I think for marketplace businesses, and when you think about

Hear now the wisdom of Sam Yagan, who once said: “I think for marketplace businesses, and when you think about online dating, it's not a social network. It's not a place where you go to talk to people you already know; it's a place you go to interact with someone you've never met before.” In these words lies not only the design of commerce, nor the logic of algorithms—but the beating heart of human connection. He speaks of a realm where strangers cross paths not out of habit, but out of hope; where the known gives way to the mysterious; where trust must be born from risk, and possibility emerges from uncertainty.

In ancient times, merchants gathered in bustling agoras—marketplaces filled with voices unknown to one another. They came not to see old friends, but to forge new bonds, to exchange not merely goods but faith in one another’s word. So too does the online marketplace, and especially the realm of online dating, follow this eternal pattern. It is not a feast of familiarity, but an adventure into the unknown, an echo of the same courage that once drove sailors beyond sight of land. The merchant and the lover are kindred spirits—each ventures forth to meet the stranger, guided by desire, by curiosity, by the dream of something more.

Consider the tale of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. They were rulers of distant lands, their names sung in different tongues, their peoples strangers. Yet curiosity bridged the chasm. She journeyed across deserts to test his wisdom, and he received her not as a rival, but as a mystery to be known. Their meeting was not born of prior kinship—it was born of openness, of the will to learn and connect. And so the same ancient spirit breathes within Yagan’s insight: that true marketplaces of the soul—whether for love or trade—are those that draw us toward those we have never met, where discovery is both the risk and the reward.

Many walk today in the gardens of social networks, where every path leads back to the familiar faces of friends and kin. But these are safe sanctuaries, not crucibles of growth. The spirit becomes stagnant in a pool where no fresh waters flow. The marketplace, however, is the river—ever-changing, unpredictable, teeming with life unseen. To stand at its edge is to accept the trembling awe of uncertainty. To step into it is to declare: “I am ready to meet the unknown, and perhaps, through it, to find myself anew.”

Yagan’s words call us to bravery in connection. He teaches that the digital world, though built on screens and codes, is not devoid of human essence—it is, in truth, another temple of the ancient meeting ground. When you reach out to a stranger, when you offer your story, your humor, or your hope—you awaken the oldest rhythm of humanity: encounter. Every message sent into the void of the unknown is an act of faith, a prayer that somewhere out there, another soul listens.

The lesson is clear: whether in love, business, or art, we must not fear the stranger. For it is through the stranger that we expand the borders of our world. Stay too long among those who already know your name, and you risk forgetting the wonder of being discovered. Seek instead the places where you are unknown, and there you will grow. As the farmer must plant in new soil to reap new fruit, so must the heart and mind sow themselves in foreign ground.

Therefore, let each of us be a wanderer of the human marketplace. Go forth and speak to those you have never spoken to. Reach beyond your circle. Create not for those who already applaud you, but for those whose silence waits to be broken. In that reaching, you will find both connection and transformation—the essence of what it means to be alive.

And when you stand before the mirror of your own solitude, remember this: every great love, every great idea, every great alliance began as a conversation between strangers. Be not afraid to begin one of your own.