How a Female Founder Builds Real Human Connection Beyond the Swipe | Show notes for episode 149 with Marsha Goei – Women Disrupting Tech

Endless swiping, getting ghosted, and no real dates to show for it.

Most dating apps are built to keep you engaged, not to help you meet. Which raises the question: what would a dating app look like if it actually got people on their first date?

In this episode, I sit down with Marsha Goei, one of the founders behind Breeze. Instead of optimizing for swipes and chats, Breeze is built to get people off the app and into real-life dates.

Marsha also shares what it takes to build as the only woman in a team with six male co-founders, from navigating team dynamics to growing as a person alongside the company.

And then there is the strong parallel between dating and building a company. She highlights that choosing a co-founder or investor comes with the same mix of trust, vulnerability, and hard conversations.

If you want to understand what it takes to build something deeply human in a system that rewards the opposite, hit play below to listen to the episode. Or scroll down for the key takeaways.

3 Lessons From This Conversation

Picture of Marsha Goei on the artwork of episode 149 of the podcast Women Disrupting Tech, which features an interview with her. The episode is titled ‘How a Female Founder Builds Real Human Connection Beyond the Swipe with Marsha Goei.’

Breeze didn’t try to incrementally improve what other dating apps were already doing. They challenged the assumptions behind them and made different choices from the start.

1. If you build a dating app, make sure people actually date

Marsha points out the core issue with most dating apps. They are designed around swiping and chatting, not around meeting. So people stay active in the app, but rarely go on actual dates. Breeze made a different choice. The goal is simple: get people to meet in real life. That decision shapes everything, from how matches work to how quickly you move people offline.

2. You don’t need to build a dating app to test it.

Instead of starting with code, the team tested behavior. They showed paper profiles on campus, matched people manually, and organized dates through WhatsApp and Excel. It sounds basic, but it answered the only question that mattered: will people actually show up? That proof came before any product was built.

3. Building with seven co-founders requires investments in relationships

Most teams, and investors, would see seven founders as a risk. Breeze treated it as something to manage deliberately. Monthly sessions focused on direct feedback and honest conversations were not optional. They were part of how the company operates. That structure made it possible to move fast without things breaking underneath.

These lessons show that building real human connections doesn’t stop at the product. It shapes how you test your ideas and how you build your team.

Feel free to share the episode with someone who needs to hear this.

Or scroll down for magic moments.

Highlights and timestamps

Time	Highlight
00:00	Introduction
02:20	Introduction to Marsha Goei and Breeze
05:22	The Journey to Entrepreneurship
07:58	Building Breeze: The Concept of a Dating App
11:14	Safety Features and User Commitment in Dating
14:11	Validating the Breeze Concept
17:05	From Concept to App Development
19:55	Business Model Evolution and User Experience
23:00	Design Philosophy and User-Centric Approach
25:56	Success Metrics and User Feedback
29:06	Navigating Gender Dynamics in Entrepreneurship
35:18	Building a Feedback Culture
38:24	The Shift from Family to Team
41:11	Navigating Roles and Responsibilities
45:07	The Journey of Self-Discovery
52:39	Recognizing and Overcoming Burnout
57:17	The Role of Investors in Growth
1:03:55	Empowering Female Founders through Community

3 Magic Moments In The Episode

Marsha mentions that the team even received cards from couples who had a baby after going on a first date through the app. It is, of course, the ultimate way of validating your product. And the ultimate magical moment of the episode. But her story goes deeper.

1. Building a company before you know your role

Marsha shares that she is the only one in the founding team working in a role that matches her studies. Others, including the CFO, started in completely different roles, like front-end development, despite backgrounds in fields like electrical engineering. It reflects how they started while still in university, figuring things out as they went. Roles were not predefined. They emerged based on what the company needed at the time.

2. Being willing to look a bit weird to understand the problem

At one point, Marsha says, “I think especially as young founders and early stage, you just have to get out there and not be afraid to make a fool of yourself or to bother other people trying to understand the problem.” That mindset shows up in how they approached validation. It’s a reminder that understanding a problem deeply often starts with doing things that feel uncomfortable.

