TIMEleft Dinner CEO Maxime Barbier

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Speaker 3 My guest today, Maxime Barbie, is the founder and CEO of a really cool app and social experiment called Time Left.

Speaker 3 Time Left brings together total strangers every Wednesdays in cities all over the world for dinner.

Speaker 3 He got inspired by the belief that, yes, our life is fleeting and we all need more human connections and genuine relationships. I tried it for myself.

Speaker 3 I went to three dinners organized by Time Left, and I have to tell you guys, it's a really fantastic idea. It has nothing to do with dating.

Speaker 3 It's literally so you can socialize, connect, meet new people, network, interact. It's really, really cool.
And it's completely free to download the app.

Speaker 3 And the few pay to attend the dinners is super, super affordable so i hope you guys enjoy my really cool conversation with the amazing max and the link is on this episode if you want to know more and download your free app and canon the loose is gratefully sponsored by a local wonderful los angeles business gold standard builders a design and construction company licensed general contractors a passionate team delivering great service quality and fair pricing they pay great attention to every detail.

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Speaker 3 Maxime, welcome to Cat on the Loose. It's such an honor to have you.

Speaker 2 That's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 3 And I know you're in New York City. Are you having fun out there?

Speaker 2 Yeah, the weather is not the best, but yeah, I enjoy New York every time.

Speaker 3 You should be in LA because the weather is perfect here.

Speaker 2 Yes, I will.

Speaker 3 Okay, so let's talk about time left because as I was saying to you before we got started, I found out about it through Instagram Instagram a few months ago, and I was like, This idea sounds amazing, I'm gonna try it out.

Speaker 3 So, full disclosure: you guys were not paying me, you didn't ask me to do it.

Speaker 3 I decided to go and try it out for myself because you know, I live in LA, I work insanely crazy hours, it is very difficult to meet people for like personal relationships, and I love the idea that it has nothing to do with dating.

Speaker 3 I tried it out, and I loved it. So, the first question I have for you is: explain in a nutshell to people that never heard about Time Left what it is.

Speaker 2 Time Left is a really easy and simple way to meet people wherever you are. So now we are in 185 city and it's happening every Wednesday.

Speaker 2 You go on Timelift.com, you do a personality test, and when you're ready, you just book your seat and the only thing you have to do is to show up to a restaurant.

Speaker 2 You're going to receive an address on Wednesday morning. You don't know anything about the participant.
You don't know anything about anything. You just know it's going to happen there.

Speaker 2 And you go in the restaurant on the time, and five people are going to sit next to you to have an amazing time.

Speaker 3 Right. Okay, I did that.
So, let's dissect that because I know even my friends are asking me, but what do you mean?

Speaker 3 You don't know where you're going to go, you don't know who you're going to go have dinner with. Basically, time left is an app, right? And you connect.
So, let's say I'm in LA, I'm in Los Angeles.

Speaker 3 Maybe somebody who is visiting Los Angeles, maybe somebody who is lonely, right, in Los Angeles, it has nothing to do with dating.

Speaker 3 They go go on the app and you said the first step is we have to answer like a personality questionnaire yes to know a bit more about you okay i don't even remember that i did that

Speaker 2 it's like 45 question are you like a morning person are you like a night person do you like to talk about politics do you like veggie food vegan food all this kind of simple question and it's super fun okay yeah it's super fun so basically to know your preferences so you try to match people that have similar interests correct?

Speaker 2 Yes, because you have an algorithm who do the matching for us, and so the basic was to give a bit of information to make sure the algorithm can play its role.

Speaker 2 Um, when we started one years ago, we just asked, like, what can be the basic question or really simple and fun and fun personality tests we can have?

Speaker 2 And so, that's kind of what we do, and that's the only thing you have to do. And there's no swiping, no profile, no DM.

Speaker 3 Right, yeah, we want to make it clear this is not about dating, and this is why it really intrigued me because I'm single.

Speaker 3 A lot of people that listen to Canon DeLuz are single but it can be exhausting and sometimes you want to go out not to meet a date you want to go out to meet friends to network exactly and this was your idea behind time left correct when you created it yes when we created this idea one years ago in May last year we wanted to actually be the opposite of dating up

Speaker 2 I just I think you're tired that you're not the only one.

Speaker 2 A lot of people are exhausted by dating up because you know you spend a lot of time, a lot of expectation, you like, you you talk for hours then you meet and it didn't click and you you know you spend you go from this empty to this so

Speaker 2 and then when i was struggling and i don't know your age but i'm going to be 40 and when you are 40 then i'm a teeny bit older than you just a little just a little and so it's a bit hard to meet um new people when you start to get born and so when i was struggling i just realized wow the only option we have is dating app but if you're single Okay, makes sense.

