7Q in the Spotlight: Lise Keeney of Date Like Goblins

It’s not sexy, but loneliness. I’ve found Simple Plan’s lyric “I’ve got a lot of friends, but I don’t hear from them” hits differently as an adult.

And with 79% of Gen-Z and 71% of millennials identifying as lonely, I know I’m not the only one feeling this. It’s not anyone’s fault— life gets busy, people have their own commitments, and whether you’re single or partnered, loneliness just has a way of sneaking in.

I first ideated Date Like Goblins as an alternative to traditional dating apps—letting people connect through their favorite video games while voice chatting. While that’s already happening, our 'be nice or leave' ethos, paired with our come-as-you-are approach, has resulted in a kind, quirky, and genuinely welcoming community. By encouraging everyone to be their authentic selves, people are already finding a true sense of belonging.

With this foundation, we’re excited to offer more than just an endless menu of profiles—we’re creating a space where you can build meaningful connections, whether with a new teammate, a close friend, or maybe even the love of your life

Goblins create a profile about themselves, list their video games, and note when they’re available to play. We purposefully hand-approve each Goblin to make sure everyone puts effort into their profiles and contributes to the community in a kind and authentic way. If profiles aren’t of the caliber we encourage, we support Goblins in making edits that’ll encourage engagement and interaction with others on our platform..

Once added to the Goblin universe, people can invite each other to meet up—just like making plans with a friend for a future hangout. After scheduling, they jump into their chosen game at the set time and start chatting! If 1:1 hangs feel like too much pressure, our community game nights are a fun, low-key way to get introduced to Goblins.

We’re primarily bootstrapped at the moment but are constantly polling our community in Discord about which features they’re most excited to see next.

We’re bringing things back to basics. What is dating, really? It’s connecting over shared passions, mutual understanding, and finding someone you can comfortably be your most authentic, true, weird-little self with. At its core, it’s just a permutation of friendship!

Traditional dating apps are massive pools of singles that reward homogeneity—where being conventionally attractive or “cool” takes priority. For anyone who's introverted or neurospicy, IRL dates can often feel too intimidating or uncomfortable. That’s why we’re building a life raft for anyone who’s felt “othered” by those apps.

We believe that at the end of the day, the best dating app isn’t a dating app at all– it’s just a good, low-pressure party where you can have fun and meet new people.

Goblins connects people over shared love for gaming, in the virtual spaces where they’re already comfortable, allowing connections to evolve naturally from there.

Many have already met partners and best friends through games serendipitously, so imagine the magic when those connections are intentional!

As a publicist & marketer, relationships and connections are inherently part of my DNA but I’d never coded anything before. But I taught myself FlutterFlow and built our MVP. Unfortunately sometimes the app would work, but mostly, it wouldn’t. Luckily it was right around then that I’d found a tremendous full-stack engineer who loved the idea so much; she built our beta in her free time last year.

Make sure you’re building to solve a problem you’re obsessed with, something you feel so deeply in your bones it keeps you up at night. As a tech founder, you’re going to face immeasurably difficult obstacles and when you hit those rough patches, common sense, logic, and statistics will be screaming at you to quit. That strong “why” will be what motivates you to put your head down and work even harder, because if you’re just chasing wealth, there are much easier ways to make money!

Trello, and now Asana. As someone with AuDHD, I had to develop processes to optimize my focus and make sure I was never dropping balls at work in my professional or personal life.

I wrote out my process here, I’m flattered that a few folks have credited it as totally saving the way they function in the world.

Head on over to LikeGoblins.com!

We’re not currently fundraising but I’m always eager to connect with people who are passionate about ways to address the loneliness epidemic, celebrating neurodiversity, or just generally building cool shit.