Daniella Granzotto With Wednesday Waffles

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Daniela Granzotto and she is with Wednesday Waffles. Welcome.

Daniella Granzotto: Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Wednesday Waffles. How you serving folks?

Daniella Granzotto: Yeah, so we created the concept. The concept was actually created by one of our founders, Zachary, a couple years ago, and he posted on Instagram and TikTok recently just saying that him and his friends had been taking three minute videos of themselves on a weekly basis every Wednesday and just sending it to a group chat. And it was just a really effective way for them to stay in touch. And that video went viral. A couple of us got Ahold of it and started doing it and saw some really great benefits, but there were some pain points of just doing it in a group chat. So we decided to turn it into an app and that’s where we are today.

Lee Kantor: So what is the meaning of Wednesday? Waffles is there is waffle like in America? Waffle is a breakfast.

Daniella Granzotto: Yeah. The term waffling is from British and Australian slang for just chatting or, you know, waffling about nothing, just talking for the sake of talking. And so it is kind of what we picked Wednesday and we play on waffles for the American food as well within the app, but it’s just a once a week ritual that you and your friends can get together and really allows for more deep, authentic connection rather than all of the maybe highlight reels that you see in traditional social media today.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? How did you get involved in this line of work?

Daniella Granzotto: I’ve been in software and a tech company for the last eight years, and when this opportunity came across my plate and it felt like the I think there’s a real problem personally, with social media today, digital burnout is a real thing. Social media often leaves you feeling worse than better. And so when I saw the benefits of allowing the group of people in your life and the people closest to you, whether it’s friends or family, to connect in a real, authentic way, it just spoke to me and I decided to take the leap and pursue it full time.

Lee Kantor: And then had you done this before? Build community like this?

Daniella Granzotto: No, I, I wouldn’t say community like this specifically. I have a background in personally in PR and marketing for tech companies, and so I was familiar with the space and a couple of my co-founders are developers. And so we all got together and decided to build your new weekly friendship app.

Lee Kantor: So any advice for other business people out there? If they’re trying to create a community around something important to them, whether it’s their business or a mission? Is there some do’s and don’ts when you’re trying to launch something like this that requires kind of, um, you know, somebody you have you’re asking people to share personal things and to not only do that, but also bring their friends along for the ride.

Daniella Granzotto: Yeah, I think from I mean, from the development standpoint, security was super important to us. And so some Dos, as I think, do your due diligence. If you’re building an app that involves other people getting onto the platform, both from a being able to report any not great behavior, but then also being able to have all of their data be super secure. So we want people to really be authentic and vulnerable on this app, and we want to make sure that they feel comfortable and that they know that whatever they say is only being stored locally for them and won’t be misused in any way.

Lee Kantor: So is the is the waffle if I’m if I create a group for my friends and family. Um, is that the only people that are going to see this, or is it kind of have a public feed as well?

Daniella Granzotto: No, those are the only people we really are trying to break the cycle of traditional, uh, social media. So there’s no likes, there’s no filters, no followers. It’s really just you and your group of friends connecting on a weekly basis and sharing a little bit about what’s going on in your life.

Lee Kantor: And what stage are you at right now?

Daniella Granzotto: Uh, we I mean, we’ve launched, uh, we launched in, uh, middle of March, and the results we’ve seen so far have been really, really exciting. We’ve got hundreds of thousands of users on the app already, and and we’re I will say we’re not perfect yet either. Launching a new app comes with definitely some like, bugs and features and and the fact that we’ve received so much feedback of like, hey, this is broken, please make it work. I really want to use it has been really exciting to see.

Lee Kantor: Now, um, obviously you were very mindful and purposeful around this once a week concept. Um, can you talk about how how you came up with once a week and, um, what did you try twice a week or like, how did you land on once a week?

Daniella Granzotto: Once a week really came from Zach being the original creator and had been doing it for years. And I think it allows the appropriate amount of connection while still not forcing you to go back to the app. Um, these conversations can obviously always continue and develop longer outside of Wednesdays, and we hope that they do. But we don’t want people to feel pressure that they have to be in the app at all times in order to stay connected.

Lee Kantor: Acted now are there, um, within the app? Are there prompts to help a person who might be struggling with even filling their three minutes? Is there things that are thought starters, or is it just like you just turn, hey, you get a reminder, hey, it’s Wednesday, time to do your three minute waffle.

Daniella Granzotto: You get a reminder. We do have prompts. If you feel like you don’t really have anything to talk about that week, we’ll give you some suggestions. And then we also have a notes section that you can go to throughout the week that if something happens on Monday and you’re like, oh, I know I want to put that in my Wednesday waffle, you can go in and and put it in the notes so that when you are ready to record on Wednesday, it’s all there and ready for you as well.

