Loneliness is one of the defining crises of our time and Maxime Barbier is building the infrastructure to fight it. In this episode, we sit down with the Co-Founder and CEO of Timeleft, the world's fastest-growing IRL-tech company, to explore how a simple dinner with strangers became a global movement.

What you'll learn in this episode:

Maxime walks us through his entrepreneurial journey – from founding MinuteBuzz to launching Timeleft in 2023 – and the hard-won lessons in between. We get into what it really takes to scale a community-driven product across 47 countries and 162 cities, why focus is the most underrated startup skill, and how Timeleft's no-profile, no-feed approach is quietly rewriting the rules of social connection.

About Timeleft:

Timeleft is on a mission to make human connection a weekly habit. Every week, the platform curates real-life social experiences – dinners, runs, coffees, drinks – bringing strangers together in 160+ cities across 45+ countries. With over 3 million users, 1.2 million Instagram followers, and 150,000 people participating every month, it's become one of the world's largest communities built entirely around in-person connection.

Topics covered:

• The loneliness epidemic and why it's getting worse
• How Timeleft works – and why it's nothing like a dating app
• Lessons from MinuteBuzz and what Maxime would do differently
• Scaling a community product to 3M+ users in under two years
• Product design principles for real-life social experiences
• The role of focus and simplicity in building impactful startups
• What the future of IRL connection looks like

Now We Build has partnered with Capquest, an equity and investor relations management platform built for founders who need to track SAFEs, manage their cap table, and keep investors updated without the spreadsheet chaos. If you're raising capital or managing equity, Capquest helps you stay organised from day one. Now We Build listeners can now get 20% off an entire annual subscription with the code nowwebuild20. Use the link here to claim the discount: https://capquest.io/book-demo

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:45 The Journey of Entrepreneurship

04:25 Lessons from MinuteBuzz to Timeleft

07:27 Navigating the French Startup Ecosystem

10:17 The Power of Persistence

13:10 The Breakthrough Moment

16:09 Scaling and Simplifying the Product

19:09 Paid Ads and Market Expansion

21:58 The Dinner Experience as Technology

24:10 The Power of Shared Experiences

28:59 Unpacking Loneliness and Human Connection

36:46 Navigating the Future of Human Interaction

38:42 Quickfire Insights and Reflections

Learn more: https://linktr.ee/nowwebuild

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Follow Maxime:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximebarbier/

Timeleft: https://timeleft.com/

Follow Sam:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-marchant/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sammrchant

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sammrchant

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