Speaker 2 But if you're not, then you know, you can't go on this app. And actually, even if you're single, using dating app to make friendship, I think it's not a good strategy.

Speaker 2 And so we just wanted to create support for something simple. And actually, the success of Timelift, I believe, after 18 months, is really rely on the fact we don't ask what people want.

Speaker 2 And you have to just be open to what's going to happen.

Speaker 2 Of course, we have a lot of single people doing to Timelife, but because we don't ask people what they want, they are more open and there is less pressure in a sense.

Speaker 3 Yeah, no, I completely agree and I love that. So let's do step by step by step so people understand.
So you go on the app, it's free, right?

Speaker 3 You download it for free. It's called Time Left.
Then you answer this really fun questionnaire about your personal opinions, what you like to eat, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 3 Then you said it's one dinner every Wednesday night. Is there a specific reason why it's on Wednesdays?

Speaker 2 Yes, it's only Wednesdays and for two reasons.

Speaker 2 The first one is like because the time left experience is in the restaurant and we know restaurants can be busy on Friday and Saturday so we decided to choose a day who are like more easy for us to be able to have some table because to give you an idea in today to more than two days in two days we're going to be 15,000 strangers having dinners together so we need a lot of restaurants so we wanted to make sure we can have them and then the second thing is um is also a day who I just discovered that in the US we said the um day is like it's not too soon during the week and it's not too late also so of course Friday look like on paper like a better option but it's not because you have so much for us to do on Friday and so that's why we came with the friday and now we are sticking to this we want to own the friendsday we want to have people understand like wherever you go you know on wednesday you can meet people in in one click yeah and you know i say my opinion when i saw that it's wednesday i loved it because like you said if it's friday on saturday most people have plans right you have dates or if you're married you're gonna go out with your husband and your wife if you have a family it's family oriented stuff it's a lot harder monday and Tuesday, at least for me, are insanely hectic.

Speaker 3 Like if it was Monday night, I probably would never do it because I work until late hours like most people. So when I saw that it was Wednesday, the first time that I went, I was like, that's perfect.

Speaker 3 It's usually a very chill night. It's the middle of the week.
So I think you guys really nailed that. So now

Speaker 3 we go on the app. It's Wednesday night and you confirm the dinner.
So you pay a fee, which is very affordable, by the way, right? And then your name is confirmed. Now,

Speaker 3 you guys don't tell us

Speaker 3 where we're going to go or any details of the dinner until the day off. So let's say today is Monday and I confirm, oh, yeah, I want to go on next Wednesday dinner.

Speaker 3 But I don't know who I'm going to have dinner with. And I don't even know which restaurant, although it's within our circumstances.

Speaker 2 So you can define in which part of LA for example.

Speaker 3 Yeah, exactly. By the way, because I don't want people to think they got to drive like crazy distances.
So, but why don't you let us know ahead of time where we're going to go?

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 it's everyone's there. You can book for this one's there.
You can also book for in two weeks or in three weeks. You, of course, in big city can change, can choose where you're going to have dinner.

Speaker 2 We don't want you, as you said, to travel for two hours to get a dinner. And then

Speaker 2 the thing is, we just realized the less information you give to people, the more they are likely to attend, actually. And why do you think that is?

Speaker 2 Because

Speaker 2 we gave way more

Speaker 2 information at the beginning, one years ago.

Speaker 2 And we just realized it makes no sense because if you give too much information about, you know, how many women, how many men, like what they do for a living, all this kind of thing, people start to, you know, to judge beforehand.

Speaker 2 And so.

Speaker 2 That's not the point. Like we, like the beauty of Sam Left is like, we really don't know what's going to happen.
And

Speaker 2 you've been there and I've been there many times. I did 60 dinners myself.
It's like on the first 10 minutes, you're like, what am I doing there? Like, oh my God, I don't feel this person.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God, it's going to be so boring. And suddenly something happened because the magic of it, because you're sitting with someone, you share a meal, you share a drink.

Speaker 2 And then, so yeah, we just reduce the information to the minimum. So you have till Monday night to book your seat for the week.

Speaker 2 Then on Tuesday, we give you some basic information, like what language you're going to speak at the dinner, like what's the Zodiac sign of the table. So comes

Speaker 2 just simple stuff. And then on a Wednesday morning at 9 a.m., you have to address at the restaurant.

Speaker 3 Yeah, true. So I have to say, the first time I went,

Speaker 3 like I told you, I had not even reached out to you guys. I'm like, I'm going to try for myself.
You know, I'm always trying to find interesting things for the podcast.

Speaker 3 And for a lot of people, it's intimidating, right? To go, oh my God, I'm going to go to a restaurant with a group of strangers. That's weird.
I'm very outgoing, but I know a lot of people are not.

