Green Flag’s Innovative Approach to Dating and Relationship Wellness

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Sandy Springs, Georgia. It’s time for Sandy Springs Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: This episode of Sandy Springs Business Radio is brought to you by Mirability, providing unique IT solutions, leveraging cloud, AI and more to solve business problems. Here’s your host, Erik Boemanns.

Erik Boemanns: Good morning. Thanks. This is Eric and today we have a special guest, today. Her name is Abby Larner and she is a founder of Green Flag Date. And we’re going to kind of dive into her story, the story of why she started this company and how kind of how she’s bringing that into the world. So maybe just quick start with Abby with an introduction of yourself.

Abby Larner: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Abby Larner. I’m one of the founders of Green Flag. And Green Flag is a mental wellness focused dating and relationship company.

Erik Boemanns: Gotcha. So what led you to create Green Flag Date? Like what was the motivation?

Abby Larner: That’s a great question. So I am single myself and I’ve been, you know, in the dating world now for a while. Personally I’m looking for a long term relationship, and I was talking to a lot of my friends that are sort of in the same situation. We’re all interested in finding someone for the long term. And kind of the common thread in all of these conversations was people were looking for somebody that was interested in growing themselves and growing with their partner, and I have benefited from going to therapy and noticed that some of the things I was learning in therapy were translating really well to helping me date intentionally. And so I thought that bringing those skills and those tactics to other people, to a broader group that’s sort of dealing with the struggle of the dating environment right now, would be a really great, positive thing to do.

Erik Boemanns: Appreciate you sharing that and how kind of where your mind is at with that. But maybe let’s take a step back before we dive into more details about the the company and the problem you’re solving there. Tell me a little bit more about yourself and what brought you to this.

Abby Larner: Yeah, definitely. So I went to the University of Virginia. I graduated with a degree in environmental science. And throughout that experience, I kind of was always on my computer doing mostly design in Adobe products, and decided after I graduated I wanted to transition into design and technology. I learned to code with the help of my brother and co-founder, who is a software engineer and was a product designer for about six years before I transitioned into product management. So I worked as a product manager at both large companies like Adobe and much smaller startups, and also worked on some startups of my own. The very first one was actually a dating app back in 2012, so that’s kind of where I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. And yeah, I’m working on Green Flag full time now.

Erik Boemanns: Oh, congratulations. Thank you. And I think I heard your brother as a founder as well. Yes. Very cool. So family business. So what what made you decide on the name Green Flag? It’s like, I think a unique name for a dating app. So what was the motivation?

Abby Larner: Yeah. So like I mentioned, people are really struggling with the current dating environment. Um, there’s a lot of frustration. Um, the apps are difficult to be on. It’s sort of endless swiping. And I think people can feel hopeless at times that that they’re not really finding the things that they’re looking for. And I think also there’s kind of this sense of negativity on the apps as well. So, um, you know, people might put in their bios like what they’re not looking for. I don’t want someone who does this or that. Um, and so our hope was to sort of flip the narrative on dating and really bring a sense of positivity to that whole experience. And so instead of focusing on the negative red flags, we decided we wanted to help people focus on the green flags, the positive things that everybody can bring to a relationship.

Erik Boemanns: Okay, that does make sense. And yeah, so how does that translate then into your product design and kind of the the mission of the actual product.

Abby Larner: Yeah. So we have like I said, we want to really focus on the positivity and the name Green Flag really pushes or. Helps us, uh, with our two main product principles, which is one, you know, everybody has something positive to bring to a relationship. And then second, the green flag is that you are focused on personal growth and that you want to grow with someone else. So with those two things in mind, we’ve, um, built, um, a product where we offer relationship skills courses and assessments to help people understand themselves better in the context of dating and relationships. And then they can share those research backed compatibility traits with others online. And so, um, you know, we have a focus on providing content and relationship skills that is best in practice in terms of psychology. We have an advisor, Krystal DeSantis, who’s a licensed marriage and family therapist who develops all of our content for us. So we are really focused on providing this high quality content. Help people grow and level up their dating and relationship skills and as a result, kind of have those green flags that are readily available on their dating profile.

