[00:00:00] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Companies that Care. I'm your host Marie Gettel-Gilmartin. And this podcast is brought to you by Fertile Ground Communications. I help companies avoid boring by making communications painless and boosting employee engagement, productivity, and brand recognition. I turned lackluster jargon filled or technical pros and to clear dynamic now.
[00:00:22] Look us up on fertilegroundcommunications.com. I alternate this Companies that Care podcast with my other podcast, Finding Fertile Ground, which is about personal stories of grit and resilience. On both of my podcasts, I strive to highlight voices from historically excluded populations, people who don't always get a platform.
[00:00:41] You can find information about both podcasts on my website and social media. My guests today are Tal Zlotnitsky and Tonya Coppin Fox, co-founders of Our.Love, a brand new app that just launched on Valentine's day. our.love is a love and relationship wellness technology company, [00:01:00] dedicated to helping couples find, maintain, and nurture their best selves.
[00:01:04] Tal is a successful six times startup entrepreneur and angel investor, a lifelong leader and learner who is inquisitive and tenacious. Tal came to the United States at the age of 12 from Israel. And he's a passionate activist on behalf of immigrants, people of color, distressed rural communities, the LGBTQ community, refugees, and military families.
[00:01:27] Tonya is a passionate driven and purpose driven entrepreneur and motivational business coach with unique ability to organize, run, and grow startups. An immigrant from Barbados. She is an advocate for strong relationships and families living their lives, courageously , kindly and purposefully. A few months ago, I joined the team as a writer and strategic communications consultant because I believed in Tanya and Tal and their whole incredible team and mission.
[00:01:54] Now let's meet Tal and Tonya.
[00:01:56] Thank you so much, Tanya, for joining me on the companies that care [00:02:00] Thank you, mark. Great to have you here. So let's just get started with Tanya. Tanya, can you tell us how you got started? How did you get here in your life?
[00:02:11] Tonya Coppin-Fox: I am an immigrant. I was born in the country of Barbados and I came to the us when I was five years old. My grandmother actually was a successful business woman
[00:02:21] So I got a really early introduction into business. I used to get up early in the morning and help her get the stuff loaded to take to the grocery stores . But , she wanted me to come here and get a good education. So I came over, I went to college, got my undergrad degree in psychology and my graduate degree in, education.
[00:02:39] I started teaching in the public school system, actually, and the south Bronx of New York, which was like a really rough neighborhood. I loved it . I am a national foundation for teaching entrepreneurship, fellow .
[00:02:52] I started a program with my special ed students, where we would wake up earlier in the morning and we would do a cafe within the [00:03:00] school.
[00:03:00] I was a consultant in the human service space and worked with several organizations, with organizational management and leadership .
[00:03:07] And then I started my own company , global resources support, where we support adults with intellectual developmental disabilities, as well as individuals with mental health disorders .
[00:03:17] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: Wonderful. That's great. And Tal. How about you? How did you get here?
[00:03:20] Tal Zlotnisky: Well, like Tonya was an immigrant that came here as a 12 year old from Israel and, had the experience of kind of living the American dream from the bottom up. My parents came here with her. And over the course of about a 35 year career, since that point, starting with family businesses, I've been totally blessed.
[00:03:37] I started companies in the wholesale distribution space that have done very well. Then I started one of the first pay by cell phone parking companies in the U S which I sold to the company that now operates the spark mobile. And in my last company, I controlled data is a very large enterprise.
[00:03:52] Tens of thousands of customers in all 50 states, I chose to start Our.Love. And actually Tonya was one of my first call when I made that decision for [00:04:00] lots of reasons. But the main ones were that you know, I become very interested in the topic of love because of my own failings in this space.
[00:04:06] As I became more aware of what the science said, I realized that there were ways to productize the science using technology that I thought would be more impactful. But also I think what really impacted me a lot. What was going on in the country. As an immigrant, I, enthusiastically participated in the political system trying to influence as best I can in the direction, I thought would be better for the country.
[00:04:27] But ultimately, as I was looking back at years of political activism, which included speaking engagements radio, television, et cetera, and donations to many political candidates. I really didn't feel like I was having any kind of impact January 6th happened. I remember sitting in front of my television, gawking in disbelief, as Americans were raising, they're raising their arms against each other in a way I never thought was possible.