Speaker 3 But I have to say, when I got there, and by the way, it was a restaurant that I love. It was very close to me.
So you guys are picking amazing restaurants, at least here in LA.

Speaker 3 But when I got there, there were already three people on the table, and I was the fourth one. And they were so nice.
and so friendly. And I asked them this question.

Speaker 3 I was like, were you guys intimidated about coming here? And they all said the same thing to me. The first time we were intimidating, but the minute you got to the table, everybody's on the same boat.

Speaker 3 Everybody's there because they want to meet someone new. They want to socialize.
And that made me feel like maybe that if somebody's listening and they're like afraid of trying it out,

Speaker 3 maybe that minimizes the stress if you think that everybody's there is kind of, you know, like I said, on the same boat, trying out the same thing.

Speaker 2 Yeah, like everyone is stressed, 100%.

Speaker 2 And it's good stress.

Speaker 2 You know, like on Time Life, our baseline is like airless strangers because what we want to help people to understand is now we live in a world where we are afraid to say hi to each other, we are afraid to talk to each other.

Speaker 2 Yeah, when I go to the co-working space, no one says hi, and then it's kind of strange, you know.

Speaker 2 And so, what time left does is like when you sit and you just say, Hello, hey, hi, my name is Kate, that's it, and all the pressures went down, and you can see they are human.

Speaker 2 And I think that's the beauty of it. We just want to create simple human connection.

Speaker 3 Exactly, I agree, and I think it's interesting because so my so my first dinner, we were four people because two people didn't show up which by the way I think it's kind of rude like if you make a commitment and you confirm and on Wednesday you guys ask again actually you send an email and everything and you're like are you showing up like I personally think you know just go for it because there's a group of people waiting for you there yeah but that's a good point so now we try to also make people understand you're not going to a festival.

Speaker 2 So if you go to the festival and you don't go out, and if you don't go to the festival, the festival will will be the same for everyone. It's like you're going to the cinema, the theater.

Speaker 2 But this experience, you're part of the experience. So, if you don't show up, it's going to not going to be the same experience for people.

Speaker 2 That's why we want to be able to understand: like, if you take a ticket, you are the experience, you're going to be part of it.

Speaker 2 So, you have to show up because six, if you're like five, that's okay, four, that's okay. But sometimes, if you're three, that's you pay for partner.
So, we really try to

Speaker 2 fight the no-show.

Speaker 3 Yeah, no, I agree.

Speaker 3 And I'm saying if there is any no-shows out there listening to me, or if you guys want to try to do this, like I did to myself, make a commitment to yourself and push yourself because I know the first time can be like, oh my God, this is weird.

Speaker 3 But I promise you, if you go through it and you go, you're going to have a great time because it's always really interesting people, people with good intentions.

Speaker 3 A lot of people, and I want to talk about the cultural differences in a second, but a lot of people that do this kind of stuff, they travel the world, they're very open-minded when it comes to meeting new people.

Speaker 3 And I think that's what makes this time-life experience amazing.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and also for now we are like in 40 countries and 185 cities.

Speaker 2 And we can quickly also know it's not only about people who travel, we have a lot of local people in the US, we have a lot of people from the US. They are not only like...

Speaker 2 It's not an expat digital nomad kind of thing. In French, we have 80% French people.
In Brazil, we have like 95% Brazilian people.

Speaker 2 So even if you don't travel that much, you can just actually, I just want to comment: like, time-left is for everyone. It's clear, like, we have people from 20s.

Speaker 2 My dad now goes to time left dinner, everyone's there, he's 72.

Speaker 2 So, if I feel loneliness with time-left, I'm happy. That's my dream.
Uh, but yeah, it's

Speaker 2 literally for everyone for sure.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and the second time I went, uh, it was another restaurant that I love right here in West Hollywood called Tess.

Speaker 3 And my table was full, everybody showed up, and it was such a fun group it was such a good mix and like you said everybody was from la it wasn't really people that were traveling but i think it includes right some people travel alone and they don't want to dine alone especially women like when women travel alone they don't feel comfortable sitting in a restaurant so it could be for that person uh a lot of people are business people

Speaker 3 that leave the office really late at night and they're like, man, I don't want to go home and be alone. I'm going to to go to this dinner and have a good time.

Speaker 3 A lot of women, by the way, who are single, just going through a divorce or are not ready to date yet.

Speaker 3 And I think that's such a welcoming environment for women who want to meet new people and not be alone. So it's like a really, really cool mixture from all walks of life.

Speaker 2 Yes, and you have really good guests

Speaker 2 from that.

