Alicia Khelili was on the verge of leaving Luxembourg when she came up with her social app Peaszy.
We’ve all been there. You land a job in Luxembourg, attend after-work aperos with colleagues, the weekend comes and you find yourself alone.
A 2015 Eurostat study recorded Luxembourg as having the second-highest proportion of residents who have no-one to ask for help. And the devastating extent of isolation and its impact on mental health is starting to become known, thanks to studies conducted during the pandemic.
“I’m a very sociable person. I really like going out and being surrounded by friends,” says Alicia Khelili, a French national who studied in Luxembourg and worked there for two-and-a-half years. “In Luxembourg, I had difficulty meeting people outside of work. I didn’t feel I belonged.”
Two years ago she was on the verge of leaving when covid hit and the spark of an old idea began to grow into something more. “I had a lot of time to do research and I discovered that Luxembourg is the loneliest country in Europe. I realised I wasn’t alone in this situation and decided to do something about it,” she recalls.
Khelili tried social matching platforms but none quite met the needs of her generation or interest areas. So she built her own. Working with an app development agency in Paris, she created Peaszy, an AI app which matches people through an automatic activity organisation system.
“I don’t want people to feel pushed to do anything. But if from a friendship a love story is born, I’m super happy about it.”
Alicia Khelili
“Let’s say you update your profile with a bit of your lifestyle and a bit of your personality. From there, you will have the choice to be matched to a group of people or just one person, based on your common interests,” she explains.
The platform can organise the activity, be it a brunch at a partner venue, laser tag, a movie or stand-up comedy, for instance. Subscribers also have the opportunity to organise their own activities which users can be matched to. The app meanwhile has a map so that last-minute social butterflies can see in real-time what activities are being hosted and where, based on their personality, interests and other filters. While still in the testing stage, initial results are positive, with Peaszy helping form new friendships and, in one case, a couple. “I don’t want people to feel pushed to do anything. But if from a friendship a love story is born, I’m super happy about it,” the entrepreneur says.
Khelili finally quit her job in autumn 2021 to run the startup full-time with the support of the University of Luxembourg incubator and her small team. In May, Peaszy will launch a beta test with the final version expected to go live in September 2022. “The goal is for it to be global. I would like to have Peaszy everywhere so that people feel that they belong,” says the entrepreneur.
The journey so far has been exhilarating. “It’s been the best decision of my life. There are some moments that are difficult. When I’m a bit down I write about them because I think it’s important to have this vision. Also, because it’s easy to compare yourself to other entrepreneurs. But how can you compare your journey to someone who is four years ahead of you? I’m still trying to learn how to separate this vision.”
Anyone interested in being a beta tester can register on the landing page of Peaszy.com
