In a follow-upconversation with Jordan Scott, the 25-year-old founder of a dating website, idk tonight, she talks about launching an app amidst a New York business shut down, the forgotten world of couples, and how to actually get shit done.
2020 was supposed to be a great year for Jordan Scott.
In 2019, Scott and her team had silently been working on a new type of app for couples called COBBLE. Built for “life after the swipe”, the premise was simple. Take a traditional dating app like Tinder, but instead of swiping on single people to date, you swipe on experiences; like dinner at Panna II, a paint and wine night, or a movie night at home. If you and your partner both swipe right on the same experience, you get a MATCH, and an option to put the date on the calendar for the both of you.
“Couples’ wellness doesn’t fall into the self-care umbrella. We don’t discuss the fact that when our relationships are not feeling 100%, nothing else feels 100%.
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The Time All of New York Business Shut Down
As Cobble prepared for an eventful 2020 launch, Scott began reaching out to investors. All seemed to be moving along until the entire world and all of New York business shut down in March. “We started investor meetings the first week of March. On March 14th, everything crumbled. The investors we had spoken to could not think about anything but their businesses”.
On top of that, as the city entered a shutdown, traffic to idk tonight dropped completely. Couples weren’t looking for fun date ideas anymore, nor were they exploring neighborhoods or finding places to eat. Within the span of one month, Scott’s two businesses had flipped upside down.
“Those were the most intense weeks of work… I didn’t really have idk tonight anymore and had already spent too much money on building Cobble. Nothing about it felt ready, but Covid forced me to launch anyway”.
After pivoting to include “stay at home” content, Scott and her team launched in June, just in time for outdoor dining. Launching to her already established customer base of couples from the idk tonight readership, the app has already garnered over 240,000 date night swipes. The reason for the app’s success? Content.
“I really do think though that when you look at a brand like Glossier, that started as the blog, Into the Gloss, or how we grew Cobble, that started with idk tonight, the best way to build a successful product is to build the audience first. That way, you build for the audience, and not what you want.”
Jordan Scott (top left) and her team worked virtually through the Pandemic.
Maybe 2020 is looking to be a pretty good year for Jordan Scott after all.
Here’s How You Can Get Your Idea Started
Every time we speak to an entrepreneur, we ask for tangible advice for our readers. Here are Jordan’s tips for someone looking to bring their idea to life:
Set a Hard and fast rule — Look at your calendar for the week. Hardass block off one hour for each day. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
Brain Dump – Open a Google doc and just start writing down any ideas, for an event or anything. Whatever. Set a timer on your phone, and you cannot stop until the timer goes off. And if you keep doing it – the shit will come. It will happen. You’ll find yourself going over the timer. You’ll find yourself editing that video. But it does start with a blank piece of paper.
Be a big believer in just doing it. If you have a lot of interests, content is a nice way in. Find a way to be weird and different in doing what you want. That is the only thing that sticks out. What’s your differentiator? Start filming yourself. Start writing. Content is level one. Then the audience comes. Then the product.
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Earlier this month, Mayor De Blasio announced an ambitious amount of vaccinations in New York City. A whopping ONE MILLION dollars…I mean, vaccinations. PS – if you don’t get the reference, check it here. Here’s everything you need to know about the Coronavirus Vaccine.
“We are going to expand our hospitals, clinics, neighborhoods across the city. Our goal is upwards of 250 locations citywide. This is going to be a massive effort, part of the largest single vaccination effort in the history of NYC. It’s going to take a lot of work.” – Mayor DeBlasio
But, things aren’t quite that simple.
Originally, the US had lofty goals of distributing over 20 million vaccinations by the end of 2020. According to the CDC, only 12.4 million vaccine doses have been distributed, and only 2.8 million people inoculated.
Bottlenecks, Bottlenecks, Bottlenecks.
Why? For starters, bottlenecks in production. Earlier this summer, glass vials, cargo planes, dry ice, and even wooden pallets were some of the items on backorder that would slow things down. Plus, no game plan. Distribution was left to hospital and health officials who were already overwhelmed by patients.
Who’s to say what will happen in the next month?
The new stimulus package allots another $8 billion in funding for vaccine distribution. In the meantime, we’ll be keeping our masks on, hands sanitized, and socializing through Zoom with our cat.
As for vaccine plans for 2021?
Expect another 125 vaccine sites to pop up by the end of the month, 24/7 vaccine facilities (we are currently operating during the week only), and additional groups to be vaccinated in phase two including police officers, firefighters, teachers, pharmacists, and grocery store workers.
In this article, we’ll be tackling all the questions you have about the Coronavirus vaccine, such as – Is the Coronavirus vaccine safe? Will I be able to take the vaccine? Do I have to pay for the vaccine? Fasten your seatbelts folks, because you’re in for a ride.
