Welcome to our Ecosystem Highlight series, where you’ll meet the innovators in our vast ecosystem of startup builders from across Florida, who are actively solving some of the world’s greatest challenges. We interviewed Mike Chahinian, Founder & CEO of Krew Social, the world’s first enterprise belonging platform — we help members of large organizations find their people so they don’t leave.

What were you doing previously, and what inspired you to join, launch, or help grow your company?

I drove Navy destroyers, then desks — at Citigroup after my MBA at NYU Stern, and later at the Defense Innovation Unit, the Pentagon’s startup office.

The idea found me during my own military transition. I left the Navy for business school and arrived in New York months before classes began, knowing no one. I discovered that making friends as an adult is one of the hardest ordinary things a person can do, and that technology was not providing the answer.  Meetup would put 50 people in a room, not tell you who to talk to in that room, and limit you to the organizer’s one event per month.  Then there were face-swiping apps that didn’t make sense for friendship. Nothing facilitated friendship the way it’s naturally made — small groups with a lot in common doing what they love together frequently.  I sat on the idea for years until COVID, when what had been my personal frustration became a national crisis, and I had to act.

What pain point is your company solving? What gets you excited to go to work every day?

Only 21% of employees are engaged, costing the global economy $10 trillion per year, and having ONE best friend at work boosts engagement seven-fold (Gallup). Loneliness costs U.S. employers $154 billion a year in absenteeism alone, 62% of employees feel it (Cigna), and the Surgeon General estimated it has the same health impact as smoking 15 cigarettes per day. In healthcare it’s the strongest predictor of nurse burnout, and replacing one nurse runs $61,000. Yet when Tampa General went to SXSW looking for an employee belonging solution, they came back empty-handed. That gap between the size of the problem and the absence of solutions is the biggest I’ve seen in any market.

The answer isn’t more digital connection — it’s less. So we built the opposite of a feed: a map of real hangouts near you, with an algorithm showing who you have the most in common with at each one, and what you have in common.  So no more wondering which events to go to or who to talk to once you get there.  And users can create their own safe hangouts with colleagues.  Studies show it takes seven strong relationships to keep someone at an organization, and we get people to seven fast.

What gets me excited are all the people who have thanked us for making their lives better, many of whom have testimonials on our Instagram or App Store reviews.  For example, a guy named Luke approached me at a serve project hosted on the platform.  He said he moved to Tampa from Oregon before the holidays, his company was shutting down for two weeks, and he didn’t know what he was going to do.  Then someone on Krew invited him to a white elephant potluck, and it was one of the best Christmases of his entire life. He needed one door into a room of people who wanted him there, and we were the door.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced in helping build or scale the company? How did you overcome it?

My original plan was a standard consumer launch, but that would have required millions of dollars in investor capital when skepticism towards social apps was at an all-time high.  Then I realized I would love to have this in any organization I was part of — company, church, university, apartment building, and there were already dramatic studies showing the bottom-line benefits of friendship in each case, especially for retention.  Then the problem became which verticals should a tiny company focus on first.  That involved talking to many leaders in each area, and seeing where the problem is most urgent. 

A breakthrough moment came when we met with Tampa General Hospital at their Embarc office hours shortly after they were moved by a series of loneliness sessions at SXSW.  It turned out they couldn’t find a company there to help them.  They jumped on it right away, invested in us via TGH Ventures to make the features needed for enterprises nationwide, and the rest is history.  Ironically, we had applied to pitch at SXSW that year but were turned down.  Due to TGH’s support and the crisis of burnout and turnover in healthcare nationwide, we decided to focus on hospitals as one of our early verticals. 

Where do you see your company headed next?

In addition to the intense interest from Tampa General, we have received substantial interest from advocates for vulnerable populations, starting with a meeting with a state representative at Embarc during which she said populations such as veterans need this before she even saw our demo.  It was another wonderful God moment. 

That led to State Senator Darryl Rouson and State Representative Berny Jacques supporting a project to supply Krew Social to all of Florida’s 1.4 million veterans for suicide prevention.  It turns out that suicidal ideation, PTSD, and depression are all closely tied to loneliness.  Tragically, veterans commit suicide at a rate double the national average, totaling 17 every day, making suicide prevention the federal VA’s top priority.  The project was approved by the Florida Senate for $350,000 several months ago, but didn’t pass the House or make it into the final bill. 

Although the state project didn’t work out this year, the connections we made along the way opened the door to three federal grants, from the VA, the Department of War, and the National Institutes of Health.  The VA grant would be in partnership with Florida Veterans Coalition, one of Florida’s top veterans services organizations.  Meanwhile, two of USF’s top mental health researchers want to collaborate with us on clinical trials via the DoW and NIH.  We were introduced to them by a USF representative we met at Embarc’s Early Venture Summit several months ago.  Arguably, the federal path is better and more scalable anyway since once results are demonstrated, we will apply for contracts with the VA and/or DoW to deploy it to all 19 million veterans nationwide.

Give us a tactical piece of advice that you’d share with someone building or growing a company.

Don’t hold onto your plan too tightly — give God room to steer you to better doors, and pray daily for direction.  There was no way I would have predicted a few years ago our initial go-to-market would be with hospitals and veterans grants, but in hindsight it actually makes a lot of sense.  Healthcare workers are more in demand than any other field, and veterans are one of the most vulnerable populations.

Why Florida?

During COVID, I traveled a lot looking for a place that felt right.  Whenever I prayed about it, I heard Florida, even though I had basically no ties here.  So I booked a trip to Tampa, and wound up falling in love with it.  We’ve been very fortunate to be embraced by the local business, government, and educational community.  As noted, Embarc has been instrumental to our growth, and we’ve benefitted greatly from their coaching as well.  We also went through the Tampa Bay Wave Accelerator.  Tampa’s largest hospital has become our anchor enterprise customer.  They are also sponsoring a case study by one of the nation’s leading organizational behavior researchers, Dr. Paul Spector at USF, who has written a textbook with several editions on the subject.  Nationally renowned mental health innovation and suicide prevention researchers at USF are sponsoring our veterans clinical trials.  Recently, the Tampa Chamber of Commerce has named us a Finalist for their Startup of the Year award.  And I’ve met a lovely woman whom I’ve married, so all in all, I think Tampa has worked out pretty well 🙂

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