[00:04:50] And I realized my God. I mean, we need to do something about it and I am not powerful political actor. So the question was, what could I do? And I made the decision to start a [00:05:00] love company because I think love is perhaps the last thing that is indivisible. Everyone wants to love more and better.
[00:05:06] Everyone wants to be loved more and better, and it felt like a great place to start because. People feel more love inside their homes. Hopefully it will ripple out and we'll start coming back together again. So that's what prompted me to start this company.
[00:05:18] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: Wow. That's amazing. I didn't know that level of detail on your story, can you explain what our love is?
[00:05:24] Tal Zlotnisky: So, reached out to Tonya because I knew her for over a decade. Her husband, Harold had worked for me at one of my prior startups. And I knew that she was an incredible entrepreneur. She has started multiple businesses. She gives herself too little credit and everything she's ever touched has turned to gold..
[00:05:38] Also was, you know, very familiar with her personality. I mean, my brother had worked with her more than I had, but, you know, he said, look, if you've got a mission and it's bold, Tanya, Tanya is a gal. So I reached out to Tanya. I mean, at the beginning I had more of a concept than anything else. She would tell you that I had an 80 page PowerPoint presentation, which is true.
[00:05:57] And Yeah, a little bit and [00:06:00] Tanya, you know, enthusiastic, we jumped in and, you know, having the support of someone with her pedigree and her track record really gave me courage. And I kept going on and, you know recruited a few other really critical people to the team, including Dr. Richard Safeer, the chief medical director of health and wellbeing at Johns Hopkins is a good friend.
[00:06:15] Brian Israel, you know, Mussa John Passman, and suddenly this became a real thing. Our love starts with a foundational concept, which is that we have a physical home. We all have a physical home. And generally speaking, if you're in a relationship, a serious relationship, you're sharing that home with your significant other, but in a virtual world, we are on our own.
[00:06:33] We each have our own virtual presence and we do not come together at the end of the day. If you will, the proverbial day into a shared sacred space, that's just ours and our partners. The first concept of our.love is the couple verse it's, a virtual home where you and your partner can spend time focusing on you and your relationship, and you do it through fun.
[00:06:53] I mean, this is not a therapy app. It's a virtual home, it's a gamified home. And within that home are all sorts of really [00:07:00] cool features and activities, videos, audio, readings, games and as you engage your love coins, and those love coins can be used in the virtual gift shop to redecorate your home, to buy.
[00:07:11] And in the very near future, we're also going to enable you to use those less points towards discount on real merchandise in the real world. So lots of really, really cool thing, all designed on the concept of teaching people, how to do love better and, ultimately doing love better is not as complex as maybe we grew up to believe.
[00:07:28] It requires knowing certain skills requires knowing when to deploy them. And the beauty of our app is we can teach you how to do that. If you're willing to give us a few minutes.
[00:07:36] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: Love that,
[00:07:37] You know, I've been married for. 32 years and just writing the articles for our love. I feel like it's actually helped me think about different things I could do with my husband.
[00:07:47] It's good to read the write about the stuff. So, Tanya, tell us your reaction when Tal first came to you, you had an 80 page PowerPoint.
[00:07:57] Tonya Coppin-Fox: It was about 80 pages. When he came to [00:08:00] me, first of all, you always think when, when, when any visionary comes to you saying, okay, either it's really, really crazy, or this might actually work. Right? So my original thought was low. Let me see if you'd make sure he's not crazy with first. Let me, let me test the waters.
[00:08:16] It was really a concept when you think about it and he's right. What was happening at the time we were in the midst of COVID, you know, we had just had the insurrection, there was so much things going on in the world that led us to really understand. That's what we need and what we didn't have enough was was people really understanding, love and spreading love. So in that vein, I really did lean in because I was like, this is an opportunity for us to make a difference. And if we did it right, we could impact generations to come all across the world. So I was a champion. I jumped on early and I was like, let's do this thing.
[00:08:47] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: That's great.
[00:08:47] I love that story. So Tal, I remember when you and I first talked and you said that you really wanted to create a company that was committed to diversity, equity and inclusion. Can you explain a little bit more about your philosophy about that?[00:09:00]
[00:09:00] Tal Zlotnisky: I've always believed very firmly that even from the practical sense of how to run a company that has the best chance of being successful, the diversity and inclusion are instrumental.