Editor’s Note: This article was created with the help of Danielle Deschaine, a Pharma marketing executive working on the distribution of two Coronavirus vaccines.
Here’s some more resources from our Corona series:
First off, let’s start from the beginning. What is a vaccine?
According to the Center For Disease Control (CDC), vaccines contain the same germs that cause the disease. Vaccines have germs that have been, “killed or weakened to the point that they don’t make you sick. A vaccine tricks your immune system into producing antibodies that act as your body’s defense.
Ok, I Slept Through High School Biology. Explain the Coronavirus Vaccine.
We promise, there’s a point to all of this!
Let’s create a parallel world with football.
Imagine you’re playing against a team called, oh let’s say the “Covid-19ers”. They’ve been absolutely crushing every team this season and somehow, your coach has managed to get their old playbook.
Let’s call this playbook the, “Vaccine”. This book has every single play, strategy, team member, strength, and weakness that the team has ever used.
“Pfizer and Moderna have estimated that they will have enough to vaccinate, at most, 22.5 million Americans by year’s end, with the required two doses, a few weeks apart” – NYT
Now, your coach (who’s been an expert for years and years) studies the playbook and knows exactly how the Covid-19ers think, play, and operate. In fact, she’s studied hundreds of playbooks of hundreds of other teams.
She helps to devise a strategy for your team – when to run and shoot offense, and what plays to use based on that foundational knowledge vetted by thousands of other football experts.
Having the playbook is an essential tool for your team to understand your opponent, develop a defense strategy, and beat the team. Having the vaccine is an essential tool for your bodyto understand Covid-19, and develop antibodies to the virus. Think of the playbook as the vaccine, and your “coach” as the global medical team of experts behind the vaccines. What up, Fauci!
What’s so special about the Coronavirus Vaccine?
Now, to make things a little more complicated, the Covid-19 vaccine is a Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine. The mRNA tells our cells to make a clone of the spike on top of the coronavirus – which triggers our immune system. This would be like, not only has your team studied the playbook, it made a clone of the Covid-19ers‘ head quarterback to beat its own team.
The Pfizer BioNTECH vaccine has proven to have nearly a 95% success rate after the second dosage. The efficacy also seems to work equally amongst older, obese, black, white and latino candidates as well.
Science, amirite?
How long have vaccinations been around?
Vaccinations have been around for over 100 years. Prior to vaccines, the average life expectancy of a human being was 35 years old, meaning half of Williamsburg’s emotionally unavailable single population would have been 6 feet under instead of texting you 6 days later.
Today, the average life expectancy in the United States is 78.7 years. You can thank vaccines for that. Tuberculosis, Measles, Diphtheria, Polio, and Yellow Fever were all diseases that would have cut off the life expectancy had it not been for vaccines.
If we continue to allow Coronavirus to spread the way it is, you can expect over 40 million people to die.
Ask an Expert: How do vaccines work?
Dr. Kizzmekia S. Corbett is an American immunologist, research fellow, and the scientific lead for the Coronavirus Vaccines & Immunopathogenesis Team at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Vaccine Research Center (VRC). Her team is responsible for the research that led to Moderna’s vaccine. She had this to say about vaccines:
“They work in two ways. They prevent you from being sick and prevent transmission in the community. Herd community can only be achieved effectively by vaccination. People have doubts about the process, but the vaccine concepts that are put into Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson, and Johnson and etc.. the actual sequence of the protein that is being used to vaccinate people, we worked on that sequence for 6 years since I got to the National Institute for Health
Listen to Dr Corbett discuss her thoughts on the vaccine via Ense
Because we understand so much about how to make the right immune response for Coronaviruses, this is why we are seeing 90% efficacies…which are just astonishing efficacy rates for any vaccine. They’re reviewed by a diverse panel of experts external to the company who have nothing but the best interests of mankind“.
How many Coronavirus Vaccines are in Production?
In the United States, there are currently two vaccines in production – Pfizer and Moderna. In total, there are five U.S.-backed candidates in phase three trials including Astra-Zeneca and Johnson and Johnson.
Coronavirus vaccines require two shots to be taken within two weeks of each other. Pfizer and Moderna estimate that they will be able to create an additional 60 to 70 million doses by January. The UK started its first dosages on December 8th with the Pfizer-Biontech vaccine.
Why should we trust this rushed vaccine?
The Coronavirus vaccine isn’t “rushed” in the traditional sense.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) publicly rallied AGAINST rushing the science. Two months of follow-up safety data required for the vaccine application is actually more than is traditionally required!
