Hustler Words – A notable shift is underway among a select group of visionary founders, individuals who have already achieved the elusive dream of building and successfully exiting groundbreaking companies. These entrepreneurial titans are now channeling their formidable talents into an unexpected new frontier: fostering genuine, in-person human connection. Eschewing the purely digital, their latest ventures are designed to bring people together, physically, in shared spaces and experiences.
Brynn Putnam, the creative force behind the connected-fitness phenomenon Mirror, which she sold to Lululemon for a staggering $500 million, and Tristan Walker, who built the acclaimed men’s grooming brand Walker & Company Brands before its acquisition by Procter & Gamble, are leading this intriguing charge. What makes their current endeavors particularly compelling is not just their shared history of success, but the surprising convergence of their seemingly disparate new ventures around a singular mission: combating the pervasive digital isolation of our age.
Putnam’s latest brainchild, Board, is a 24-inch touchscreen table engineered for collaborative play. Unlike solitary screen-based entertainment, Board recognizes physical game pieces and gestures, explicitly designed for groups to gather around and interact. This innovation stems from Putnam’s personal experience as a mother of five, seeking products that could bridge generational and skill gaps, allowing diverse family members to engage in shared activities. Her aim is to leverage technology not to isolate, but to unite.
Meanwhile, Tristan Walker’s Heirloom Craft is making a bold investment in traditional skills. The company is systematically acquiring and scaling fine-craft trade schools, beginning with a prestigious leatherworking institution in San Francisco, founded by Hermès’s first American artisan-ambassador. Walker’s motivation is deeply rooted in a concern for the future of work and community in an AI-dominated landscape. He envisions Heirloom as a bulwark against the erosion of manual skills and a means to re-establish the master-apprentice lineage, providing a "phones-down creative outlet" for a new generation.
While a high-tech gaming table and a traditional craft school appear to be worlds apart, both founders are betting on the significant market opportunity in cultivating the very human connections that decades of digital immersion have inadvertently diminished. This strategic pivot is not accidental. The World Health Organization’s recent classification of loneliness as a global health crisis, impacting one in six people worldwide and linked to hundreds of thousands of deaths annually, underscores the urgency of this challenge. Furthermore, consumer sentiment, as revealed by a Harris Poll survey, indicates a strong preference for experiences over material goods, with many finding contemporary retail offerings generic and uninspiring.
The movement towards fostering real-world interaction seems particularly strong among East Coast entrepreneurs. Beyond Putnam and Walker, other notable figures include Bonobos founder Andy Dunn, whose five-year-old company, Pie, has evolved into a "social life operating system" centered on "Community Homes" for recurring social groups. Audrey Gelman, previously of The Wing, has also re-entered the space with The Six Bells Countryside Inn, an 11-room guesthouse in the Hudson Valley renowned for its immersive murder-mystery dinners that actively encourage guest interaction and connection.
These ventures are often deeply personal. Putnam articulated at a recent Hustler Words StrictlyVC event that while Mirror was a reflection of her individual fitness journey, Board represents a conscious shift towards communal experience. Walker, too, expressed his anxieties about AI’s impact on knowledge work and community, driving his desire to build something that actively brings people together. He points to a growing trend among Gen Z and Gen Alpha, with nearly half expressing disinterest in a traditional four-year degree, instead seeking hands-on, tangible skills – a demographic that Heirloom’s San Francisco location is already attracting.
The financial landscape for these "togetherness" startups varies. Board has secured $35 million in venture capital, Pie has raised $24 million, and The Six Bells approximately $3.8 million. Heirloom, a newer entrant, has yet to disclose its funding. A significant outlier is Adam Neumann, co-founder of WeWork, whose new residential real estate venture, Flow, also predicated on solving loneliness through physical space, has attracted over $450 million, primarily from Andreessen Horowitz, dwarfing the combined investments in the other companies mentioned.
The long-term scalability of "togetherness" as a distinct investment category remains to be seen. Cultivating genuine human interaction, while socially beneficial, presents different scaling challenges compared to shipping software. However, the caliber of the founders involved – Putnam, Walker, Dunn, Gelman, and Neumann – provides a strong signal. Each has a proven track record of building successful brands and accurately anticipating market shifts. Their collective bet on the power of offline connection will be a fascinating trend to watch in the coming years.
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