3. Radical vulnerability as a foundation for founder trust

Marsha describes moments where co-founders openly share personal stories, including childhood experiences, to better understand each other’s triggers and strengths. These conversations are not occasional. They are part of how the team operates. It shows how trust at that level is not accidental, but something you build deliberately.

These moments show that building something that works in the real world starts with how you show up as a founder, not just what you build.

What was your favorite moment from the episode? Let me know in the comments!

Practical Takeaways for Founders

Building a product that works in the real world requires a team that can operate at a high level. In this conversation, Marsha shares what it takes to move from an early-stage “family” to a team that can actually win.

1. At some point, you need to move from “family” to performance

Marsha explains that early teams often feel like a family. Everyone supports each other and roles are fluid. But as the company grows, that model starts to break. You need to shift toward a team mindset, where expectations are clear and performance matters. Not to lose the culture, but to make sure the company can keep moving forward.

2. Structure your conversations so every voice is heard

As discussions become more intense, communication style starts to matter. Breeze introduced a simple rule: everyone gets a turn to speak without interruption. It creates space for different perspectives and prevents dominant voices from taking over. It sounds small, but it changes how decisions get made.

3. Clarity is what keeps people sane as you scale

As the team grows, ambiguity becomes a problem. Marsha highlights the importance of clearly defined roles and expectations, especially after the first 10 hires. People need to know what is expected of them and how success is measured. Without that clarity, performance drops and frustration builds.

These takeaways show that building a winning team is not about motivation alone. It is about putting the right structures in place so people can perform.

Know a founder who should hear this? Use the share button below to tell them.

The Quote from the Episode

Picture of Marsha Goei with a quote from episode 149 of the podcast Women Disrupting Tech, which features an interview with her. The episode is titled ‘How a Female Founder Builds Real Human Connection Beyond the Swipe with Marsha Goei.’ The quote says, "We want to prove that you can become big with an honest business model and a product that's actually good for humans."

“We want to prove that you can become big with an honest business model and a product that’s actually good for humans.” – Marsha Goei

This line captures what Breeze is trying to do differently. Not just in dating, but in how products are built. Growth does not have to come from keeping people stuck in a system. It can come from helping them move forward in real life.

That idea shows up throughout the conversation. From getting people off the app and onto real dates, to making product decisions that prioritize outcomes over engagement. It is a reminder that scale and integrity do not have to be in conflict.

Patterns I’m Seeing Across Conversations

Part of the fun in making this podcast is that you start seeing links between what guests are saying. This episode reinforced the learnings from 3 conversations I recently had.

1. Burnout is often a signal of misalignment, not just overload

Marsha shares that her burnout was not only about working too much. It came from stepping into a management role that did not fit her natural strengths as the company scaled. That insight connects directly to my conversation with Alice Pavin, where we discussed how many founders burn out when they grow into roles that move them away from what they are actually good at. It shows that burnout can be a mismatch between your role and your strengths, not just your workload.

2. Intuition is not the opposite of data. It completes it

Marsha makes it clear that product decisions are not just about metrics. User experience is often less easy to argue up front. It’s easy to mistake for something soft that needs to be tested, which can be frustrating to hear if you spend four years learning how to design products. It ties into a similar point in my conversation with Valerie Hirschhauser, where intuition in the boardroom acts as a counterbalance to an overly data-driven approach. Data shows what is happening. Intuition helps you decide what to do with it. You need both.

3. What you measure shapes what you build

Breeze measures success by whether people go on dates, not by how long they stay in the app. That decision changes how the product is designed. It took me back to episode 144, where Christine Miller shares that technology reflects the incentives and assumptions behind it, and over time shapes behavior. The metric is never neutral. It defines the outcome.

These patterns show that the way we build products, teams, and systems is rarely about one decision. It is about the assumptions we carry across contexts.

Which of these patterns do you recognize in your own work? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Coming Up On Women Disrupting Tech

What does success actually look like when you are building in healthcare, where speed is not the priority and impact is harder to measure?

In this episode, Femke Delissen shares how building Pava.ai forced her and her co-founders to rethink what success means in the first place. Not in terms of scale or headlines, but in terms of whether the technology is truly used in a way that improves care. In the clip below, she reflects on the moment where they decided there was no longer a “plan B,” and how that led to a more deliberate definition of success.

