Friendship Is the New Romance: An Interview With the Founder of the Flox App

[UNPUBLISHED:] Tell us about yourself. 

[JAMIE:] My name is Jamie Lee and I’m the founder of Flox. I’m a 21-year-old from New York and a former Columbia University student.

[UNPUBLISHED:] Tell us about the app and how it works.

[JAMIE:] Flox is an app that celebrates friendship, with the mission to restore authentic connection to social media and to our lives. On Flox, you create a group profile with your friend(s) to discover, match, and connect with other groups. 

[UNPUBLISHED:] What inspired you to make this app?

[JAMIE:] Like most people my age, I’m a digital native. I created my first social media account in sixth grade, but since then, my interactions online have become inauthentic and impersonal. I remember getting to college and not even being able to say hi to the girl next to me in class who I followed on Instagram or to wave to the group of guys who lived down the hall. I built Flox as a response to these frustrations, with hopes to bring back that feeling of making my first friends on the playground.

[UNPUBLISHED:] How did your family and friends react to you making an app?

[JAMIE:] I am beyond grateful to have the incredible support of my family and friends. I was going to be the first person in my family to graduate from college, and this was something that meant a lot to me and my parents. Having this conversation with them was honestly very difficult and emotional, but they taught me to be passionate about everything I do and have been my biggest supporters since day one. Being a founder can be lonely and stressful at times and I’m so lucky to have a close circle of people who are my rocks. It’s been really fun to build a product for my friends. 

[UNPUBLISHED:] What have been some of your past experiences on other dating apps?

[JAMIE:] When I downloaded my first dating app, I felt this pressure to create a perfect profile. It became less of a reflection of who I was and more of a curated image that I wanted others to like. My friends and I were frustrated with the fact that all of our conversations on these apps were pretty much the same and by how hard it was to form authentic connections. I’ve always had the most fun and felt the most comfortable around my friends, so I wanted to create a platform where this was possible. I strongly believe there is more to connecting than just dating. Friendship is known to have a positive effect on our mental health and is not currently prioritized in our technology. It’s time to change that.

[UNPUBLISHED:] Tell us about the process of how you created the app. Did you start it by yourself or is there a team that's working with you?

[JAMIE:] I began as a solo founder but have since built an incredible team of talented people who believe in this vision just as much as I do. Our team currently has three full-time members.

[UNPUBLISHED:] How did you find the people who work with you now?

[JAMIE:] I’ve been lifelong friends with Margaux, the Flox community lead. Albert, the engineering lead, and I met on the Columbia swim team our freshman year.

[UNPUBLISHED:] In what ways do you hope that this app is different from all of the other dating apps?

[JAMIE:] We aren’t a dating app because we believe there is much more to connecting than dating. Flox aims to remove the pressure and stress of current platforms to meet new people. You are your most authentic and comfortable self around your friends, and Flox celebrates this.

[UNPUBLISHED:] Do you have any advice for someone wanting to start an app?

[JAMIE:] Your differences are your advantage. I’m a first-gen college dropout turned non-technical Latina 21-year-old tech founder, and much of Flox is a reflection of my unconventional background. Pour your own personality and values in your brand, and it will be so much more fulfilling. Make sure there is a purpose to what you are building. Who is your user before they join the app and who are they after? How can you build a user experience to bring fulfillment and growth to their lives? Team and culture is everything. Listen, listen, listen to your users. Loose on the details, strict on the vision.

[UNPUBLISHED:] What does a day in the life look like for you?

[JAMIE:] I wake up around 7:00 and go for a run in Riverside Park. I’ll check-in with my team and answer emails while I have breakfast and coffee. It’s sometimes hard to predict where my day will take me, but since we moved into private beta last week, I’ve been spending most of my time working on analytics, product design in Figma, and talking to users. I love to unwind in the kitchen cooking dinner with my roommates and make sleep a big priority. I do my best to take Saturdays off. Growing up in a Puerto Rican-Chinese household, I’ve been raised a big foodie, so I typically spend the day downtown or in Brooklyn exploring new restaurants.

[UNPUBLISHED:] Where do you see yourself and this app in a year?

[JAMIE:] In the next year, I want to focus on building a fun, inclusive, and diverse community. While I have both personal and Company goals, I don’t like to plan that far out in advance. Building a brand takes a lot of flexibility and things move very quickly, so I’m trying to take it one step at a time and give each and every day my all.

[UNPUBLISHED:] Where do you see yourself in five years?

[JAMIE:] I want to be a leader who makes an impact on people’s lives. As a personal project, I hope to have the opportunity to bring underserved youth greater access to entrepreneurship.

You can keep up with everything that Jamie and her team are doing over on their Instagram and TikTok