Hard conversations, better rooms.
Like WD-40, but for your brain. Because rusty thoughts squeak.
Same Fight, Different People
Hard conversations with your partner. With your colleague. With your dad. With the stranger on the internet you ended up arguing with at midnight. I sat through enough of them to notice: most hard conversations don’t fail because people are bad. They fail because nobody designed them to work.
Most people are exhausted, not by disagreement itself, but by how bad we’ve all become at it. By the relationships quietly hollowed out by things left unsaid, or said too hard. By the feeling that the world is sorting itself into teams, and you’re expected to pick one.
We walk into disagreements with no structure, no safety, and no way out. Then we’re surprised when it breaks. We blame the person, but we should be blaming the room. Nobody’s the villain here. Most of us just never got a better way to stay curious about someone we disagree with.
And let’s be honest. These conversations shouldn’t require nerves of steel or a philosophy degree. Just a better room, and someone willing to walk in. That’s the thing I couldn’t stop thinking about.
And then, something else. I’ve noticed the people who make it through these conversations are usually the ones who had some fun together first. So I started building something.
Meanwhile, everyone’s building the opposite.
The Word Every Platform Agrees On
Likeminded.
Community platforms. Dating apps. Friend apps. Curated brunches and AI-matched dinner tables. All of them promise the same thing: people like you. Minds like yours. No friction, no heat. Just the warmth inside the bubble. And slowly, the skill that matters most — staying curious in the room when someone sees things differently — quietly rusts.
Nobody builds for the real difference — the kind that makes your worldview wobble a little — because it’s bad for the algorithm. But we are.
The Idea
Live sessions in Amsterdam. Small groups, real disagreement, and all the fun and games you won’t see coming. You draw a card that says square wheels are the future and build the strongest possible argument for it. Sometimes the topic is ridiculous. But sometimes, it’s the one you’ve been avoiding for years.
In|Betweens treats polarisation, bias, and misunderstanding as design problems. Not moral failures. These sessions are not therapy, not a values exercise, and not a TED Talk with better snacks.
Play is the entry point. We use humour because it works and structure to keep people safe once they’re open. What happens after is the part we can’t promise. That’s the bet.
We don’t teach empathy or push you to change your mind. We design rooms that are safe and serious absurd on purpose. Rooms where being unsure shouldn’t feel like losing, and where changing your mind should feel like a normal thing to do. And if you’re not ready? ‘Pass’ is always an option.
The premise is simple: you are not your opinion. And feeling that should be a relief, not a threat. In the end, losing an argument stops costing you much. Which is when the real ones become possible.
Where We Are
In|Betweens is roughly 30% built. The rest gets figured out by running it with real people: small groups, live sessions, honest feedback. What works, stays. What doesn’t, gets fired.
Each session is one rep. Room 001 is the first. The bet: the change is what’s left after the fifth — and that’s what we’re here to find out.
~10 people, mixed views, no right answers, and no one there to win.
Want in?
Sign up and we’ll be in touch. No bots, no newsletter. Name, email, email again. Then a real human, with one question before anything’s confirmed.