[00:09:12] To success and by diversity inclusion, I mean, certainly people of both genders and people that identify themselves as non-gendered people of color people from different backgrounds and cultures, including people that have immigrated to this country people with different sexual orientations. I mean, ultimately we are all one United human family and our shared experiences.
[00:09:35] Bring us closer together, but it is our differences when weaved together thoughtfully that make us stronger. So it was a very critical thing for me. And if you look at my career tracker, cause I've always championed diversity, I've always championed inclusion. In every company I've ever had.
[00:09:48] There always been very, very senior people of color and women in leadership positions. That's really, really important to me. And obviously Tonya and I share as, as, as immigrants we share a strong passion for people. [00:10:00] I've experienced this country in ways, a lot of Americans respectfully don't right.
[00:10:04] We have a greater appreciation for what makes America great. And, and honestly what makes America great, goodness. In my opinion, my experience, it's just the goodness of its people, the goodness of its purpose. And I think that's best represented by a very diverse group. So if you look at our our organization top down it's incredibly diverse.
[00:10:22] It's more than 50% people of color, more than 50% of women and our senior leadership and our board where more than 50% women and people of color. And I take enormous pride in that. Honestly, that was the number one thing that made me interested in getting involved. Really your commitment to that is great.
[00:10:38] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: And Tonya for you as a black woman, what is it like working at our life love compared to some of the other places you've worked.
[00:10:46] Tonya Coppin-Fox: You know, I think really early on talent, I made the conscious decision to make sure that all colors, all people were represented. So going into that I mean, I've been fortunate enough where I've, I've [00:11:00] always been in leadership roles. But you know, even in those roles, you walk into dynamics and organizations with.
[00:11:06] You know, your vision and the vision of the company could be very different. The great thing about our love is our vision is aligned. When we really talk about love is universal. That shows in the way that we recruit, it shows in the makeup of the people who work within the company, the board.
[00:11:25] All the way through, from our users, to the people who are informing the product, we make sure that it's diverse. It represents all people across every spectrum. So that is why I'm so, so committed to this ambition because we really are making a difference.
[00:11:43] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: That's fantastic. Tell how can you describe your employee culture?
[00:11:48] Tal Zlotnisky: I would say that to come into a startup, especially a pre-revenue startup, most of the people that are on this team joined us before we went live in the marketplace, that the app is now available at the app store, both iOS and Android on their, [00:12:00] our.love. But the people that joined us before had to have a vision, have to believe in something bigger than a paycheck, because for the most part the early team.
[00:12:10] Recruited on equity only or very, very little cash compensation as we were trying to conserve money and use it to do the work that needed to be done, particularly around market research and eventually building a non-viable product and then a minimum viable product and ultimately our beta in our version 1.0 so the culture is a culture of people who have a deep appreciation.
[00:12:30] For the meaning of love and it comes from different places. There are people on our team that are very, very happily married , and know the value of that and see firsthand what, having a loving, strong relationship does we have others on the team, myself included, Tonya included who have, had divorces .
[00:12:45] And learn the hard way the impact of love not done so well. We have young people that have great hope for loves that either are present in their lives or coming down the road in the future. And we've got some people that have been married, you know, 40 [00:13:00] plus years. So I would say that the culture, the culture.
[00:13:02] Dreamers people that are generally speaking, motivated by the belief that whatever, wherever we find ourselves there's a way to get better. It's a cheerful optimistic generally speaking, humorous culture. We, we like to laugh. We laugh a lot. We don't laugh at people. We don't laugh at anyone's expense but we share joy.
[00:13:20] This is a joyful mission, you know, starting to. I can't think of anything I could ever do that would possibly have the kind of impact and be as joyful is helping people love more.
[00:13:30] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: Yeah, exactly. You know, I love that you brought up that diversity, it's a different type of diversity.
[00:13:34] You've got diversity from relationships, right. I mean, that's really important for what you're doing . You don't want to just have all these people who've been married for years. Like me, you know, you want to have people who are looking for a different kind of love, and who've learned lessons along the way, about how not to do things, perhaps, , I certainly have learned that myself as well, having been married a long time .
[00:13:51] And Tanya, tell us about the launch you launched on February 14th and how did that go? And how's it going?