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Speaker 3 Wow, guys, I'm like in the middle of my interview with Max, and I just felt a really strong earthquake here in LA. So I took a break and I'm trying to regroup myself.
But Max, you're helping me.

Speaker 3 We were talking about like single, newly divorced women that

Speaker 3 it's just a great safe place for that.

Speaker 2 It is. That's why we have mostly women attending time left.
By the way, if guys listen to this,

Speaker 7 yes.

Speaker 3 I'm going to try to convince my guy because it is true. The first time I went, it was three girls and a boy.
The second time, it was four girls and two boys.

Speaker 3 And the third time, I have to tell you, it was this big, fabulous rooftop dinner that you guys organized here in West Hollywood, like two weekends ago. It was like, I think for 80 people, 85 people.

Speaker 3 So it was a bunch of tables. And my table, and I don't know why, but

Speaker 3 I don't know if your algorithm did that because.

Speaker 3 My table was the only table that had one guy and seven women.

Speaker 3 So he was really cool about it, but he kind of felt uncomfortable, you know, because he was like, look at all the other tables.

Speaker 3 There is such a good mixture of guys, and I'm the only guy at this table. And we were trying to make him comfortable, but you know, it was kind of funny that it happened.
No, no, for sure.

Speaker 2 Like, yeah, it's the goal, like the goal we try to do is to have a good balance of gender.

Speaker 2 And of course, you know, seven women, one guy, or even the opposite, one woman, seven guy is not comfortable for, you know, the guy who is blown.

Speaker 3 um but yeah we have mostly women and and especially if we go up in the age so like the participant from 30 20 to 30 is like kind of 50 50 but like above 50 and 60 years old is mostly women 70 to 72 percent wow okay so guys out there if you're listening come on over try it out it's so much fun and like we're saying from the beginning it has nothing to do with dating it's not like you're not expected to go there and flirt with someone or if it happens, it happens, right?

Speaker 3 But like you were saying to me, you met your business partner on time left. Yes.
And it can be businessman.

Speaker 3 You can be an older guy, like your dad, somebody retired at home who is maybe you're bored, whatever the hell is going on.

Speaker 3 Or like I was saying, this guy that was in my group, he said he lives in downtown and he works in West Hollywood and he finishes work really late at night.

Speaker 3 So instead of like hitting traffic, he goes to the time left dinner. And by the time it's done, there's no traffic for him to go home.
So there's all kinds of great reasons. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And also,

Speaker 2 we match people by kind of age groups. So the algorithm tries to put groups with seven years different maximum between the youngest and the oldest at the table.

Speaker 2 So don't be afraid if you are like 70, you're not going to meet with people from 20. And if you're 20, you're not going to meet with people from 70.
So you know.

Speaker 3 Yeah, so what is the age bracket?

Speaker 2 Like it's we have most of the people are like between 30 to 45 um and then we see an increase of people from 50 to 60 60.

Speaker 2 um and the algorithm try to to to put people within a certain bracket so basically 10 years of difference maximum yeah between the youngest and the oldest i think that's fair yeah i think that's good um

Speaker 3 10 year different because you want to have something in common right you want to have common interests you want to talk about no let me ask about the cultural part because I think, and tell me if I'm wrong, you know, I'm half Brazilian, half French, like I was saying to you, you're French.

Speaker 3 I I think the Latin cultures and even Europeans, we are very open-minded when it comes to meeting new people, sitting at the same table.

Speaker 3 A lot of countries in Europe, you go to a restaurant and there is the common table for strangers to sit together. I don't think Americans are as much.

Speaker 3 I think Americans are more like uptight, they're shyer socially. And a lot of the Americans that I talk to, including the Americans that I met on my time left dinners, they agree.
Do you see

Speaker 3 the cultural differences when you start opening up new cities and new countries?

Speaker 2 The funny story I tell often is like when we started in Portugal,

Speaker 2 people say, oh,

Speaker 2 Portuguese people are so close, it's not going to work. And it was a success.
Then we went to France. And my friends say, oh, French people, we don't need that.

Speaker 2 We are like, okay, we don't talk to strangers. And it was a huge success.
Then we go to Brazil. And Brazil is so

Speaker 2 open to

Speaker 2 talk and so friendly they don't need this and it's the the fastest growth we have and Brazil is the country number two and the US is the biggest surprise now US is our biggest market New York is our biggest city the US people they love it so I think it's just it's just not about like what you just said I think it's just we need human connection we live in a society or we are so disconnected from each other and I think no matter who you are, you need to talk to people at one point.

Speaker 2 You need to be open to just have a share of food with someone.

Speaker 2 You know, I met some people along the way and they say, I wake up, you know, I work permanently from home, I just work all day, and I go to bed, repeat every day, you know, for five days per week.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, wow, I just

Speaker 2 in the loop. So in one click, you can have a dinner with people.
You know, it's great.