Erik Boemanns: That’s interesting. So yeah, there’s no shortage of dating apps in the world, right. And you’ll see tons of advertisements for them. So it sounds like this education component almost makes what makes you different than a typical dating app.

Abby Larner: Yeah, definitely. So like I mentioned, we really are focused on helping people be successful in finding long term relationships. So what that looks like and what we’re working towards right now is an app where we combine educational courses, um, with a platform for matching. So those courses might be something like, how do I set boundaries with a partner, or what are the most important questions to ask in the first three dates? Um, and, you know, our long term vision is that we are the relationship guide throughout the journey of somebody’s relationship. So not just dating, that’s where we’re starting, but really helping them, even in the early stages of a relationship all the way through, you know, whatever those milestones might look like for that person and their partner.

Erik Boemanns: Okay. Yeah, I think I see how that that ties together. And you mentioned an advisor earlier. So I am curious how how do you incorporate some of the psychology psychological principles or even you mentioned therapy, therapeutic approaches to this to your product.

Abby Larner: Yeah. So it all starts with the users. You know, we are very plugged in with, um, daters and kind of the problems that they’re running into. And um, so in terms of topics, we’re really drawing on the topics of interest from that group. And then we’re also looking, um, well, I should say Crystal has been very, um, effective in sort of taking. Compatibility traits that are proven to, you know. Determine the success of a relationship and bringing that into our content as well. So for instance, um, right now we have a green flag profile you go through, you take some video courses and assessments to learn things about yourself that help you understand how you might be with a partner. And then, um, so an example of that would be what’s your communication style? How do you connect with somebody? What’s your dating approach? Are you really, you know, deliberate and ready about your dating approach or are you, um, you know, a little bit more, uh, kind of leisurely about the approach that you’re taking. And this helps individuals understand themselves, and they can take that profile and share it with others so their potential matches can get an understanding of, of how they might be with that person. So in terms of psychological approach, we’re really not saying these two people should or shouldn’t be together. We’re trying to increase awareness of the self and the partner so that, you know, when a conflict comes up, for instance, you know how this person communicates and it’s not, um, in increasing the conflict, it’s actually decreasing it. Um, and so, yeah, we’re really we’re really trying to help create that awareness and shared language and foundation for two people.

Erik Boemanns: Okay. So yeah, I think it’s uh, we talked about a little bit earlier. Right. It’s it’s dating plus. Right. It’s dating plus building that. Yes. That strength I guess. Yes. Fair, fair summary. Um. Pivot a little bit to conversation. You mentioned your early stage startup. Maybe talk a little bit about where you are in that life cycle.

Abby Larner: Yeah. So, um, like I mentioned, we are working towards this dating app, but we wanted to take a very iterative approach and make sure what we were building was resonating with people. So last year we started on Green Flag in March. We interviewed 40 different therapists and, uh, about as many users. And, um, we decided to build an MVP of our product that was this, uh, shareable profile. So we released that back in October. And, um, since then we’ve, you know, started to see users on the on that profile and sharing it as well. And, uh, back in March, we. Launched what we call the Green Flag Challenge, which, if you imagine the goal of the profile, is really to help people understand themselves and increase them their compatibility. The goal of the Green Flag Challenge is to help people get into a positive and good mindset going into dating. So that challenge, we’ve run one cohort, we have a second cohort coming up, and basically what that looks like is that we get a group of people together every day. They get a task in their inbox. That is a task that they can complete in ten minutes or less to sort of level up their dating skills. And, um, one example of a task might be, you know, take a different route home.

Abby Larner: And every task has a reason, a psychological reason as to why that’s important to do or an important thing to practice. Um, for that one in particular, it might be, uh, you know, you want to create, you want to be able to look at things from a different perspective, or, um, maybe if you’re in conflict, you’re trying to take a different route to a solution. So, um, and again, all of that was developed by Crystal. And um, so yeah. So we have the challenge. You get your, your 14 tasks. And during that time you also have access to a group chat with all of the other participants. So you can sort of check in and um, see how things are going on a daily basis. We have two Ask Me Anything sessions with our licensed therapist. And the second cohort. We’re actually adding an in-person meeting opportunity. So at the end there will be a mixer where all of these participants can get together and meet each other in person. So really, like I mentioned, kind of coming back to your question, we’ve made this MVP profile. We have this in-person event and um, we’re sort of testing out now the waters of actually making those matches happen initially in person and hopefully in the future online.