Lee Kantor: Is there anything that kind of reminds me of people in my network that I might want to include on this? Or is it like, how do you kind of expand the network, or is that not really the objective?

Daniella Granzotto: The intention really isn’t, at least right now to expand the network. It’s to really focus on deepening the relationships that you already have. I think everyone has a really close social circle, but even if you think about how often are you actually seeing those people? Um, it’s as we grow up and life changes, it becomes less and less frequently throughout that stage. And you really want to be able to connect with those people. It’s the type of people that when you do get together, it’s like you never missed a beat. And so how can we bridge that gap so that you still are connected and sharing what’s going on in each other’s lives, even if you don’t get the chance to see each other face to face so frequently anymore.

Lee Kantor: Now, if if I, if I form a group and I have like, what’s a typical number of people in a group right now.

Daniella Granzotto: Uh, it can really vary. I would say on average it’s like between 3 and 8 is the largest group size. Um, and that’s I’ll speak for myself. I have a lot of siblings. So there’s, um, I have a siblings and spouses group that has, uh, ten of us in it. Um, and that’s really the most we tend to see because we want people to share what’s actually going on. And it can be quite a vulnerable space. And so you want people, everyone in the group that you feel comfortable with, you can also just create a group with one person too if you want to. I have one friend in Australia who I connect with, uh, just her and I, as a weekly ritual to just to stay in touch with each other. So there’s no minimum or maximum, but that is the average that we’ve seen.

Lee Kantor: And do people have multiple groups, like you said, like you have one with a friend in Australia, you have one with siblings, I have one with maybe, you know, friends from work. Like, is that what typically happens that you have like six different groups going simultaneously?

Daniella Granzotto: Exactly. Um, that is typically what happens. I have six groups myself. And you can if you, you know, have the same thing to say to everyone. You can when you record your video, um, select to have the same waffle sent to all groups Or you can do individually personalized waffles per group, depending on the relationship you have with them and how much you’d like to share.

Lee Kantor: Right. Because I could see that could then become a stressor. Now I got to record six different things.

Daniella Granzotto: Exactly. We’re really trying to eliminate, um, as much social burnout and digital burnout as possible while still being able to use the benefits of technology for good.

Lee Kantor: I know that’s a that’s a tough, uh, needle to thread.

Daniella Granzotto: It is. And but we’re working on it. Slowly but surely.

Lee Kantor: Now. Um, so you found it because you were included in a waffle. Is that how, like, you you just kind of stumbled upon the group?

Daniella Granzotto: I actually, um, discovered it via Zach, who was the original creator on TikTok. His TikTok video about it went viral, and then I just suggested to a couple of my girlfriends that we start and through that experience obviously saw some really great benefits. I had just moved across the country to. And so all of my friends were in one place and I was in the other. Um, and being able to touch base with them and keep up on their with their lives on a weekly basis has just been so amazing. Being able to see friends recently give birth and like just staying connected in a way that I wouldn’t if I’m all the way on the other side of the country. However, there was definitely some pain points about doing it in iMessage. It cut. You don’t know how, um, it can cut you off, and you don’t know how long of a video actually sent. And so you’re only your friends are only getting half of a story. Um, it has lagging issues and storage issues. Your phone, you know, at some point you have to go through and delete everything off of your phone because recording takes up so much data and it just wasn’t a great experience. And so even though I knew the benefits were worth it, the experience wasn’t great. And that’s what inspired us to build an app for it.

Lee Kantor: So did you know Zach at the beginning? Or you just found it on TikTok and you were like, oh, this is a great idea. I’m going to do this. And then you reached out to me.

Daniella Granzotto: Yeah, I didn’t know Zach. I after after, um, enjoying the experience so much and deciding that some of it needed to be fixed. I did reach out to Zach and I said, hey, I’m building this thing. We’re building this thing. Um, do you want to be a part of it? And he obviously jumped on board and we’ve been working towards it ever since.

Lee Kantor: Cool. I mean, what an exciting, uh, adventure you’re on.

Daniella Granzotto: Yeah, it’s, uh, it’s, you know, it’s been really rewarding. I think, um, entrepreneurship and technology in general has, uh, a lot of ups and downs. There’s good days and bad days, but to see the benefits that actually impact people’s lives and how much people are enjoying it by being able to develop more authentic relationships, um, is a really, really important mission that I’m really passionate about, so makes it easy.

Lee Kantor: So how do consumers typically, um, watch the, you know, their other nine if there’s ten in a group like how do they watch the nine other video. Do they just sit and binge nine in a row, or do they just kind of when they think of it, they hit the button and watch a couple.