Speaker 3 No, it's so true. I think, especially after COVID, right? We were stuck at home during COVID.
A lot of us gave up our offices. We started working from home.
A lot of us work crazy hours.

Speaker 3 And I gave you myself as an example.

Speaker 3 i have a few friends tight a small circle of close friends but 99 of the time when i go out it's business related events it's like with my clients it's networking and the rest of the time i'm like literally just home and i don't feel like going on dates all the time because like we were saying it's exhausting sometimes i just want to chill and have a nice dinner and I love talking to new people.

Speaker 3 I want to make new friends. And that's the aspect of it that

Speaker 3 I really, really liked.

Speaker 3 But I know for a lot of people, taking that first step is really tough. Like they're shy, they're embarrassed.

Speaker 3 So what would you say to them to encourage them to give this a shot?

Speaker 2 I think the first step in time life is pretty simple. You just book a seat so you don't have a lot of things to do.
I think the second step is to show up to the restaurant.

Speaker 2 And just, I think just go to the restaurant.

Speaker 2 And if you don't feel like it, you can go home anywhere but just go and just see your table and you will see they will smile at you, they're gonna say welcome, they're gonna say have a seat, they're gonna say what's your name.

Speaker 2 You don't have to be, it's not a it's not a keynote, you don't have it's not public speaking, you're not in front of like 300 people and you have to talk about yourself.

Speaker 2 We have a lot of introvert people who love to be there, you know, and they are quiet and that's okay. And then people talk a lot and that's okay.

Speaker 2 So you don't have to prepare for anything, you don't have to think about anything, you just just literally, you just have to show up. That's the only thing you have to do.

Speaker 2 And the rest, you will see it flow pretty easily.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I would say show up with an open mind. Even if you don't love those people, like, oh my God, I don't want to be friends with these people.
It's just a dinner.

Speaker 3 Like you were saying, it's not a job interview or anything. Now, if you don't like them and you leave.

Speaker 3 Let's talk about this part.

Speaker 3 And after the dinner, which I think is really cool as well, you guys send a little questionnaire asking, like, let's say if you and I were in the same group, they send you a questionnaire like, hey, did you like Kat?

Speaker 3 Would you have dinner with her again?

Speaker 3 Right? So you kind of have the opportunity to rate in a way the people that you were with. And I think that's really nice because I think people should at least try, make an effort to be nice.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but it's not exactly a rating in the sense. Yeah, I mean, it's not that you were rating or you say, you know, know, like five star.
It's like, it's just a simple question.

Speaker 2 It's like, do you want to see this person again? And if this person says yes, you know, it's mutual agreement, like we want to see each other again.

Speaker 2 Then the algorithm, we try to put you in the same table, you know, in the following weeks. So, because what we believe at Time Left is, is...

Speaker 2 like people don't want to meet strangers people want to meet strangers to find someone they like and you know to have a friendship have a love relationship whatever so we really want to have people to see each other we believe in time left you need 10 dinner to really know someone 10 dinners so the goal is to help you to get 10 dinners with this person in within the group to feel comfortable to say i don't know like the example like if you most of the time is like we have a dinner with you and me and and we find you know we like each other right but then if i talk to you the next day hey cat do you want to have brunch with me you're like

Speaker 2 one-on-one brunch i don't know you know and then i'm not available whatever and then you know life goes on and we never met so what we want to do is like you show up i don't know in three weeks oh maximum is at the same table Love it.

Speaker 2 Cool. Then you have a better connection with Katie and Max.

Speaker 2 And then at one point, maybe after five or six dinners, you will be comfortable to have a punch with me or to go to my house party with some friends, you know, and I will be also comfortable to have my choosing something more meaningful to me because now we know, you know, we're on the same line.

Speaker 3 Yeah, well, I think it depends on who it is. Like, you could hit it off.

Speaker 3 My first dinner, there was a lady on my table. She had lived in Sweden for so long, and we were talking, and she was so nice.
She was back in LA.

Speaker 3 She was out from LA originally and I have a lot of Swedish friends here. So we had a lot in common.

Speaker 3 And through the app, by the way, after dinner, we have the option of communicating with those people that we had dinner with.

Speaker 3 We can text each other and say, no, no, so me and this lady, we exchanged cell phones and we're like, oh, no, no, no, it was so nice to meet.

Speaker 3 So it could happen that if you really like someone, you can become friends with that person outside of the app.