Erik Boemanns: Okay. Very cool. Sounds like a lot of progress in that year right?

Abby Larner: It’s been very exciting.

Erik Boemanns: And so we do have a lot of startups on the show and at various stages in their their life cycle. And one of the things I’m always curious about is for other founders who are thinking about starting their own startup. Right. Do you have any, um, lessons learned already that you’d like to share with them?

Abby Larner: I think one of the most helpful things that we did early on was get very clear on what the problem was, and that was difficult because there are a lot of problems in the dating space. There’s a lot of problems that people have with the apps that they brought up with dating in general, with finding the right person. Um, there’s a lot of different user groups as well. So we had to be very clear about who our users were initially, um, and what the problem was that we were solving. So that was sort of part one. And then with. A two sided marketplace, you have to have critical mass in order to be successful. And so we were trying to think of ways that we could sort of validate our idea without building out an entire app, which is why we ended up with the profile. It’s a way for us to tap into the apps that already exist and see if what we’ve created is resonating and working for people. So I guess my advice is get clear on the problem. And then what? Figure out what the smallest step is that you can take to validate whether your solution is the right solution for that problem.

Erik Boemanns: Yeah, I think that’s that’s great advice and and definitely something that a lot of people will struggle with when they have their brilliant idea. And, and they want to solve all the world’s problems. Right? Yeah. Um, so you mentioned the the March challenge that you kicked off, but what’s next? What’s your next big feature, big initiative that’s on the horizon.

Abby Larner: Yeah. So like I mentioned, we’re running this green flag challenge. Uh, it starts on June 9th. We are about we’ve got about, uh, half of the cohort filled up already. And I can kind of go into that as well a little bit. But we’re using this as a way to validate that the matching works, that this sort of, um, unique community of people that we’re creating adds value. And, um, after that, we’re going to be actually building out the app. So and, you know, kind of building up a wait list and trying to get enough people that the app is valuable to those who are on it. So those are kind of our next steps. Um, in terms of the green flag challenge, this is sort of just an interesting. I guess the thing that we’ve noticed is we have more women than men signed up, and that’s actually the opposite of what you see on most dating apps. Most dating apps, I think, are 60% men generally. So that is kind of just an interesting, I guess, insight that we’ve had about our, our users, our audience, as we’re kind of, um, skewing in the other direction at the moment, which is, uh, great. I mean, love to get the women involved as well.

Erik Boemanns: Yeah. It’s a yeah, that’s an interesting flip of, of the tradition. Um, so people do want to get involved. How do they get involved?

Abby Larner: Yeah. So right now we have sign ups for the Green flag challenge. Um, on our website, green flag dotcom. We have an Instagram account as well. If you just want some like, great dating tips and, and relationship advice. Uh, we’re at Green flag date. And finally, uh, we have our green flag profile, which anybody can get started with any anybody in any location. It is not specific to Atlanta, which is one thing that’s really interesting. Um, and we’ve seen people from all over the country signing up this week. We had Atlanta, New York, LA. Um, so, you know, I think that people who are single anywhere can sign up and people who have friends that are single can also spread the word.

Erik Boemanns: Absolutely. And so just the website, um, repeat that one more time just to for everybody.

Abby Larner: Yep. It’s green flag dotcom okay.

Erik Boemanns: And. What are some like? If there’s one thing you want to make sure people take away from today’s conversation. What’s that?

Abby Larner: I think. That. There is hope for dating. There is a way to, you know, improve your relationships. And, um, I think that. Looking into resources was always is always a is always a great option. Um, I think that that for me, like I care very deeply about creating community and, um, mental wellness accessibility. And so, um, there there are a lot of great resources out there. Green flag is one of them, but there are many others. And, um, I guess if people are interested. You know, they they can. There. There’s a lot of like great books and and options out there for them. So I guess that’s what I would say maybe is a is a good takeaway.

Erik Boemanns: Awesome. Well thank you. Today again our guest was Abby Larner of Green Flag Dating. So check out her website and see what helps you. Thank you so much. Thank you.