The Village Is Live… Find Your People, Not More People
If you’ve been wondering what I’ve been up to lately, it’s this. I’ve been working on The Village and it’s live right now across North America. And for once it isn’t an AI that draws with code or a thing that makes calculators (I still love those). It’s an app that helps you find your people. Like real, in-person, text-you-on-a-Tuesday people.

What Is The Village?
The Village is a smart way to find your people. More profiles, more feeds, more noise… The Village cuts through all of it so you can see who you genuinely click with. That means favorite creators, friends and family, and people you haven’t met yet.
The big idea is the Circle. A Circle is a small group of 5 to 7 compatible local people who actually meet up in real life. Dinners, hikes, coffee shops, slow Sundays. The whole product is built around showing up, not scrolling.
And this is not one of those “join the waitlist” things. It’s open. You can sign up and chat with Milo today.
Who Is Milo?

Milo is the fox. Milo is your guide in The Village and the first thing you do is have a quick conversation with Milo. Milo asks what you value, how you move through life, and what makes a connection feel natural to you. It takes about 5 to 7 minutes.
No personality quiz. No 47 sliders. (That is an actual line from the site and honestly it’s my favorite.) Just a real conversation.
How Does The Village Work?

It’s three steps, and you can see the whole flow on the How it works section of The Village:
- Start with Milo. Around 5 to 7 minutes on the web. Milo learns what matters to you.
- See how you click. Explore how well you click with favorite creators, friends and family, and new people worth discovering. You see the fit beneath the surface.
- Go deeper. Use compatibility as a starting point. Understand a creator differently, strengthen a relationship you already have, or discover someone new… then make the connection real.
How Does Compatibility Actually Work?

This is the part I think is really cool. Most platforms optimize for attention. The Village optimizes for authentic connection. Milo looks at three things (the full breakdown is in how compatibility works on The Village):
- Values first. What actually drives you, not what looks good on a profile. Spirituality, ambition, attachment style, politics, how you do conflict. Two people who both actually protect their peace click way harder than two people who both say they like matcha.
- Lifestyle & cadence. Long sunrise runs vs. midnight wine bars. Climbing gyms vs. book clubs. Friday-night plans people vs. Sunday morning slow-livers. Compatibility is rhythm, not just what you say you like.
- Stage & place. New transplant or 10-year local. Single, partnered, parent, founder, between jobs. Same chapter, same city.
Then Milo weighs all of that across the members around you and surfaces the 5 to 7 people most likely to click with you.
And here’s the list of what Milo won’t show you, which kind of says it all: photos before fit, swipe stacks, follower counts, “hot or not”, dating prompts, romantic intent, public profiles, anonymous DMs.
Wait… Is The Village a Dating App?
NO. The Village is platonic by design. It doesn’t show you faces, it doesn’t track romantic interest, and it doesn’t sort by anything dating-app-ish. Show up single, partnered, married, whatever. Friends first.
Why a Circle? Why Not Just Go Meet More People?
Because “put yourself out there” mostly doesn’t work, and there’s actual research on why. The Village blog has a great post on this, making friends as an adult is a logistics problem, and the short version is that friendship costs hours. Jeffrey Hall at the University of Kansas found it takes roughly 50 hours together to go from acquaintance to casual friend, around 90 to become an actual friend, and 200+ before someone is a close friend.

A one-off meetup gets you 90 minutes. Then the two of you have to manufacture the next 90 by yourselves, every single time. Almost nobody keeps that up, and it’s not a character flaw. It’s just a lot of overhead.
A Circle fixes the logistics. Same few people, often enough that seeing them stops being a decision. If you just moved somewhere, what actually works when you move somewhere new is basically this exact problem.
Why 5 to 7 People Exactly?
It’s the most deliberate number in the whole thing. Above about seven, the room stops being one room and somebody is always an audience. Below five, one busy week kills it. Five to seven is the narrow band where neither happens. There’s a whole write-up on why a Circle is five to seven people with the Robin Dunbar research behind it, and it’s a good read.

What Does a Village Night Look Like?
Like this! These are from a Village night at Tower23 in San Diego.

People walk in, scan a QR code, and take a short compatibility intake. Then comes the reveal, where everyone sees who in the room they line up with most. Then the Circles form and there’s a game that gets past small talk fast. About seventy minutes total and you leave with a Circle that keeps meeting on its own.

If you run an apartment building, this is a thing you can bring to your residents. Check out The Village for apartment communities. Your residents live twenty feet apart and most of them have never met.
Are You a Creator? Your Followers Know You… Now You Can Know Them Back

This one is fun. Your followers know your kitchen, your dog and your bad weeks. You know their age and their city. That’s it. The Village creator pilot flips that around:
- You go first. Sign up and chat with Milo for a few minutes so your followers have something to line up against.
- You post the link once. One Instagram reel or story. Your followers chat with Milo themselves and see where they line up with you. Same kind of parent, both grew up somewhere small, value the same things.
- You find out who they actually are. Creator Studio shows what your people have in common as a group, in their own words. No individual profiles, nobody gets ranked.
No link in bio, no call, nothing to install. It’s free through the seeding phase, every creator in the pilot gets six months of membership free, and if your account is public with 10,000+ followers you get a $50 Amazon gift card once your post is confirmed (US residents 21 and over, full rules on the site). A reel counts too now, using ManyChat to DM your link to anyone who comments VILLAGE. The thinking behind the whole thing is in your followers know you, the creator pilot lets you know them back.
How Much Does The Village Cost?
It’s free to try. You sign up, finish onboarding with Milo, and see who you’d click with before any payment is taken. Membership pricing is shown inside the app after onboarding so it’s clear what you’re paying for. And your info is used to build your Circle and nothing else. No selling data, no ads against your profile.
Is There More to Read?
Yep. The Village blog is all about adult friendship, moving somewhere new, and what we’re learning from Circles. Way more thoughtful than this post honestly.

How Do I Sign Up?

Phone number, then a code. Or continue with Google or Apple. That’s the whole sign-up, Milo gets the rest from you after. There’s also The Village iOS app on the App Store if you’re on iPhone.
Did You Really Not Click the Link Yet?
If you’ve made it this far without clicking, now is the time.
Click here to join The Village, chat with Milo for five minutes, and find your people.