Speaker 2 Yes, we have people who find love love on the first side we have i find my one of my best friends uh in lisbon so yeah you can have amazing stories that's for sure and also we create this this thing of like do you want to see this person again because if you say yes then you create a chat a chat in the app and we have these features to to for everyone to make safe but you know like you don't have to ask the number at the end of the dinner you know this uncomfortable moment of like can i get your number oh i don't know no no you just just go do your thing and then at the end you say i like i like it guys like me boom you can have a chat then you exchange whatsapp and then you you do what you want to do.

Speaker 3 Yeah, now, I personally think, and tell me if you disagree, because again, I don't know, I don't even think this is a cultural thing, this is a very personal opinion. I think

Speaker 3 these dinners,

Speaker 3 and there is a game by the way, there's a really cool game on the app, like a question and answer game, to break the ice. And I love that.

Speaker 3 It's fun, silly questions that really help and make the whole experience fun. But I personally think

Speaker 3 people should avoid talking about politics and religion on a dinner like that, because I think these are very heavy-duty topics that can get people very fired up, especially like, let's say, here in the United States, it's election year, you know, half of the country is divided one side, the other half.

Speaker 3 I feel uncomfortable if people start getting fiery during dinner discussing politics because I don't want to get into that. I want to have a good time.
Do you agree with me?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 2 I think it's, you know, the people at the table is the first time you're going to see this person.

Speaker 2 So talking about heavy subject or several, like really polarizing, you know, like politics and stuff, it can be interesting, but it can be also super risky.

Speaker 2 Of course, we don't want to be so superficial, but there is a lot of questions you can talk about yourself.

Speaker 2 You don't have to talk about the news or the politics. You can say, what is the last thing you did for the first time? What is something you're proud of?

Speaker 2 What's your biggest challenge next year? So there is so many good questions we put in the app to help you to have deeper conversation without having to talk about risky stuff.

Speaker 3 Yeah, exactly. And so on the third dinner, this big rooftop party, my table was,

Speaker 3 of all the three groups, it was the group that I enjoyed the least because I felt bad, to be really honest with you, Max, because I felt so bad for this guy.

Speaker 3 I was talking to him the whole night, but I noticed he was uncomfortable. And one of the ladies, all of a sudden, she started ranting about politics, like really fiery.

Speaker 3 And everybody's kind of stayed quiet, you know, because nobody wanted to argue with her. And that's why I said at the end, like, would you have dinner with this person again?

Speaker 3 I'm like, no, that was the only thing.

Speaker 2 That's okay. Like,

Speaker 2 it's not a bad thing to say no to someone, you know. Like, the modest to say no, if you don't want to see this person again, that's okay.
I mean, you don't have to be friend with everyone. Right.

Speaker 2 You know, we say we have only maximum is five plus one in our life, and it's maybe 30 friends in our life. So you don't need 30, you don't need 200.
So

Speaker 3 I say no when you don't feel like it.

Speaker 2 And I think that's okay. A lot of people say no, you know.

Speaker 3 Yeah, no, I totally agree. And but like I said, to me, that's what major would make me say, like, I don't want to see you again.

Speaker 3 Like if you start getting too aggressive about a subject, too radical about a subject, or talking about inappropriate things. A few questions that I know people are going to ask.

Speaker 3 The restaurant, right? Because it's a group of six and how do we split the bill? Each person pays what they want. It's not like a set price.
It's nothing like that.

Speaker 3 Yeah, we pay a fee, two time left to attend, which is very, very affordable. By the way, it's nothing crazy.

Speaker 2 16 USD for the single ticket and 24, I think, for the membership. Right.
With the membership, you can book every week if you want to.

Speaker 3 Amazing. So it's super affordable.
I think everybody can pay for that.

Speaker 3 And then you go to a restaurant and whatever you eat, right you pay for your own food and if you decide to drink alcohol which is another thing do you guys have guidelines to people like hey don't go crazy don't get drunk yeah we have safety guideline on the website uh yes we recommend to not go drunk on the first dinner that's for sure um

Speaker 2 yeah you know like like

Speaker 2 We connected more than 300,000 people since the beginning of the year and we didn't have any big problem because it's a dinner in a restaurant, you know, people People behave.

Speaker 2 Like, we saw, I will never do this concept in the home, like dinner with strangers in the home. No,

Speaker 2 no.

Speaker 3 Liabilities to buy.

Speaker 2 Yeah, like, but it's a restaurant, it's you're in the public space, you have waiters, you know, it's a group, you're not alone with, you know, it's another one-on-one. Um,

Speaker 2 so yeah, people behave

Speaker 2 strangely.

Speaker 2 Most of the time.

Speaker 3 And you do offer something called like the after hours. So you have dinner, and if you choose to continue your night,

Speaker 3 then you open up the address of where you're gonna have like an after-dinner get-together, right?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 Most of the city, Los Angeles, of course, included, we have a last ring.