[00:13:59] Tonya Coppin-Fox: I think the [00:14:00] launch, you know, went fabulously. Actually, we got great responses, great downloads, and it continues to grow week after week. We just actually wrapped up a meeting where we're taking feedback from our users and using that to inform the product to make it better and better.
[00:14:18] Listen, you can call me optimistic and maybe I am a dreamer. This app to me bar none is. More robust. And I don't see anything in the app store like it, that can rival it. I'm so ecstatic about it. You just can't even believe. You just don't even know how it's static. I am. I think we did a great job.
[00:14:36] It was a lot of hard work, a lot of thought going behind it, a lot of feedback and I am so proud to stand behind the app.
[00:14:44] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: That's great. Tal, what kind of reactions are you hearing from users about the app?
[00:14:48] Tal Zlotnisky: I've launched apps before. And so I, I think I had a little bit more of an appreciation of what the week before and the week of would be like not a lot of sleep, a little bit of short tempers and, [00:15:00] always, you know, some experience of you know, bogs or things you didn't expect that.
[00:15:03] But Tonya is right. I mean, this launch went pretty darn well. There's still things we're working through. You know, we're finding that certain older phones, don't like some of our more advanced features. And so we've got to build some back roads if you will. And there's a lot more to come, right.
[00:15:17] So if you look at the app today, I would, I would still call it more of a beta it's one point, you know, it's got lots of function. But, there's some killer stuff coming down the pike. So I think for people that would come into the app, they would experience, I think, fun.
[00:15:29] The videos are fun and funny. We have some terrific and, and in fact, some of the work that you did on, on the writings is outstanding. Other people did great, things with the app they're writing as well. We've got a fabulous emotion detection, audio biometrics game where you and your partner can start either guided conversations or just have a conversation with this audio.
[00:15:47] Biometric I did does not listen to words is not recording. But listens to tone and listens to audio markers, such as, are you interrupting each other? Are you raising their voices to be heard over one another? Are you pausing [00:16:00] between people speaking so that you're sure to have absorbed what they said?
[00:16:04] So all of these markers are being tracked and are featured in a beautiful bouquet. So if you do a great job, the bouquet on the screen blossoms, and if you're not doing such a great job, it wilts. So there are all sorts of really cool features in. There's a way to share your mood and you know, you might say, well, what's so cool about that.
[00:16:20] Well, first of all, wait until you see what it looks like in the app. It's really kind of fun. But beyond the fun, it is specifically built that way because we know a lot about the impact of childhood trauma on adults communication. We're extremely fortunate to have Dr. Larry McCullough on our team.
[00:16:35] He's one of the leading voices in the world. And we know that people that have suffered childhood trauma or our relationship with them and suffer the childhood trauma numbers, that by the way, represent a majority of people in the United States and probably around the world, we have the data domestically really struggle with expressing how they feel honestly and having an alternative means to communicate out there.
[00:16:55] And the reasons for that and getting that information to their partner, hopefully before they get home, maybe on a day where they're [00:17:00] out of, out of the house for work or, communicating in a way that feels comfortable. We know from science is a very impactful way to get people to be more vulnerable with each other, vulnerability vulnerabilities, one of the seven love skills.
[00:17:10] So there's a lot of really cool stuff there. And the feedback I've gotten by and large has been really, really solid. Right? So obviously a lot of the people that I'm talking to. I'm on the investor side and, you know, and it's been a remarkable week. I've gotten phone calls from people that I talk to the very early parts of the journey who I'm sure thought that I was a dreamer.
[00:17:28] And really wow. If you really going to build this after talking about this couple verse concepts and, and they opened the app and they saw the real manifestation of that, and it's pretty cool. My own kids. My daughter at the top was a nurse.
[00:17:40] She just turned 23 and she and her friend had been loving it. My daughter in the middle there, Sophia was in the Navy. She and her fiance, Maddie, and that he's actually on our team and, you know, Maddie have been playing with the app and I've been getting lots of great feedback on my son.
[00:17:54] Jacob is full of ideas. He's a 19 year old freshman in Boston University. Who told me that when he gets here on the fifth, he's [00:18:00] coming on spring break he said that I need a couple of days. I have so many ideas, so she could write them down for you.
[00:18:06] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: Wow.
