hearing hundreds of thousands of videos on any of my world famous friends. And so I specialize in bringing you stealth wisdom. I specialize in bringing you people you would never know about. Now, if you're in their circle, you'll of course know their wisdom, but you probably aren't in their circle. And so who is it? Who is the stealth genius of today? It's Eric McHugh, a serial entrepreneur and visionary technologist with a mission to build tools that make the world better. From his time at Snap to founding startups around the globe, Eric's path is driven by curiosity, impact, and innovation. With an IQ north of 140, holy mackerel, he's not just building for the future. He's also deeply focused on the present, exploring the balance between physicality and spirituality as a core part of his journey. Get ready for a conversation that blends mind, body, and mission. Eric, are you with us? Yes, sir. And Raymond, I love the excitement in your voice. I can tell this is going to be a great episode. Thank you so much for having me. Yes, it's going to be wonderful. And now that I've given you this huge intro, you have to somehow live up to it. Well, happy to do that. Wonderful. Now, I teach spirituality is one of the things I teach, but you seem to have blended it into what you do. So tell us, how do you combine mind, body, and mission, and physicality and spirituality? How do you combine that in your work? Yeah, so the thing is, I wouldn't say combine. I would say they're all part of the same. They're all the same thing to me. So they're all part of one group. In terms of spirituality, I would say that's kind of the base of my work. So I would say I'm a spiritual person, and then the work is just built on top of that. So I'd like to say that everyone has an inner purpose, and everyone has an outer purpose. I think everyone's inner purpose is the same. So my inner purpose is to raise my own level of consciousness. What does this do? It raises the level of consciousness of those around me, and then that raises the level of consciousness around them, and it creates a nice positivity upward spiral, which is actually why I like podcasts so much. So let's say one person listens to this show. They're better off after listening to the show. They go out in the world, and they just kind of spread that ripple of positivity. I say that's a W. And I would say everyone's outer purpose is, how do your natural God-given gifts help contribute to your inner purpose? And for me, that just so happens to be AI, dating, Web3, and e-commerce, because that's just what I'm naturally interested in. I also believe in the power of authenticity. So I think people are happiest serving other people. And I think I'm the number one me in the world. I think you're the number one you in the world. Hold on. You're the number one you in the world. Yeah, that's true. Man, I love that line. That's a great one-liner. And yeah, so I'm the number one me in the world. So if I try to be you, I can't beat you at being you. But on the flip side, if you try to be me, you can't beat me at being me. So if you're happiest serving other people, how do you serve other people at scale to the best of your ability? It's to do what you're number one at, and that is being you. So that's why it's so important when building either businesses, content, whatever the case may be, to follow your natural talents and curiosity, because that's where you're going to crush it at. Based on your intro, we all know successful people on paper who aren't doing what they're passionate about. Yes, they may be successful, but they're not loving it. Whereas if you're doing what you love, you don't get tired, you keep doing it, and it just kind of expands from there. Some British humorist, I wish I could remember his name right now, said, be yourself, everybody else is taken. Yeah, that's true. And that's what you were saying. So give me an example of a business that you started that somehow blends physicality, spirituality, mind, body, mission. Tell us how it works. Yeah, so I'm working on three current businesses. The first is dating. It's an AI-powered dating app. So the intention behind that is, I view human relationships as very important for overall human happiness, and I view that social media dating apps push that needle in the wrong direction. So what dating does is it auto-generates dating profiles based on the user's digital footprint, and then creates matches based on those users' digital footprints. So for example, I could get three matches. If you were to create a profile on dating, it would generate a bunch of tags based on the podcast you've been on, the way you travel with Cupid, and your Twitter, your Pinterest, all that cool stuff, and it would generate those tags, and then it would match you based on those tags. And the goal for that is to put people in the position for them to succeed because their match was so incompatible. And the cool thing is, the more you're on the app, the smarter it gets at matching. So for example, you bet yes, no, yes, no to these people. It's learning from your interests, and it's adjusting your profile on who you're looking for continuously. And the cool thing about that is it's not just... I mean, we started with dating just because it's an easy... because not too many people are happy in the current dating marketplace, but you can do it with friends, you can do it with co-workers, we can have done it to help plan an episode. There are plenty of ways to use that software to connect people with people they wouldn't... Like you mentioned in the earlier show, it's like, I'm on your show, I may be cool in my circles, but your listeners wouldn't have met me organically. We're trying to connect people who they wouldn't have met organically, but are compatible. So that's what dating is. Another project is Holon Labs, and that's leveraging the power of AI to create products at scale that help people. Because I know AI is really good at pattern recognition, reading large datasets, and leveraging natural talents. So with AI, we can crank out companies quicker to learn quicker to try to serve more people. And if one company catches fire, we can put our attention on that and help it grow. So those are two of the things