Who this is
Lili Vogelsang studied political science in France and then worked in policy and strategy consulting, most recently preparing meetings at the German Chancellery. During the pandemic she co-founded the intimate care brand SENTOU with Felix, a co-founder she met on a matching platform. When the brand stalled after six or seven months, she became a TikTok creator: with the format "I ask one question every day" she grew to around 260,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram, and the questions turned into the Spiegel bestseller "Soul Talk: Die Kunst des klugen Fragens". Today she is building fredie, a "Duolingo for social skills": an app that helps people train how they connect with others. The mission: one million friendships.
Episodes
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FAQ
Who is Lili Vogelsang?
Lili Vogelsang is the co-founder of fredie and SENTOU, Spiegel bestselling author of "Soul Talk: Die Kunst des klugen Fragens" and a creator with around 260,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram. She studied political science in France, worked in policy consulting and started her first company during the pandemic. Ask her what she is and she says: a founder, everything else is a side note. To the episode →
What is fredie?
fredie is an app for training your social skills, in Lili's words a "Duolingo for social skills", but with explanations. The team works with a loneliness researcher and is developing its own score, the SQ. The app is built on the codebase of an existing app whose founder reached out after seeing Lili's pitch deck. At the time of recording fredie had just over 1,000 freemium users, around ten percent of them paying. The mission: one million friendships. To the episode →
What is SENTOU and why did Lili pivot?
SENTOU is the skin and hair care brand for the intimate area that Lili launched with her co-founder Felix during the pandemic, without venture capital, financed from cash flow and one or two small angels. After six or seven difficult months, Lili's own Meta ads delivered a ROAS of five to six. But by then Lili had become the person who talks about friendship and wrote a bestseller about communication, so the founder-company fit no longer worked. SENTOU now runs profitably and almost automatically on the side and helps fund fredie. To the episode →
How did Lili Vogelsang become an influencer in two months?
With nothing to lose: she started on TikTok, blocked her entire contact list so she could operate freely, and uploaded three videos a day in which she spoke openly about break-ups, dating and her mother. After about two and a half months she spontaneously recorded a video in her car promising to ask one question every day from then on. The next morning she had 40,000 new followers, a few days later around 60,000. Today it's around 260,000 across TikTok and Instagram. To the episode →
Why is Gen Z the loneliest generation, according to Lili?
Because friction is being removed everywhere and the biggest cause of friction is people: self-checkout instead of a cashier, home office, automatic check-in, a Waymo instead of an Uber driver. That removes the small interactions where social skills get trained. At the same time there are more ways than ever to meet strangers. Lili's explanation: loneliness isn't solved by another way to connect if you don't feel able to take it up. What's missing are the skills, and that's exactly where fredie comes in. To the episode →
Quotes
„Du musst ja frei erstmal operieren können. Du kannst ja jetzt nicht darüber nachdenken, ja. Scheiße, was denkt jetzt mein Ex-Freund von mir?““You have to be able to operate freely first. You can't be thinking: damn, what will my ex think of me now?”
„… ich war auf einmal diese Person, die Fragen stellt, die über Freundschaft redet, die ein Bestseller über Kommunikation geschrieben hat. What the hell machen wir gerade mit einem Intimpflegeunternehmen?““Suddenly I was this person who asks questions, who talks about friendship, who wrote a bestseller about communication. What the hell are we doing with an intimate care company?”
„Einsamkeit löst sich nicht durch ein weiteres Angebot an Vernetzung, wenn du dich nicht in der Lage fühlst, dieses Angebot an Vernetzung wahrzunehmen.““Loneliness isn't solved by yet another way to connect if you don't feel able to take that opportunity up.”
„Also unser Gehirn ist ja eine Prediction Machine. Wir sehen Dinge, die wir erwarten.““Our brain is a prediction machine. We see the things we expect.”
„… ich glaube, glücklich sein ist ein Training …““I believe being happy is something you train.”