[00:18:07] It's been incredible. You know, maybe the funniest story is my 83 year old stepfather and my mother who is actually turning 75 today. Happy birthday Mom. And how they are engaging with the app, which I think is hilarious. So I love it. I share time as enthusiasm and amazing optimism for what this product can do..
[00:18:25] That's amazing.
[00:18:26] Yeah. I'm really looking forward to the biometrics thing.
[00:18:28] Tanya, what's your favorite part of the app?.
[00:18:30] Tonya Coppin-Fox: I love the gifting. I love the ability to be able to send my partner a gift with a nice love note. It doesn't all things doesn't always have to be like, you know, tangible, but just knowing that I'm thinking of him through the app and he can send me.
[00:18:45] You know, his little, you know, St note or send me a gift. I love that also love the content that we're curating. Right now where we have the etiquette love channel. We have a common channel for for couples and to see [00:19:00] how that's going to evolve. I'm really, really excited over that.
[00:19:03] It's like, again, this. So diverse, I mean, from articles to blogs, to meditation, to, videos to it's just it's it just has something for everyone.
[00:19:16] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: I need to get my husband on it. I haven't done that yet. I've only tested it a little bit before the lob, so we need to get back into it.
[00:19:22] Tal Zlotnisky: It's funny you say that, Maria and it's, I'm glad you mentioned that because one question I've gotten is, well, what if my partner is not ready to do it, or I don't know if my partner is ready to. And that's fine. The app actually begins as a single user game or a single user play. So you don't have to add your partner right away.
[00:19:38] It's perfectly fine. Open the app for yourself. You learn a lot about yourself and your relationship. My personal favorite feature is actually the tracker. So as you get into the app you know, through seven carefully curated questions that
[00:19:50] we are able to give you a really reasonable baseline for the wellbeing of your relationship across seven critical love skills. So you're going to know as an example, where do you believe you stand [00:20:00] on appreciation? Where does your partner believe you stand on appreciation even, even if you're simply using your.
[00:20:06] Intuitive answers based on your experience, we're going to get some data points, obviously, as your partner joins the app and adds their input, it's going to be even better. And this is the tracker tool. We'll continue to track and give you feedback. So as you engage with. We're going to be able to give you indications that you're making progress, and you'll be able to measure that yourself.
[00:20:24] We're also gonna be able to forecast for you in the coming edition. This is not in the current app. If you, for example, are scoring a relationship at a certain place, and maybe you're not that satisfied with, and you like you better. We're going to give you a little, a little place, a little meter.
[00:20:36] You could say if I give you five minutes a day, how long will it take me to, raise my score from 60% of the 80%? Right. So we give you some amazing features to help you determine kind of what the regiment needs to be in order to get the outcomes that you want.
[00:20:50] Tonya Coppin-Fox: It definitely takes the ambiguity out of the relationship.
[00:20:53] You really know, or have a firm understanding of, of where your, your partner are in, how you view each other in the [00:21:00] relationship. I love that.
[00:21:01] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: Tonya, what have you learned about love since being involved in Our.Love?.
[00:21:04] Tonya Coppin-Fox: What I learned about love is that it's so important to us, but we really don't spend a whole lot of time working on it..
[00:21:12] And that's the truth. You know, if you survey people, they would tell you that. Yeah. I want to love, I want to know how to love. I want to be in a loving relationship, but if you ask them how much time they actually spend doing something that emulates that. They couldn't tell you a time.
[00:21:28] Our lives are so crazy right now with work and, all the things that we're doing, some of us going to schools, raising children, whatever, when you're in that relationship, sometimes you take it for granted. And so this app is a way to kind of, you know, reinvigorate that, bring that passion, that fun back into the relationship.
[00:21:50] Not in a way where you have to sit down for an hour or two hours like a therapy, it's just basically, you know, you go in, Hey honey, I'm having a good day. I'm going to listen [00:22:00] to this podcast while I'm driving. Okay. Now from this podcast, you know what, I'm going to go do something nice for my significant other I call it little breadcrumbs every day that brings you to that greater place.
[00:22:09] So what I've learned is that people want to love they want to know how to love better, but they don't necessarily have the tools and we're providing them with the tools and they don't necessarily take the time. And what we're saying is time doesn't have to be a blocked out two hours a week.
[00:22:26] It could be five minutes every day.
[00:22:29] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: You know, my husband and I really had to Duolingo right now. It's part of every morning. So one of the first things I do to not lose my streak. Right. And we're both into it. So the opportunity is to build this app into our day as well.