Listen to the clip and hear what that shift sounds like in practice.

And if you’re curious how that mindset shapes everything from product to market choices, subscribe to Women Disrupting Tech and dive into the full episode.

What I Want to Leave You With

This episode is the story of a classic startup: 6 guys and a woman started building a solution to a problem that they experienced themselves while still in University.

Breeze shows what happens when you design for what people actually want, not what keeps them engaged. In a market built around swiping and chatting, they chose to focus on one outcome: getting people on a real date.

It is also a story of what happens when ambition and growth create pressure on both the team and the individual. Roles change. Expectations increase. And without the right structure, people can end up in positions that do not fit them. That is where the shift from a “family” to a team matters. Clear roles, honest feedback, and boundaries that protect both performance and people.

Marsha’s story shows that building something that works in the real world is not about clever features. It is about making consistent choices about what you optimize for, and following those choices through in your product, your role, and your team.

Hit the play button or listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.

About Marsha Goei

Marsha Goei is the Head of Brand and one of the six co-founders of Breeze, a dating app designed to get people off their phones and into real-life dates. She started the company while still in university, building a product based on the team’s own frustration with modern dating apps. From the beginning, the focus was clear: not more swipes or chats, but helping people actually meet.

She holds a Master’s degree in Strategic Product Design from Delft University of Technology, which shaped her approach to building products that balance user experience with real-world outcomes. Within Breeze, Marsha grew into a role that aligns closely with her strengths in product and brand, helping guide the company from early validation experiments to a venture-backed team with dozens of employees.

In addition to her role at Breeze, Marsha is also an Angel investor via the AtVenture Platform. You can connect with Marsha on LinkedIn.

Breeze is a dating app founded in the Netherlands with a clear starting point: technology should support real human connection, not replace it. The product is built around one core idea, taking online dating offline by helping people meet in real life as quickly as possible.

Instead of endless swiping or chatting, Breeze matches people and moves them directly toward a first date. The app organizes the logistics, including time and location, so users can focus on showing up rather than messaging. This shifts the goal from engagement in the app to real-world outcomes.

You can learn more about the app and the team on the website, where you can also find the links to download the app. On social media, you can find them on Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. And you can discover open positions on their careers site.

Listen to Episode 149 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen to our conversation on YouTube

Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend

Some great events take place this spring. Below are three that you definitely want to check out. For a full overview of all events, including links to buy tickets, please check the events page.

Featured Event – Trek XIII – 23-30 May 2026

Trek is the program for founders and funders to learn from—and connect with—Silicon Valley, the epicenter of innovation and technological disruption.

Participating offers a unique insider perspective, lots of fun, and access to the investors behind Dutch successes like Mollie, FLYR, Weaviate, and HackerOne. Previous participants have raised funding in both the U.S. and the Netherlands, found inspiration, and made new friends.

Trek is an activity by DutchTechX, which spun out from DutchTechSF—the Dutch-American entrepreneurial community. Funded by Dutch-American founders, the initiative fosters collaboration between the U.S.

The next edition will take place from May 23–30, 2026. About five spots are still available. DM the organizer, Oliver Binkhorst, or click here for more information. FAQs are available here.

I’ve done a previous version of this program, and I can absolutely recommend that female founders who are thinking about taking their business to the US follow this program to understand the ecosystem and connect to investors and founders in the Valley.

Featured Event: Understanding Women’s Health – 24 June 2026

Learn how hormone cycles or perimenopause impact your life, and discover more about conditions like PCOS or Endometriosis at the quarterly Understanding Women’s Health Events hosted by Kasia Pokrop.

Women’s health is a topic near and dear to my heart. Which is why I’m happy to support and attend the events that 3mbrace Health organizes at Equals every quarter.

Men are expressly invited to join. In fact, send me an email if you want to be a women’s health pioneer. More info and tickets can be found here.

Diverse Leaders in Tech Events

If you like being in the know about what is happening in the DEI space, Diverse Leaders in Tech is the place to be.

Every last Thursday of the month, they have monthly in-person meetups for tech people, HR leaders and supporters of diversity to exchange insights, tackle challenges, and take action. It’s a vibrant, safe space where diversity is celebrated.

You can find their events on the website. Joining your first event is free.