Sascha Keitz is deeply familiar with FOMO (fear of missing out).
Like many young people today, she reaches for her phone first thing in the morning, scrolling through TikTok and Instagram. She’ll look at pictures of her friends hanging out, going to parties and events. Often, she would hear about cool things to do — free yoga classes! craft nights! small business markets! — but after they had already happened.
Listen to the audio edition here:
“I just felt like I was constantly missing things,” Keitz says. “I was constantly frustrated. I would Google every weekend things to do near me, what’s going on this weekend, and I’d get the same limited results.”
Keitz, who grew up in the Philly ’burbs and went to Temple during the Covid years, felt she wasn’t taking advantage of all Philly had to offer. She graduated, landed a job as a corporate event planner for a financial firm, moved to Northern Liberties and still felt like she didn’t know what was going on in the city, even after Googling “things to do Philly” week after week.
So Keitz decided to create an app that curates every event happening in the city, together with her business partner and boyfriend of three years, Steven LaGuardia.
Their app, Playdate, launched in December and has quickly amassed more than 1,340 users around Philly. It’s a social media app — people can comment on events and see what kinds of activities their friends are attending — but one that is designed to get people off their phones and interacting IRL, all while giving small businesses and their events a boost.
“What I am trying to build into the interface of Playdate is approachability. When you look at it, you should feel calm and like attending something or trying something new is an extremely low lift, not some huge commitment,” LaGuardia says. “You’re not feeling that FOMO or that you’re not in the loop on all these upcoming plans.”
Sascha Keitz and Steven LaGuardia. Founding playdate
Though Keitz had been thinking about creating something like Playdate from the time she was a college student, she and LaGuardia didn’t begin work on the app until June 2025.
They bring different skill sets to the business: LaGuardia, a software developer, created the physical app, while Keitz uses her event planning skills to help bring people onto the platform, inviting friends to act as beta testers and cold emailing businesses to invite them to post their events.
“I’m building the platform, and Sascha’s bringing people onto it,” LaGuardia says.
They started out by making a list of priorities for the app, including a grid where users could see what events businesses were hosting, the ability to see what events others were attending, and scrollability. Basically, they wanted it to feel like “any other social media app,” Keitz says.
“When I think of my generation, and my friends, and people I know who live in the city, we wake up every morning and we go on social media,” she says. “For better or for worse, we’re all checking things, we’re all tuned in, we’re all looking at what people are doing.”
“It’s really helping people find community, find like minded people, get out of their house or their apartment.” — Sascha Keitz
Friends began testing the app this fall before it went live in December. While they want Playdate’s users to get the same dopamine hit they might from scrolling TikTok or Instagram, their ultimate goal: get people off their phones, interacting IRL.
It’s a worthy goal: 54 percent of Americans feel isolated and 50 percent report lacking companionship, the American Psychological Association’s 2025 Stress in America survey found.
People are working from home more frequently. Political divisions make neighbors mistrustful of one another. Loneliness doesn’t just wear on people’s mental health; it has physical consequences, including an increased risk of heart attacks and stroke. Studies have found social media can increase feelings of solitude, especially amongst young adults.
Finding events in Philly
When you sign up, Playdate prompts you to select some interests. Maybe you’re looking for health and wellness events. Or you want to find more volunteer opportunities in the city. The options span everything from food and drink and arts and entertainment to professional networking and education opportunities.
Playdate then curates a feed for you of local events that meet those interests.There’s a home tab, which features events from businesses you follow, and a search tab, where you can search for things like “game night” or “book club.” That tab also offers a Pinterest-style feed of suggested events from businesses you don’t necessarily follow, to help you explore the city and find new things to do. It might recommend a billiards tournament or a local running or hiking group. People can save events and comment on them.
The app differs from other event curation sites, like Eventbrite, in that there’s an interactive component: people can follow their friends, send them events, see what events they’re attending and make plans to go together. If you mark that you’re interested in attending an event, Playdate will send you a reminder, so that you actually get up and go instead of bingeing Netflix on your coach at home.
Grace Samuelson, a college friend of Keitz, began using Playdate during its testing phase and has continued to use the app to help find things to do in Philly.
She says Playdate has helped her avoid getting stuck in a rut. If she’s looking for something to do, she’ll open the app and instantly find tons of options. If she wants to break up her day and get out of the house, she might go to a bakery pop up for more casual connection. Or she’s been to book meetups where she can discuss what she’s reading and build deeper relationships with others.
Playdate users enjoying each other’s company
“I’ve sent it around to people at my job, to friends and family. I think it’s something that everyone can benefit from because there are so many different businesses and types of events on there,” Samuelson says. “It’s not like relegated to one niche. There really is something for everybody.”