[00:22:41] Not, it doesn't have to take a lot of time, but it definitely will help us prioritize our relationship. So I love that idea. Tal. How about you? What is, something you've learned about love..
[00:22:51] Tal Zlotnisky: I've learned so much about love. I mean, I came into this freshly out of a 20 year marriage and, really feeling clueless about love and to admit that [00:23:00] at the age of, you know, 47, 48, it's not easy.
[00:23:02] I'd read about love. I'd been in therapy on and off. It really therapy. And I have nothing against therapy. I think it's a really critical tool. But in our case. And I think in many cases, it's used more as you go in and you want someone to agree with you, and of course, therapists are very sophisticated.
[00:23:16] They're not easily fooled. But the experience isn't always so great. And I think the biggest challenge I found was you go to therapy you say what you have to say, but then you have to come out of there it's 45 minutes or an hour, and then you have to live another week or two weeks with your partner before the next.
[00:23:29] And some of the things that are said are really, really uncomfortable. So I ultimately felt coming into this though, you know, very much about love and what I've learned mainly that love is that there are a couple of really fundamental things that make everything better.
[00:23:40] I think that the seven skills are really, really critical. I think ultimately what I've learned about love is that genuine love, love that has the opportunity to last is love that recognizes that we are humans and humanity means that your experience, my experience is never going to be exactly the same.
[00:23:58] You have your own set of [00:24:00] eyeballs and your own brain, your own ears, and you're experiencing life from your point of view. What I think a lot of people do wrong is they believe that what they're seeing is the only version of the truth. They believe that what they're experiencing is the only way things can be experienced.
[00:24:13] And so they're not generous. They don't come into a conversation where their partner expresses concerns or hurts from a place of wanting to be understanding, not a place of curiosity. Curiosity is the very first love skill that we believe is so critical when someone approaches you and your partner approaches you and they have concerns or needs or problems the right place to start is curiosity.
[00:24:32] Why, how are you experiencing this and not defensiveness or, or worse or gaslighting or any of the many things. Silent treatment yelling when they're approached with something that doesn't feel very comfortable. So when you begin by recognizing that your partner is a human being like you with feelings and emotions and experiences, and that even if you didn't intent to land a certain way, if they feel that you have.[00:25:00]
[00:25:00] You have to deal with your reality, not try to install your own on top of theirs. That is probably the most impactful thing that I've learned.
[00:25:09] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: Yeah. You know, it's interesting because with therapy, usually relationships, marriages, or other partnerships, they usually go to therapy when things are broken and.
[00:25:17] I think that's part of the problem is that we're not thinking about our relationship on a regular basis necessarily until it's like probably beyond repair and then, you know, some big tasks with the therapist.
[00:25:28] Tal Zlotnisky: And so I'm glad you raised that. I don't know that most Americans know that the number of people that go to therapy is very low in, in the course of a given year, less than 10% of Americans go to therapy and therapy of any kind, not just relational.
[00:25:40] It's including therapy, that's digital and in person. So very low numbers and among couples one in five couples will go to therapy in their marriage and they'll wait on average, six years . So I think you're right. I mean, I think therapy is very impactful if you're coming into it with two people who are in the same place in terms of being able to absorb and, you're ready to do work outside.
[00:25:58] Right? So a lot of times when you go [00:26:00] to therapy that at the end of it, you get homework, but there's really no way to measure it. One of the things we're really looking forward to is collaborating with therapists, because if a therapist wants to give homework in our app, the app can be measured. You can say, you need to earn a hundred love coins this week, and it's about five.
[00:26:15] Yeah. So there, there are really neat things that therapists can do to get more to essentially give, a couple of better experience, but most importantly, I would say that, you know People who are looking at their relationship and are viewing it as, okay.
[00:26:31] Right. So they're not in deep, deep trouble. There is still love there. Although maybe they don't feel it quite the second. There are moments of conflict that feel not okay, and that, you know, you need to resolve it. They're not toxic. We're not talking about anyone is doing anything completely inappropriate.
[00:26:45] Although, you know, things do happen in relationships. And if you're inclined to try to solve them that's great. But we are really, really focused on that class of, individual who is more or less, okay. Just not experiencing their best love and you know, our objective [00:27:00] and our mission is to bring people who are in relationships that are not broken, but not quite as great as they can be to a place where they are phenomenal, not just okay..