Speaker 2 So after the dinner, so to give you an idea, if people don't understand the concept, so in New York, in two days, we're gonna have 1,000 people having dinner together, and they're gonna be spread across like 80 restaurants.

Speaker 2 And so we say to all these people, hey, you want to have have a last drink? Go all together in one place. And so

Speaker 2 it's an opportunity to see more people, you know, in the same night and to see people you already know from the previous dinner and to have a nice drink.

Speaker 2 That's why also Wednesday is better than Monday because Monday people don't want to go. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 No, I completely agree. Now, how do you choose the restaurants?

Speaker 2 We have a team of operations in each country. So we have people in the US who are managing the 45 city.
We are in 45 cities in the US now.

Speaker 2 And they're managing US, we have have some guidelines wait wait you said 45 cities in the us alone yes wow that's incredible we are in austin chicago los angeles san francisco san diego san jerve

Speaker 3 um new york denver boston everybody can they so somebody's listening you can go to your website and find out all the cities

Speaker 2 welcome you sign up and when you sign up you choose us and you will see all the city we are yeah all the major cities so your team reaches out to the do you reach out to restaurants at all price points or do you try to find no no we we guarantee a certain price point uh we guarantee also uh if you're like a veggie vegan you're gonna have like this option at the restaurant you're gonna be uh uh sent

Speaker 2 um no we try to we we don't go to fancy restaurants we just like to find this really cool restaurant you know people have a good time there is no live music and there is just you can talk and exchange um we don't send people to like super specific, like we don't send people to sushi place or like barbecue place or like pizza place because you know it's really specific.

Speaker 2 It's more about restaurant with plate to share, appetizer, like, you know, medze, tapas. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah, no, I've been very lucky because the first one that I went, it was a vegetarian restaurant here. And I'm not vegetarian, but I love the restaurant so much.

Speaker 3 has a great bar, a lot of options on the menu. So I really enjoyed it.
The second one was great.

Speaker 2 The third one that you guys did a group on was a beautiful rooftop in hollywood so you guys are doing an amazing job at least my experience here in la you guys are picking really fun fabulous places and like you said the the thing you did on the rooftop is we did we do that only on the big cities so now we're doing only in los angeles yeah uh chicago and new york it's once per month uh instead of having uh only two or three tables per restaurant we find a restaurant and we win like 80 to 100 people to have dinner in the same restaurant at the same time and we do a party on top of it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, which is awesome because, yeah, you were sitting on your table during dinner.

Speaker 3 And then, if you want to socialize, after dinner, you stay there and then you can stand up and go to the bar, whatever the other area, and you hang out.

Speaker 3 And then instead of meeting six, eight people, you're meeting 85, 100 people, even more at the same time. So that's really important.

Speaker 2 And they're all open-minded.

Speaker 3 Exactly. They're all open to meeting new friends like you are.
Now, you said you would never do this in a private residency.

Speaker 3 But do you think about doing different things, like let's say a happy hour or lunch or anything like that, brunch, or are you gonna stick to dinner on Wednesdays?

Speaker 2 I believe now we need to do something. simple and to doing it and to do it really well.
And so the goal now is to, so we're gonna be in 300 cities by the end of the year.

Speaker 2 We are expanding quickly in Asia, Pacific, and Middle East and all this in Africa.

Speaker 2 We really want to people to understand it's wednesday and it's a dinner dinner i believe it's an amazing thing to connect people so you know some competitors try to do the drinks with strangers for example and the problem with the drinks is like you can easily disconnect for someone you know oh sorry i need to go or i need to go to the talents and whatever and you just vanish and so the restaurant is an amazing technology to connect people uh also

Speaker 2 I think the restaurant, they need us. You know, they are struggling.
They need people, they need clients.

Speaker 3 So they are are so happy to work with us so i think it's a sweet spot you know when's their dinners at night it's kind of a sweet spot i completely agree with you i love it i think you guys are doing an amazing job how many countries are you in now we are in 40 countries 40 countries so you guys can go to timelaft.com right max yes and on.com or download the app on the app stores there is a city for sure where you live uh and there is a dinner everyone's there and you just need to click on one button and that's it and that's it you click you pay the fee you go to a fabulous restaurant you meet a great group of people and you expand your and it could be networking it could be good for your business it could be good for so many different things you might end up like you said flirting dating whatever because it happens right but that's not the main goal of time left exactly congratulations so when is this thousand people dinner in new york in case there's any new yorkers out there that want to participate uh so we're gonna be 1,000

Speaker 2 in two days. It's meaning in the whole city.
The next big party in New York will be the first Wednesday of September. Oh, wow.
Okay.

Speaker 2 And in LA, I think also it's going to be the first Wednesday of September.