A few weeks ago, the app helped her find a charity mat pilates class at the Fairmount studio Midsection Connection. All of the proceeds went to Project HOME, a Philly nonprofit that fights homelessness. For Samuelson, that was a win: she was working out and helping her community.
“The new studio was really cool,” Samuelson says. “I also really liked that it had a give back component to it. It made it more meaningful.
Business owners have found the app easy to use as well and have found it’s helped folks cut through the noise of platforms like Instagram and TikTok to find and save events near them that they want to attend.
“Social media can be really saturated. We’re scrolling constantly. We might not really remember to go back and save that or look for that post that we saved,” says Allison Polans, who co-owns the plant stores STUMP in Northern Liberties and Bella Vista with her partner, Brett Wilshe. She’s been using Playdate to promote STUMP’s workshops and pop ups where other local businesses will sell homewares, jewelry or baked goods.
“Whereas in the Playdate app, it’s all there laid out. It’s really user friendly for people who are intentionally looking for things to do.”
Giving small businesses a hand
Keitz and LaGuardia started Playdate thinking they would help young people, like themselves, find things to do and make friends in the city. They’ve been delighted to hear from small businesses that Playdate has brought more people into events, which can boost sales and revenue. It’s also helping businesses connect with and support one another. So far, about 151 businesses are using Playdate.
“Small business is really the heart of Philly, and what makes Philly so special. It’s what makes each neighborhood so unique and gives people just such a sense of community,” Keitz says.
“I am so excited to keep connecting with these local businesses. It has truly opened my eyes so much to how businesses run, how businesses operate, how people are investing their life savings or livelihood to open this bookstore, to open this plant shop — whatever it is. It has been so inspiring.”
“Connection is what people are really, really searching for, and I hope that we are able to provide it in a really easy, accessible way.” — Sascha Keitz
At the end of January, Keitz organized a launch event, bringing together around 25 business owners and Playdate users to connect with one another, network and share ideas. All in all, more than 60 people attended.
“It was really like stripping it back and asking what are you experiencing? What are you looking forward to this year? What are you worried about this year?” Keitz says.
The event helped local businesses who want to host events connect with potential venues as well, says Shelby Guercio, operations manager for the board game shop, event center and all-around third space BUBs. BUBs hosts its own events — a fiber arts meet up on Tuesday nights, drop in Dungeons and Dragons sessions, a writer’s accountability group on Wednesdays — but it’s also available for folks to rent.
“It was like puzzle pieces [fitting together,]” Guercio says. “We were able to make such great connections with people who host art workshops, people who host sip and paints, people who host different types of lessons, different types of bonding events —anything like that. And I got to be like, if you ever want to do an event … we’ve got the space.”
The launch event Growing playdate
Currently, Playdate is free for both businesses and users. Keitz and LaGuardia are working on a few different plans to monetize it, perhaps adding paid features or earning revenue via referral bonuses from event ticketing sites.
They both have full time jobs, Keitz as a corporate event planner and LaGuardia in software development, so there’s not too much pressure to make money on Playdate just yet. They’ve leaned on friends and family as well: Keitz’s aunt is a graphic designer who helped with the app’s sleek, minimalist look. Her uncle is a lawyer who helped them puzzle through the legal side of things.
They’re focused on growing the number of users in Philadelphia. Keitz is based here, but LaGuardia had to move from Philly to Colorado for his full time job. They can see the app expanding organically to other cities. Maybe businesses in nearby cities like New York or Baltimore start listing events and it grows from there.
They haven’t had to use paid advertising to grow Playdate. Keitz promotes it on social media and through reaching out to business, but mostly it’s grown via word-of-mouth from users. They’ve had three consecutive weeks of 50 percent growth in their user base since launching.
“It’s really helping people find community, find like minded people, get out of their house or their apartment,” Keitz says. “We all need more of that and the fact that we’re facilitating that is really, really rewarding.”
Playdate has, in some ways, already solved the problem Keitz set out to address. It’s helped her find free workout classes nearly every weekend, including a pilates class where they brought in a nutritionist. In a few weeks, she’s going to a book launch for Philly author Nikki Castle’s new novel Love for Hire at the Broken Spine, a romance bookstore in Fairmount. Strangers have messaged her on social media, telling her that the app has helped them make friends in the city.
“You can open your phone and you can message anyone online, or you can see people hanging out. There’s something great about it, but there’s also something very isolating about it. You put your phone down and it’s like, well, did I talk to anyone in person today? Did I have any time away from my screen?” Keitz says.
“Connection is what people are really, really searching for, and I hope that we are able to provide it in a really easy, accessible way.”
MORE BUSINESS FOR GOOD FROM THE CITIZEN
Playdate users hanging out