Daniella Granzotto: Um, it depends like you, you only get notified when someone posts a fresh waffle, right? So depending on when your friends actually post their waffle wherever they are in the world, you’ll get you could get them sporadically through the day. Um, I typically watch all of my waffles while I’m on the treadmill at the gym. That’s just my, you know, way of catching up. And you can, you know, press forward back. You can speed it up to like 1.25 if you want to listen to it on, um, a faster scale to bring down some of that watch time. But, uh, yeah, whether it’s throughout the day, the idea is that at capping it at three minutes means that even if you are watching all ten friends at once, you’re still only investing 30 minutes of your time into deep, authentic friendship. Versus if you get caught Instagram scrolling mindlessly, you could be stuck there for hours.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there kind of a hard cap of, okay, we’re not going to let anybody have a thousand waffle, you know, friends in this.

Daniella Granzotto: We haven’t um, we haven’t made that decision candidly. We haven’t seen it as as a decision that we’ve had to make yet. Um, but I the real intention is for the conversation to be two ways. And I can’t imagine you’re going to have an easy time doing that if there’s a thousand people in the group. But there are other social media. Um, platforms out there that encourage lots of followers and communicating to a broad audience. That’s just not what the intention of this is.

Daniella Granzotto:

Lee Kantor: And then, um, has there been anything that unexpected when you rolled it out and were starting to get more and more users, are there anything kind of surprise you in terms of how people used it or how they benefited from it? Or, you know, what they discovered?

Daniella Granzotto: Yeah, I mean, I think the most rewarding thing has being able to see the feedback and how a how long people have been waiting for an app like this and b the benefits that they’ve had, like we had one user, um, basically say that it’s, it works as therapy for her. And she thinks that if, um, her brother had something like this, he’d still be around today. And so we really believe in the benefits of being able to see someone’s face every week. And actually when they share what’s going on, being able to see a little bit deeper than the surface and be able to check in on your friends and share both highlight reels of what’s going on in your life, but also the pain points because it’s a really small, safe group of people.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re going about marketing this and getting the word out, obviously you’re doing shows like this, but are you going into kind of hospitals or, you know, targeting people, um, that are struggling in some way with addiction or something so that they have a resource that can help them stay connected to people that they need in times of struggle.

Daniella Granzotto: Um, yeah. I mean, we haven’t done hospitals specifically, per se, but we’ve been connected with a bunch of psychology associations and just sharing that, hey, this is a tool that we’ve seen work really, really well for people who are either, um, in therapy or considering some sort of therapy or counseling. Um, and then I think the other area that we’ve seen, uh, big success is actually high schools and universities. Um, at that stage of life when they’re graduating high school or university is usually the point where all of their best friends are all breaking up, spreading out, and going to other places in the world. And that can be a really hard, uh, time of life when that’s all you’ve ever known, and now you’re switching it up. And so being able to have a tool that allows them to remain connected, um, and maintain those relationships even as they, you know, continue on their path, uh, in a different direction has been really nice to see, too.

Lee Kantor: So what’s on the roadmap? Uh, moving forward, what are some of the, um, interesting at least ideas that you are considering as you add features?

Daniella Granzotto: Yeah. Um, I mean, first we want to make this, uh, app as smooth and seamless as possible. So we’re still working on that every day. But I think one feature that we’re particularly excited about is the waffle wrap up, which is similar to a Spotify wrap or a Snapchat Memories, where we’ll be able to take, um, all of your weekly Wednesday waffles throughout the year, throughout a specific season of time, and kind of show that back to you so you get a little bit of a weekly journal in the future, as well as just being able to share what’s going on about all the day to day parts of your life.

Lee Kantor: Is anyone using it individually, just for themselves, as a place to just kind of vent or or capture things individually? I know it’s not meant for that, but I was wondering because if you’re going to add that element, it becomes a journaling of some sort.

Daniella Granzotto: Yeah, that’s honestly a great question. Transparently, I have not looked into the data to see how many single group users we have. I wouldn’t be surprised if people do though, but we do, and you can absolutely use it for that feature. But we designed it to be able for you to connect with your loved ones most importantly.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Daniella Granzotto: Um, well, we’d love for everyone to check out the app and give us your feedback. You can find us at Wednesday waffles.com. Or we’re on the Apple Store or the Android Google Play Store. Um, and on all social media channels at Wednesday Waffles app.

Lee Kantor: Is there a fee for.

Daniella Granzotto: Um, there’s not. It is completely free. Um, we’re potentially looking at adding additional features for a premium subscription, but we really just want people to use the app at this point, enjoy it and give us feedback and see what the benefit and see for themselves the benefits of using the app are.

Lee Kantor: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Daniella Granzotto: Thank you so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.