Don't Build New Behavior – Remove Friction From Existing Behavior

01 /The Concept

The homepage of 222 cycles through offers like "let us plan dinner and karaoke with your four friends," "let us plan your blind date," and "let us plan a comedy show and dinner with five people you'll click with."

These aren't random taglines – they reflect the company's core thesis. 222 builds products that help people establish and maintain meaningful friendships. It calls itself a "relationships company."

As the founders put it, they can't accept the fact that most of our time is spent in a virtual world that hollows out real life – because real life can only be lived offline, face-to-face with other people.

But offline life shouldn't be left to chance either. Randomly swiping profiles left and right to determine who you'll meet, or stumbling into acquaintances at parties that happen to be nearby – that's not much better.

222's goal is to give people a better shot at meeting people they'll actually connect with.

To get there, a new user first answers around a hundred questions across a range of topics – from where they live and what they do, to how they feel about contested social issues.

The platform's AI then cross-references these answers to estimate who would genuinely enjoy meeting whom in real life. 222 regularly organizes those meetings, inviting algorithmically matched groups of people.

One distinctive touch: each event typically unfolds across two venues – a museum and a restaurant, for example – so participants see each other in different settings with different conversation dynamics. The exact locations are revealed only the evening before.

Participation costs $17 per event, or a $22/month subscription. After each gathering, 222 surveys all attendees to capture their impressions – feeding the matching algorithm's ongoing improvement.

222 currently operates in 10 US cities, with New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco as its most active markets.

The startup has raised several rounds of $1–2.5M and went through Y Combinator in 2023. It recently closed its first significant round: $10.1M.

02 /Why It Matters

222 sits at the intersection of two trends that have quietly gathered momentum over the past couple of years.

One is a more deliberate, technology-powered approach to matching people for social connections – displacing the blunt instrument of Tinder-style swiping.

The model works by collecting detailed information about individuals upfront, then using AI to find meaningful matches. That significantly raises the odds of a connection that feels worthwhile to both parties.

Known ([related review](/review/kak-izbezhat-popadalova)) built a romantic dating app on the same principle, raising $9.7M in November. Interestingly, Known users don't fill out questionnaires – instead, the platform's AI holds voice conversations with new members, gathering the same information verbally and collecting post-date feedback to keep refining its matching.

Boardy ([related review](/review/produkt-kotoryj-sam-prinosit-investorov)) took the same mechanic into professional networking for entrepreneurs, startup founders, and investors, raising $11M.

A particularly creative variant is Schmooze ([related review](/review/o-chjom-s-toboj-trahatsja)), which raised $7.5M on the idea that people can be matched by the memes they find funny. As the founder argues, for Gen Z, memes are a language – a window into someone's inner world. The platform's AI analyzes a user's full set of liked memes to infer their personality, then suggests connections with people whose personalities appear compatible – even if their favorite memes are completely different.

Running alongside this is a rising appetite for offline gatherings. People want new friends, not just social media connections, and ways to stay close to the ones they already have.

One category of startups here focuses on helping people discover and attend local events, parties, and concerts – Plots ([related review](/review/pojdjom-potusuemsja)), Pie, and POSH have raised between $3.5M and $31M pursuing this angle. Another builds tools for groups of existing friends to meet up more often: apps where AI bots find convenient times for everyone, shared calendars that surface friends' offline plans, and similar utilities. A third category targets adults over 50–55, who often experience more loneliness but find it harder to meet people through channels built for younger users – several startups have raised $8M+ addressing this. And one unexpected category focuses on female friendship platforms, with recent YC graduates and pre-revenue companies approaching $1M in annual revenue.

03 /Opportunities

In theory, people can meet each other perfectly well on their own – online first, then in person, or just by striking up conversations offline. But doing so requires pushing through fear of rejection, awkwardness, and the risk of landing in an uncomfortable or unsafe situation.

That's precisely why 222's founder frames the company's primary mission as "reducing friction" in the process of meeting people – including taking the burden of deciding when to meet, who to meet, and what to do off the individual's plate.

This framing matters because it points to significant market expansion potential: if unmet demand exists but is currently blocked by friction, removing that friction can create a market that didn't visibly exist before.

And it's hard to argue that people don't want new friends or stronger bonds with existing ones – something always seems to get in the way. So the real potential for growth in social and friendship apps – not just romantic ones – looks genuine.

The direction forward is clear: build these apps. The remaining work is choosing the right target audience and the right flavor of connection – and then borrowing the mechanics that already work from the startups mentioned here.