A lot of what COVID has done is strip away a lot of the process-driven inefficiencies of vaccine development and push resources towards this vaccine on a global scale. While the strain of Covid-19 is new, the formulation of the vaccine is based on a foundation of vaccine knowledge that has been going on for years.
“The actual sequence of the protein that is being used to vaccinate people, we worked on that sequence for 6 years since I got to the National Institute for Health.
Dr. Kizzmekia S. Corbett, American immunologist
In an oversimplified analogy, think of the Apple team of developers making a new update for the Apple iOS system. They are building updates and fixing bugs based on past iOS systems, not relearning coding from scratch for each update. Experts are building off the foundational knowledge of vaccines and coronaviruses from years prior.
The biggest hurdles for the Coronavirus vaccine in regards to FDA approval are actually production capabilities, not testing.
Moderna has not brought a single drug to market. How can we trust this rushed vaccine?
How will NY prioritize who gets the vaccine? I want one ASAP.
In the United States, each state and health system will decide on their own guidelines as to which groups get priority vaccinations. The CDC recommends:
Senior citizens in nursing homes (they have accounted for 39% of deaths nationwide)
Healthcare workers and essential personnel like those who work in schools, emergency responders, police officers, grocery workers, corrections officers, public transit workers, and others whose jobs make it hard or impossible to work from home. (85 million people)
Adults with medical conditions that put them at high risk of coronavirus infection, such as diabetes or obesity, and everyone over 65
Vaccine Priority Chart – Coronavirus Vaccine
In New York, Governor Cuomo has suggested:
At risk, older people over the age of 65 in nursing homes
Healthcare professionals and essential workers
Black, brown, Asian, Undocumented, and high-risk populations (such as those living in NYCHA public housing). Governor Cuomo issued a letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services to include these communities to be covered by the vaccine.
The priority, of course, will be the medical professionals. We need to protect medical workers and those on the front lines first to ensure they can keep us all safe.
Regular folks like you and I will be waiting for vaccines as they amp up production. Dr Fauci estimates vaccinations for the general public will not start until April 2021.
When will life return to “normal”?
In order for life to return to “normal”, we need to have herd immunity, or have over 70% of the population needs to be vaccinated.
There are many variables, but the general consensus can be summed up by Dr. Bob Wachter, a Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at UCSF. He expects over 150 million people by June 21, and the entire US by December 21, 2021.
*Please note the CDC does not explicitly give a date beyond “the first vaccines will be available before the end of the year,” so you can hang up your party hats.
What are the negative side effects of the Coronavirus?
Coronavirus vaccine side effects have been documented as follows:
Pain at the injection site (typical of many vaccinations)
Pfizer is preparing the full findings to be published for peer review (the FDA is already reviewing).
No serious safety concerns were observed in their trial of 43,000+ participants.
Moderna noted that there were no serious safety concerns in their 30,000 person trial either, but that the lesser side effects more commonly happened after the second dose. Studies on children or pregnant women have not been done yet, so we aren’t sure of the side effects.
Will the coronavirus vaccine lift travel bans?
America is unlikely to take any drastic action until our caseload is under control and we’ve reached herd mentality.
We need to vaccinate the health care workers, the vulnerable, and essential workers GLOBALLY. That will ultimately be how we keep folks the safest – vaccinate those most at risk and the rest of us patiently wait our turn. So, short answer: Unclear but candidly really not a priority for anyone to figure that out right now.
Do I need to pay for the Coronavirus Vaccine?
Short answer: MAYBE. Long Answer: It’s complicated. See below.
The CARES act has designated the COVID 19 vaccine as a preventative health service. Anyone with insurance would get it covered 100%, full-stop.
The government has been brokering deals to ensure the Coronavirus vaccine is affordable. Individual drug makers are making deals with other countries to sell it for under 40$ a dose. The Flu vaccine actually costs 67$ a dose, for reference!
Read up on health insurance plans to see what’s covered. Medicare and Medicaid are aiming to make coverage affordable. The uninsured (or underinsured) will be vulnerable to price gouging, and may not be able to afford it at all.
In the meantime, wear your masks, avoid small and large gatherings and stay safe. We have a long winter ahead of us but, with some old school New York grit, we’ll make it out together.
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Holidays are a great time to connect with friends and family, however, stress during the holidays is real! This year with a pandemic raging on, there’s more stress during the holiday season than ever before.
Here’s some more resources from our Corona series:
Maybe this is your first time being alone during a holiday, because you can’t travel to be with loved ones; it’s a really unique and challenging time (take it from me, I spent both Eid holidays on my own this year). Maybe you are with your family or loved ones for the holidays, but looming shut-downs and quarantine can add extra layers of stress within a family unit or between partners. Whatever your circumstance is, here are a few things to help you manage your emotional wellness during this time.