I'm working on. Wow. Let's get back to dating, because that's something everybody can understand. Yes. You don't have a man or woman in your life, then you're particularly interested. I've noticed that TikTok knows me way too well, and I'm really mad at myself, actually. I should be mad at TikTok. It knows me so well that it gives me these five-second or 19-second videos. Each one grabs me. I say, oh, that's interesting. I'll watch it for a few seconds, and then I'll get another video on a completely different topic that also captivates me. Because if it gave me... I'm just learning the piano now. If it gave me three videos in a row on playing the piano, I would get bored and turn it off. And so they gave me a video on piano, and then one on football, and then one on movies. And all of a sudden, I look at my watch, and an hour has gone by. So I know that whatever algorithms are behind TikTok, they know me. They got me. Oh, my God. They got me bad. Now, is your dating app like that? Do you use the same kind of things to figure out what I would like? So I would say dating and TikTok are different. Yes, we're both really good at learning about you, but I would say the intention is different. TikTok is obviously trying to capture your attention and sell your data to make a bunch of money off of you as a profile. And something I don't like what they did is... First off, TikTok's algorithm is actually really good. They're probably the best social media platform at creating algorithmic content. But I think they based it off of old school slot machines. So, you know, like if you're in Vegas, all your biometrics are getting measured and all that stuff to prevent cheating. When you're about to leave, that's when they give you a hit, a quick win to keep you on the slot machine, to keep you playing. And so that's what TikTok does with their algorithm. And in terms of dating, so they're trying to make as much money off the user, whereas we're using... A, we're learning about the user as much as we can to match them with people they're compatible with. So the data learning is similar in the sense we're trying to get as smart as we can because we're actually the most customized AI chat assistant out there right now because we're so good at learning about our users. But the intention is to match them with someone that they can actually have a relationship with. And that's what differentiates dating from other dating apps. Because for example, if you use Tinder, Hinge, or Bumble for an example, what happens when Tinder, Hinge, or Bumble, they match a happy couple? The happy couple then leaves the dating app. This results in a loss of a paying customer for Tinder. So their incentive is to keep people on that Ferris wheel. So if you ever heard about someone saying, I delete the app, download the app, delete the app, download the app, that's all by incentive design. Whereas dating, after the match is made, it can switch from a relationship butler because it knows both parties so well. So it'd be like, Eric and Jane, you guys haven't been on date in three months. This new restaurant came up. You guys might like it. Or it's like, Eric, her birthday's coming up. She added this thing to her Pinterest. It might make a good gift. And what's so cool about this is it can actually act as like a counselor type thing where it's like, here's a relationship problem we're having. How would you best solve it? And I've noticed people are using chat GBT, like other AI sources to ask a questions. Like I've seen friends, for example, take a screenshot of a text message. What does this mean? It gives an answer. But there's a problem with that. And the problem with that is, yes, it's giving that friend an answer, but it's basing it off of him. So he doesn't realize the answer he's getting is because the chat GBT had learned about him. So it's answering his own question in the lens of how it would act to him. I'm like, no, you don't realize it's just a mirror. But because dating, we take into account both users, it can give a better response. So it's not just learning about your questions and stuff. It knows both people's digital footprint. And then it can incorporate that into response, giving a more personalized answer for both parties with the hopes of, I guess, inspiring connection. We've tested this out multiple times. Like for example, me and a coworker were playing around. It's like, oh, if we wanted to introduce another couple, how would you suggest doing it? And it gave a really good answer for both of us. So it's like, hey, we're having this type of fight. What do you think's happening? How do you think we can fix it? And all that good stuff. So all you have to do is add Cupid and it's designed to help you going forward. Wow, how fascinating. And though AI is growing massively every week, I have a newsletter that I get every day that tells me the changes from 24 hours ago in AI and in robotics. And every day, there's a list of like 10 massive changes, some of which I don't even understand. But the ones I understand, I say, this is massive. And it's only been one day. And there'll be another newsletter tomorrow. So it's like the biggest thing that ever happened. And most people aren't catching on to it yet. What do you think? Is there going to be a split? Like there has always been a financial split, the wealthy and the broke. But is there going to be an AI split? Those would know AI and those would don't know AI. You know, I've been seeing that split in content a lot too. Like even internally, like half the people think that AI-based content is the coolest thing ever. But half the people think that it's like soulless and doesn't help at all. So I would say there's going to be a split. But I would say the people who don't like AI are going to be using AI in a more subtle way type of thing. Where it's like, you know how I think of Google autocorrect, where you're typing an email, it autocorrects. It does that for you. There's going to be like an AI version of that where it just says, hey, would you like to write this instead? So I think it'll, it's right now, I'd say 30% of people are really in love with AI. 70% of people are kind of scared or don't like AI. And I can see that switching because AI itself