[00:27:09] Not even great. It's phenomenal. And it's, it is achievable. That's one of the things that's so incredible and I'm in one of those relationships. Now, if you know how to practice the skills they become second nature, they become so easy to access and the app reinforces that in so many different ways.
[00:27:30] And it's amazing how once you start engaging, you'll start seeing evidence outside of your relationship with people that are doing it. Well, And if people that are doing it poorly, you'll be able to recognize it. They'll be able to see it and call it by its name. And a lot of times being able to do that as a really critical part of absorbing something into your own life and acting.
[00:27:49] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: Yeah. Tonya, did you want to add something?
[00:27:52] Tonya Coppin-Fox: Tal gave the statistics about couples going into therapy and in the black and brown community, those statistics are even lower, [00:28:00] you know, so in our culture, in our race where we're not ones that are knocking down on a therapist door saying, Hey, Hey, I need help in our relationship.
[00:28:08] So that was one of the key factors, when I decided to go into this journey was to bring a product to the public that my community could actually benefit from and could, you know, help a lot of the relationships in our committee.
[00:28:23] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: I love that.
[00:28:24] Tal Zlotnisky: I'm glad you mentioned that because one more variable that was important to both of us and we aligned on it right out of the gate was to make this very affordable. So there's another app in the marketplace, really more of a therapy app and their annual cost is $200. We're expecting to charge.
[00:28:37] First of all, there's a lot of free stuff. So if you're coming, download the app right now, it's virtually entirely free. And the subscriptions that we intend to sell are 99 cents a dollar 99, 2 99 are supporting. And, and we intend to give people the opportunity to set their price. You know, we do not want anyone who is interested in improving their relationship to feel like they can't afford it.
[00:28:57] This should cost what, a Starbucks cup of coffee will [00:29:00] cost you once a month or less. And the hope is, if you come in, you engage with us five minutes, a day, three minutes, a day, 10 minutes, some days the incremental value of that. First you'll be able to see it. It's trackable.
[00:29:13] So you and your partner can literally see what's being done in the app by each other. It's incredibly reinforcing. We've heard a lot from men that really appreciated the tracker or the opportunity to see where they stood and the opportunity to show their partner they're working. Right. A lot of women in our focus groups were talking about effort and wanting to see their partner make an effort and how much that unlocks their willingness to be more loving and more forgiving and more joyful.
[00:29:33] And of course I'm generalizing . And effort is viewable in the app. I mean, because as you engage in anything in the app it identifies what you did and where you are in love coins. And and we are hearing really positive things about that.
[00:29:44] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: Great Tonya, because this podcast is called companies that care.
[00:29:48] What advice do you have to other people to make companies that care?
[00:29:53] Tonya Coppin-Fox: I always tell people in business think of something that's going to impact. Someone else, whether it's a [00:30:00] specific group of people, for us, we had a bolder mission. We wanted to impact the world over.
[00:30:05] But when you think of what you want to do, think about the impact is going to have on others.. Two. You gotta be dogmatic about it, cause you'll get a lot of nos. And I always think that nose is not a note. It's not a, a end of discussion. It's a, not yet. I think of it as not right now, as opposed to no, it's time to quit.
[00:30:23] And so you have to be dogmatic about it. You got to keep pushing . One thing I love about Tal..., just he doesn't care. He just keeps pushing you. So, I mean, I really love that about him. I mean, I'm a tough cookie, but he definitely made me tougher as you can see Marie, right.
[00:30:41] You have to surround yourself with positive people and people who are going to uplift you when you're down. So he teaches me to be tough and I hope for him, I'm that person that kind of lifts him up and say, look, we can do this.
[00:30:53] We can keep going and I add that burst of energy to him. Surrounding yourself with positive people being [00:31:00] dogmatic and just keep going and understanding. No, it's just a, not yet, not right now, but it's coming.
[00:31:07] Tal Zlotnisky: Tonya is like a sister to me.
[00:31:08] We have an incredibly loving and candid relationship and we've had moments like journey's a tough and you have moments where one person needs to lift each other up and we've lifted each other up which I love. I know. Count on her. And I know I can trust her and that's really vital.
