Why a startup worth $150 million believes it can solve the $406 billion loneliness issue

(SeaPRwire) –   Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace once vowed to connect humanity more closely. But what they delivered was something entirely different.

The screen-based economy that sprung up around these apps at breakneck speed was optimized for attention. Time spent on platforms and daily active users were the two core metrics that defined this economy’s success or failure. Engagement loops grew more addictive, and friction in increasingly trackable interactions faded away. The promises of internet-fueled belonging, social cohesion, and a new global intimacy never came to fruition.

Instead, people retreated into their screens on such a massive scale that major social health organizations began sounding the alarm about a global loneliness epidemic. The World Health Organization found that 1 in 6 people worldwide experience persistent loneliness, contributing to 870,000 deaths annually and costing governments billions in healthcare, employment, and education. Loneliness often shows up on balance sheets as absenteeism, which alone costs the U.S. economy $406 billion each year.

People are starving for the meaningful social connections they haven’t found online—and now they’re willing to pay for them. This hunger is quietly giving rise to a brand-new market, along with a generation of startups racing to serve it.

How social isolation sparked a new demand

Humans are social animals by nature. We’re biologically wired for social cohesion, which has been a matter of survival since the days of hunting woolly mammoths and sleeping in caves. As our species progressed, we built this cohesion into institutions: schools, religious communities, trade associations, sports clubs, civic organizations, even entire nations. Multigenerational families living together were the norm, and every city was dotted with bars and cafés for informal gatherings.

When these institutions enter a long-term decline, the desire for community remains. Enter the IRL economy—an industry I loosely define as one that intentionally facilitates in-person belonging. The end goal of all these businesses is to get people offline and together. The specific way a business achieves this is secondary.

The first phase of this economy arrived in the form of city-specific meetup apps. Meetup, arguably the most popular of these, actually predates most social media platforms; it was initially founded to bring New Yorkers together in the wake of 9/11. Post-Facebook, these platforms proliferated, and Meetup eventually became so successful that WeWork bought it for $200 million in 2017. Meanwhile, new startups coordinated curated dinners, coworking spaces, running clubs, and shared activities. At WeRoad, we entered this space through travel.

We organize trips for small groups of people who don’t know each other before departure, specifically targeting young adults in their 20s and 30s. No matter where our travelers go, the core product is the same: guaranteed connection with like-minded individuals. We noticed solo travel had become a bona fide phenomenon, and we realized many solo travelers still want to meet others along the way. So we offered them a way to solo travel together.

It worked. When you give people the chance to rebuild their social scaffolding, they take it.

The economics behind the new social scaffolding

Real-world participation hasn’t disappeared—but it has slipped through the cracks of an atomized world. As social scaffolding broke down due to the decline of third spaces, spontaneous real-world interaction became hard to access. Going out was no longer a surefire way to meet someone, and dating apps from the attention economy didn’t guarantee meaningful connections either.

IRL economy businesses sell this structure. We’re selling context more than a single, easily defined product. At WeRoad, we commercialized travel, but we’re actually serving a different need. If we didn’t exist, the solo travelers who use our services would still go around the world—but they wouldn’t necessarily get the connection we offer. That’s what they’re paying for, more than any specific trip to Mexico, Morocco, or Indonesia.

The real product is always connection. We achieve it through structured immersion: 15 strangers together for ten days, away from their routines and homes. Add shared logistics, a touch of unpredictability, and the mild discomfort of being in an unfamiliar place. Titles fade, social bubbles soften, and interaction becomes natural.

Basic economics are at play too. Real-world connection feels scarce, and scarcity drives demand and increases value. The global travel and experience economy is already valued at over $1 trillion. IRL businesses meet this demand by embedding real-world connection into large, active economic sectors—not just travel, but also dining (a $3.9 trillion global industry) and live music ($38.5 billion).

It’s too early for formal valuations of the IRL economy. But we know VC investment in consumer startups (including IRL businesses) rose 25% between 2023 and late 2024. There are funds like Jägermeister-backed Best Nights VC, which invests in nightlife and group-outing startups. Tinder is also beta-testing an in-person events tab with pottery classes, raves, and bowling nights. Something big is happening here.

Friction-maxxing and widespread atomization

In 2026, a new trend is emerging: friction-maxxing.

Friction-maxxing is the deliberate rejection of seamless convenience—the transactional optimization that nearly every consumer-facing company has ruthlessly pursued for a decade. You order dinner without speaking to anyone, rent a bike via QR code, work from home, stream on demand, and feel constantly stimulated while remaining physically alone. Friction-maxxing refuses this bargain.

But friction-maxxers need somewhere to find the connection they seek—and that’s where the IRL economy comes in.

None of this is entirely new. While social atomization exploded in the social media age, it began in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. Family members moved apart; professional environments became less reliable for community building (even though colleagues are the only built-in social circle for many young professionals). Traditional community structures declined, digital communication became default, and the pandemic accelerated this shift. In short, we’ve been heading this way for a long time.

The IRL economy is still emerging, but demand extends far beyond the 1 in 6 people with persistent loneliness. Friction-maxxers aren’t just rejecting their phones—they’re signaling the next trillion-dollar consumer market won’t be built on a screen.