Traditions: Rituals and family traditions help make us feel connected to each other. They also give us something to look forward to, something that we know will give us joy. So, even if you are apart from family – try to keep up with family traditions. If you always wear a new pajama set for a family breakfast on Christmas Day, do that over Zoom or Skype (make sure to wear the pyjamas!). This is also a great time to start new traditions with yourself. If you’re alone, think of something new you want to add to your Christmas holiday tradition – whether it’s going to visit the Christmas tree in your city, writing a letter to yourself, or making a holiday-themed meal and drink.
Find rituals of joy: Make time to find a few things to do that you do purely for the sake of joy, something you can get lost in. Things like puzzles, crosswords, or adult colouring pages are great for this! Think of the things that you used to love doing as a child, and then do them!
Connect with loved ones through technology: Streaming platforms now allow for multiple people to watch the same thing together, but virtually, like Netflix Party or Amazon Prime Watch Party. Watch holiday movies with friends and family. AirBnb also offers a ton of fun virtual experiences you can go to as groups, such as virtual cocktail making or pottery (you can have the pottery kit for two sent to you by mail). Host a virtual game night with friends, and play conversational games like “we’re not really strangers”.
It’s okay if you don’t feel happy and joyful the whole time.
Stress During the Holidays is real, so make sure to start with yourself
If you are able to be with family or chosen family, you may still need a stress management plan. Even though we may love our families, the holidays + the pandemic may amp up stress levels for everyone. Try these strategies to minimize any conflicts.
Keep up with self-care: Continue to do things that ground you and make you feel better. Make sure to protect time for your self-care activities at least once a day.
Maintain boundaries: It is really important to communicate boundaries with family. This is challenging, so familiarize yourself with some strategies (such as using “I” Statements), and then adjust them to fit your family’s style. You can set boundaries on a number of topics, how much time you spend together, discussions around relationship status or politics, body image and food habits, and lifestyle choices. Help your family see that maintaining healthy boundaries are helpful for everyone! This applies to you as well, respect other people’s boundaries. If you know of trigger-topics for a sibling or parent, try to avoid bringing it up.
Spend quality time: This has been an exceptionally challenging year, and the thing we’ve learned the most is that we need each other. We need our communities. Stress during the holidays culminates in ways we don’t even realize, so try to plan activities that don’t include watching TV, and instead try to deepen your connection to others. This can include looking at old photos and videos, nostalgia creates emotional tenderness. Get curious about each other, learn more about your parents or grandparents. Have a story circle and talk about your reflections on the year: What was your best moment? What was your lowest moment? What’s something you learned about yourself this year? What are you most grateful for this year? Holidays are a great time to play fun games with each other as well!
The science is out there, too much time on social media has an impact on our mood.
Generally:
Financial boundaries: Maintain a budget around gifts. Gifts are not inherently part of the holiday season, they are meant to be an expression of love. So, if you’re tight on cash or want to stay within budget, do handmade cards or gifts that you can make. You could also do a Secret Snowflake/Secret Santa with your family and friends.
Social media boundaries: Since we’ve been home-bound, we are all spending more time scrolling on social media. The science is out there, too much time on social media has an impact on our mood. Try to maintain a healthy daily limit on how much time you spend on socials. Also, if you feel triggered and start to compare your holiday plan with others, definitely sign-off. Social comparisons impact our emotional health and are really easy to slip into. If you find yourself in that mind space, take out a piece of paper or the notes app on your phone and list out all the good things in your life that you love (big and small).
Accept how you feel: It’s okay if you don’t feel happy and joyful the whole time. We put a lot of pressure on holidays, thinking it will look and feel like a Hallmark movie. However, this has been a wild year, so be open to all your feelings. Know that you can hold more than one feeling at the same time, you can be happy and grateful for your health AND sad about being away from your family at the same time. It’s okay if you feel angry on some days about COVID, and content and happy the other days about being with your loved ones. Try not to morally judge how you feel, there are no “good” and “bad” feelings. Always remember: feelings are temporary and feelings are not facts. Acknowledge the difficult emotions, sit with them for a little bit, and then move on with your day.
Keep a routine: You may be off work for a few days, or not working at all. It is really important to keep a routine during your days, even if it’s a flexible one. Some important daily milestones are:
Sleeping and waking up around the same time each day
Making sure to eat healthy and nutritious food around the same time and staying hydrated
Getting at least 10 minutes of movement each day
Always remember: feelings are temporary and feelings are not facts. Acknowledge the difficult emotions, sit with them for a little bit, and then move on with your day.
No matter where or how you spend the holiday, remember that the holiday is just one part of the year, and it doesn’t have to be perfect. Go into this holiday season with an open mind and a desire to feel more connected to yourself and the people in your life. After all, those are the things that matter the most, this year and every year!
