I got dumped in high school for being boring. It stuck with me. When I talked to a few psychologists about it, the answer kept coming back to spontaneity. That is what keeps relationships alive.

Almost every relationship app helps you find the who. Almost none help with the what. So I built Sparkli: date ideas based on your time, money, location and situation. It spun off a clothing line for couples too.

We coded it before AI could do that for you and got it into the App Store. Every single user was a grind. Talking to people in the city, in-person social media, cold calls. I hired a marketing agency too.

We were in talks to sell to Chima AI, an a16z company. It fell through on their end. I lost about $20K on Sparkli and learned more from it than from anything else.