Bringing together — off-screen, in the same space — is emerging as an increasingly attractive business idea for a new generation of founders who believe technology has eroded human connection. Two of the most prominent representatives of this trend are Brynn Putnam, founder of Mirror and the new company Board, and Walker, founder of Heirloom — two completely different businesses that share the same compass: to bring people back into real, physical contact.
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Putnam wasn’t always geared toward the collective experience. Mirror , her first big hit, was a mirrored screen that brought the gym experience into the home — a deeply personal, individual experience. She admitted at a recent TechCrunch StrictlyVC event in New York that Mirror was built around her own life: she was pregnant with her first child, running physical gyms, and wanted to bring that experience into the home through a screen. Her new company, Board , was born out of the opposite problem.
Now a mother of five in a blended family — her household grew from three to seven — Putnam repeatedly faced the same impasse: no product on the market allowed people of widely varying ages and abilities to play together. Board is her answer: a 24-inch touchscreen table that recognizes physical game pieces as well as gestures, designed explicitly for a group of people sitting around it — not for a single user in front of a screen.
Bringing People Together: The Philosophy Behind Board and Heirloom
Walker follows a different path but with the same philosophy. Heirloom buys and scales high-quality craft schools, starting with a leather-making school in San Francisco founded by Hermès ’ first American artisan-ambassador. Walker also runs Collaborative Holdings , a fund created by the Collaborative Fund to give founders like himself — who run profitable, cash-flow-positive businesses — the space to grow on their own terms, without the pressure of chasing venture-capital-style returns. The idea is simple: businesses that build communities don’t always need the hypergrowth model to be sustainable and meaningful.
The convergence of these two completely different businesses — a digital gaming table and a leather crafting school — reveals something deeper about our times. Both founders believe that the technology of the last decade has eroded something fundamental to the human experience: our ability to truly connect with other people. And both believe there’s real money in restoring that connection.
The timing is no coincidence. In June 2025, the World Health Organization (WHO) Commission on Social Connection officially classified loneliness as one of the defining global public health challenges. According to the commission, one in six people worldwide is affected by loneliness, and the condition is linked to an estimated 870,000 deaths annually. This data isn’t just statistics — it’s the market these founders see.
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Bringing People Together: A Growing Movement of Entrepreneurs
Putnam and Walker are not alone. A whole generation of entrepreneurs — mostly from the East Coast — are turning to this space. Andy Dunn , founder of Bonobos , has spent five years building Pie , which has evolved from a friend-meeting app to an event discovery tool and now into what he calls a “ social life operating system . ” Pie ’s centerpiece is “ Community Homes ” — permanent digital hubs for recurring social groups, like running clubs or sports nights.
Audrey Gelman , founder of Wing — the women’s co-working space that closed during the pandemic amid allegations of unequal treatment of staff — is trying something similar again in a different format. Her new venture, the Six Bells Countryside Inn , an 11-room hotel in the Hudson Valley , hosts monthly murder mystery dinners where actors drop clues among guests. According to a New York Times report this summer, hotel guests often stay at the bar until midnight, exchanging phone numbers with strangers — exactly the effect Gelman is aiming for .
What unites all these businesses is a common diagnosis: the digital age has given us incredible communication tools, but it has also weakened our capacity for deep, meaningful connection. Social media has created an illusion of sociability, when in reality many people feel lonelier than ever. The “epidemic of loneliness,” as public health experts have called it, is a phenomenon that touches all ages and all social classes.
Putnam put it most aptly at the TechCrunch: it’s not about “moving from digital to analog,” but about “how can we use technology to bring people together instead of separating them.” This distinction is crucial: this is not an anti-tech movement, but a different philosophy of technology design — one that puts human connection at the center instead of individual experience.
The business model behind these companies is equally interesting. Unlike typical startups that seek exponential growth and high returns for their investors, many of these businesses operate on more traditional profit models. Walker , with Collaborative Holdings, has created a fund that allows founders to grow at their own pace, without the pressure of venture capital returns. This is especially important for businesses that build communities — the growth of a real community cannot be artificially accelerated without losing its essence.
For investors and market watchers, the question remains: is this a real business wave or a passing fad? The WHO on loneliness, combined with growing awareness of the negative effects of social media on mental health, suggests that the demand for real human connection is not just a nostalgic desire — it’s a deep need that the market has yet to adequately satisfy. The number of founders betting on this space is steadily growing, and their geography — primarily the East Coast of the US — suggests that perhaps the density of urban centers and the intensity of digital life are creating a greater need for physical connection.
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Bringing people together as a business model is not new — from Renaissance coffeehouses to 20th-century community centers, people have always sought out places to meet. What is new is the conscious choice to build businesses around that need, at a time when technology could easily lead in the opposite direction. If these founders are right, then the next big opportunity in technology isn’t a new app or platform — it’s the human presence itself.