[00:31:23] And I think, you know, one of the beautiful things about the team we have assembled around us is there are for the most part, people that we know that we've worked with in the past, we have a lot of confidence in them, in the senior team Swati. Dondi our COO Adrian Martinez, our chief of staff John Passman or CMO Quito.
[00:31:39] Musar. Dr. Pakala, Dr. Safier or board. These are people that are just the best of the best you know, general Leslie Smith, who just retired as inspector general of the us army is both an investor and a member of the board. I mean, we are surrounded by incredible people and that just feels so, so great.
[00:31:56] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: That is so cool. Yeah. That's why I wanted to get involved as the people that you [00:32:00] gathered around you. It's very impressive. Anything else? Final words you'd like to say to our listeners.
[00:32:06] Tal Zlotnisky: I would say that almost no matter where you are in your life, there's probably more love that you can harvest out of your life.
[00:32:11] Right? It's a love is one of these beautiful, beautiful sources of energy. It is Tonya and I've been saying a lot over the last a year. Love is a resource that the more you have. The more I have it's it's not a resource that is finite where you have some in there for your neighbor must have less.
[00:32:29] The fact is actually the more you have, the more your children will have the more your neighbors and your coworkers and your family and the community at large lab. So love is a very worthwhile. It is maybe the last best hope we've got to come together again and know. What is love, ultimately, it's not just about romance.
[00:32:48] It's about understanding. It's about accepting each other's humanity understanding each other's fears accepting vulnerability, being appreciative, taking accountability all of these really, really critical [00:33:00] skills, which are actually part of the love skills that we teach in yet are what makes for you know, good citizens and good communities.
[00:33:06] And, you know my hope is that your listeners go ahead. Download the app, tell five or 10 friends. I know it sounds like a lot, but you know what? We are trying to build a very large community of people that are committed to love. And I think if we do this on scale, we will change the world.
[00:33:20] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: I love it.
[00:33:21] Tonya, have any final words.
[00:33:23] Tonya Coppin-Fox: I just got to echo Tal, download our app visit our website, our.love and start your love journey with that.
[00:33:31] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: Thank you so much for your time. This has been a great conversation, so glad to have both of you here together. It's wonderful to see your rapport and your teasing.
[00:33:40] Your sibling teasing.
[00:33:42] Tonya Coppin-Fox: We are like brothers and sisters, you know, it's funny. Cause we, we fight and we love the same way, you know, so it's good. And that's what like that is really what.
[00:33:51] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: Yeah, you're modeling,
[00:33:53] Tal Zlotnisky: you know, what, and where are you going on dog food? Because as you know, increasingly I'm noticing when, you know, if there are moments of [00:34:00] disagreement, I'm really leading into curiosity, I'm much more appreciative.
[00:34:04] I am willing to take accountability. Tonya would tell you, , I mucked something up in our first week and I stood up and I took responsibility for it in a way that I was very proud of. And it's really out of what we're teaching. So it's incredible. I feel like a better human being and. I can't wait for more people to access this.
[00:34:20] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: . That's a really good point. Cause you know, one of my specialties is leadership communication and so much of what the app is all about could be applied to being a better leader as well.
[00:34:29] Tonya Coppin-Fox: Yeah. That's very true. And the other thing I will add is, is understanding forgiveness as well because in relationships, there will be things that will cause discord, but you can't hold on.
[00:34:41] You can't. Beat another person over the head with it. You have to be willing to say, okay, this was a learning curve. The person has admitted that, you know, they didn't understand and you gotta let it go. And I think that those are all healthy parts of being in any relationship, whether it's at work, whether it's personal, whether it's with your children, all of the [00:35:00] things that we're learning within this app are healthy across all spectrums of relationships.
[00:35:06] Marie Gettel-Gilmartin: Yeah, definitely. Thank you so much for your time.
[00:35:09] Both of you. It was a pleasure. Take care.
[00:35:11] I'm so impressed with what Tal and Tonya have put together, a sensational and exceptionally diverse team to improve as many lives as possible through better love. I love R dot Love's philosophy that loving more and better is a basic human right.
[00:35:26] and human aspiration. You can download our.love for iOS or Android. Let me know what you think about this episode by emailing me at marie@fertilegroundcommunications.com. Our music is by jazz pianist. Jonathan Swanson. This podcast is brought to you by Fertile Ground Communications.