Speaker 3 Okay. So all this information is on the website.
Yes. And the app is Time Left.

Speaker 2 Time Left. You didn't ask me why Time Left.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah. That's no.

Speaker 2 And you know what?

Speaker 3 I got so rattled with the earthquake. I'm trying to

Speaker 3 get back focused because that was like the last question on my list. Like, how did you exactly, how did you pick the name time left? Thanks for reminding.
My brain is fried right now.

Speaker 2 So Time Left,

Speaker 2 the first idea of Time Lift

Speaker 2 was before this concept of dinner with strangers, which was something different. It was to connect people who had the same dream in common.

Speaker 2 So it was an app, you can swipe dreams, and every day I'm going to match you with someone who has the same dream. And so the concept was time left.
What do you want to do with the time you get left?

Speaker 2 It's like, go after your dreams, you know, like, you know, you have only one life, all this kind of thing.

Speaker 2 And I'm kind of really obsessed, not obsessed, but I'm like really aware of like, we're going to die one day and life is super short. And

Speaker 2 I think everyone should realize that. So that's the name time has come for that.
We keep it. Some people think it's depressing.
Actually, I love it.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So yeah.

Speaker 3 I love that because I have kind of like the same mindset. I'm very immediate with my life because I had a lot of losses.
I lost a lot of people that I loved. And I agree with you.
Life is so short.

Speaker 3 It's so finite. And I love the concept because so many times we stay home.
I know people suffer from depression, from loneliness.

Speaker 3 They sit in front of the TV, like they defrost the frozen dinner at the microwave literally because they don't have anybody to go out with.

Speaker 3 And it's just so beautiful how much you guys are uniting total strangers and making a difference in their lives.

Speaker 3 So so yeah i like the how you you came up with the name we don't have all the time left but we have some time left no we have time left but uh

Speaker 2 on people have depression i want to comment on that and and and talking to to people is it's an amazing way to go outside of depression you know you can take you know medication and stuff but talking to strangers it's it's what make people live healthy and longer it's proven

Speaker 2 and if you feel lonely or depressed just go and talk And actually, talking with strangers is sometimes more easy than talking to friends. They don't know who you are.

Speaker 2 Maybe you're not going to see them again. I have interesting conversations at times at dinner or people are like, wow, super open themselves about, you know, what's not going on in their life.

Speaker 2 And they have some feedback. And it's honest feedback in a sense, because you know, your friends, when you ask something, they're like always saying the same stuff.
So, yes.

Speaker 2 If you go to therapy also, you can just try Tablish. It's an amazing way to really.

Speaker 3 I agree.

Speaker 3 one million percent i i'm living proof that it's so much fun i met so many fun interesting people great conversation i highly recommend you guys try it out every wednesday's dinner with strangers cat on the loose has audiences in 54 countries and more so i hope there's one in your country and you guys are growing fast and furious so you have plans to expand expand

Speaker 3 all right i met a girl here in la she lives all the way in long beach and she's done more than 10. her name is Laura

Speaker 3 and she drives because you guys, you should open up, by the way, Long Beach, Orange County, because this girl

Speaker 2 is going to be opening. Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 3 I told her, I said, I'm sure they're going to do it, but she loves it so much. She literally drives every Wednesday.
So, yeah, you guys should try to find the time left and go for it. Don't be shy.

Speaker 3 Don't be embarrassed because you are going to be so glad you did it. And I'm putting the link of the website here on this episode so you try it out.
Max, thank you so much for your time. I hope

Speaker 3 next time you come to the United States or you make your way to LA, please let me know so we can do another one in person. We can have dinner.

Speaker 2 It's not a legend. I go to time-left dinner every Wednesday in Conito.
So maybe on the night, if I go to Simleft and you go to the dinner with me, I will be at your table.

Speaker 3 There you go. I hope I meet you in person.
Congratulations, you're doing something really amazing, and it's an honor to have you. And thanks for winging with me during this crazy earthquake.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 3 Thank you so much, Max. Guys, be safe out there.
Time left.

Speaker 3 Big shout out to the Burrata

Speaker 3 House, one of my favorite casual dining places in the heart of West Hollywood.

Speaker 3 They make authentic, delicious, fresh Italian food, sandwiches, pasta, salads with the delicious, delicious, fresh Burrata on top on 161 South Crescent Heights.

Speaker 3 So if you're looking for a place that you can have a quick bite for lunch, dinner, takeout for your family, This is it. And I love, of course, supporting local businesses.

Speaker 3 So if you guys are in the Los Angeles area, West Hollywood, go check out the Burata House. If you guys want to see pictures, BurataHouse.com on Instagram, Burata House.

Speaker 3 I love, love, love their food so much. Everything is really, really on me.