is just like, the more people, you can't force a technology upon anyone. And I learned that through the crypto industry. So I'm like, hey, Raymond, use AI. I need you to use AI. You're like, I don't think I want to use AI. I don't like AI. But if there's something that AI does that helps you and makes your life easier, then you're probably going to end up using it. And that's going to be like a zero to one moment for you. So as more and more consumer apps come out and use AI, that'll bring more and more people onto the AI side. So for example, there's some users who didn't use AI before dating. They're like, oh, I kind of want a dating app. I'm kind of lonely. Oh, this is actually cool. And now they're more open to AI. So it's up to the builders of AI to create products and services that the public wants if they want people to use AI more comfortably. Eric, I'm just fascinated by your dating app. I'm fascinated that you figured out how to not lose clients after the two people get matched up by continuing to offer Butler services. Fascinating. Tell me, what is the biggest thing that you learned in your whole experience of building and offering this dating app? So some of the biggest lessons I've learned like more generally is if you're building products and services, you build products and services, don't harm anyone and don't take anything away from anyone. And you should be good to go. And regarding the dating app specifically is I learned about that there is a divide between people who don't like AI and who like AI. Because like you said, I expected everyone to, I expected this to be a media hit. But then when we were signing up, we saw the feedback. We're like, oh, this is kind of scary. So we had to learn how to introduce AI into a AI-based dating app to make the users more comfortable. Wow. Now, first of all, I don't think anyone starts a business wanting to harm people. But how, even inadvertently, how can you possibly harm people with a dating app? So I would say that like, obviously, that's not the intention, but I would say it's getting really smart at learning about people. So it could create a honeypot for user profiles that they can use to sell malicious content for. So I've always thought like AI can be used for, like, imagine this, like someone, there's a lot of medical records, like someone, AI scans all the medical records in the world. It scans, it picks up patterns that us humans have missed. And notice that like 50 people exhibit a specific pattern that has led to a specific disease. There are two paths you can take. You can either warn them, let them know, be the good guy, or you can use that to exploit them to make money, be the bad guy. So with our software being so knowledgeable on people, that could create incentive for bad actors to come in and try to steal user profiles to enact it nefariously. And this would pair pretty well with like all the AI-based scams going around, like fake people reaching out, like bottling up people trying to sell people stuff, stealing social security numbers, trying to steal their credit card info and all that stuff. And that's where something that having a honeypot of just highly intelligent user profiles could be an issue. But of course, we're taking all the precautions we possibly can to make it as safe as possible. Right. Right. Now, totally new topic. Your official photograph has you in a sailboat wearing a t-shirt that says, Occupy Mars. Now, what's the story behind that? Yeah, so it was just, I was sailing and first of all, that's from a while ago because like, I'm a dude. So I have like two functional photos that I use across everything. And that just happens to be one of those. And during that period of time, I was helping research space. So I did some summer research at Carnegie Mellon with my brother's team. And we helped like, we were playing around with a lot of really powerful telescopes. So space was just the vibe back at that time. And everyone had those Occupy Mars shirts. So, I mean, I think space is cool. I don't think I would go. I won't be one of the first people to go to Mars. But if someone wants to go, they can go. Very nice. Tell me your favorite quote, Eric. As above, so below, as within, so without. And that's a quote by Hermes Trismegistus. That essentially means, as within, so without means what's on the inside is reflected on the outside. So if you're trying to change your world, it's just like a mirror. If you see a frowning face on the mirror, you can't force the mirror to change. You have to change it on yourself and that'll change it. As above, so below, essentially, the theory behind that are the three levels of existence, the physical, the mental, and the spiritual. And they all reflect each other. So if you're not happy with the physical world, change your mental world or change the spiritual world and that'll trickle down to the physical world. So if you think everything is gloom and stuff, I will start thinking positively because you're actually creating that reality for yourself. Eric, if you and I were neighbors, we'd be best friends. Yeah, we would tell each other. That'd be pretty fun, actually. We would have long conversations. Long conversations over a barbecue in the back. Yeah, food is lunch. Wow, I'm really taken by you. You're a fascinating person. Oh, you too, man. Thank you very much. And what a great show. You've been a wonderful guest. Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm really grateful to be here. Wow, I sure hope you enjoyed that fascinating episode. Please make sure you've subscribed and please tell your friends if you like it that they will probably like it as well. For your information, this experience, this service, this podcast has been sponsored by the Orbit Coaching Program. All of my friends, all my world-famous speaker friends all have coaching programs. Mine has been independently rated as the number one high-level coaching program. You cannot purchase it. You have to audition for it by me personally. If you're interested, please email me at respark at Aaron.com. Respark at A-A-R-O-N. Say that you're interested in being considered for the Orbit Coaching Program and include your cell phone numbers that I personally will call you back.