We recently connected with Tomicia Blunt and have shared our conversation below.

Tomicia, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

Close Connections is a card game company created to foster connection and community through conversation. The company arose out of identifying a need in the Bay Area for making connections that went beyond the surface level. The Bay Area is a transient city, and anecdotally I’ve found the average tenure for Gen Z and Millennials transplants is 2 to 5 years. This expedited timeline positions people to always be in the business of making friends and our products are a tool to accomplish that. We spark conversation at primary connection points such as friendship, professional networking, dating, and self reflection among others. We believe that once an opportunity is created, deeper, organic conversations will arise by way of the connection that has been fostered initially through our product. As someone born and raised in the Bay Area myself, building a product that serves my community whether folks are native, or only here for a chapter, is truly fulfilling.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Historically I’ve worked as a marketing professional across industries such as tech, finance, PR, and management consulting. I received my Bachelors of Arts in Communication Studies in college, so my work uses communication theory as a lens to help people make sense of their place in the world, their relationships to one another, and their responsibility to the communities and environments they’re a part of. I’ve always been interested in entrepreneurship, as a kid I started (and failed) in so many businesses. 

With many of my ideas, I was driven off of pure passion and a hunch there was a market for it. I tried selling t-shirts, keychains, and flower crowns, among other business ideas I had. As I grew up I learned I come from a long line of entrepreneurs in my family, so I think it’s in my blood. When I had the idea for Close Connections, I acted off a need I noticed in my community, and after doing research about the market I realized my city was only a microcosm of a larger issue. Research conducted by the office of the US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, states 49% of Americans are struggling with a loneliness epidemic, and I believe that this product can be one of many tools used to help revitalize human connection in a nation teeming with issues such as depression, anxiety, and isolation. I’m really proud of what I’ve been able to do with this company as a team of one (with the incredible support of my friends and community). I am in the process of building our professional networking deck, and this game will be perfect for networking mixers, conferences, team on and offsites, as well as for universities that are seeking tools to recruit new students and revitalize connections with their student body. We look forward to developing a full product line to meet folks at their primary connection points, such as dating, self reflection, religion, family and more.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

One story that demonstrates resilience is the story of how Close Connections started. I was laid off from my role as an Associate Product Marketing Manager at Google in January 2023, and shortly thereafter in March I had the idea for our debut product Close Friends, which is our friendship and party game. During that time I fleshed out the idea for this game: what it would look like, who it was meant to serve, and grandiose ideas for marketing, obsessively for weeks. I got feedback from my friends through focus group surveys, and they all encouraged me to pursue this idea if I was serious. Although it was my first time creating a physical product with a manufacturer, I took the leap and believed in myself to start this business. This business was initially funded with money from my severance check. That money could’ve been used to pay a month of rent or for expenses in my personal life while I was job hunting, but I chose to bet on myself because I believed in this company so much and knew it could serve a greater community. Eight months later, folks are raving about our first product in the Bay Area and can’t wait for a second game to drop. This journey has been nothing short of challenging, exciting, and fulfilling and I’m so excited for where this business will go.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

In the winter of 2023, I began planning a rebrand for Close Connections, which was formerly known as Close Friends, named after our debut product. This rebrand was a necessary pivot because having a parent name for my business allows me to create more products under one cohesive name without product or competing brand confusion. This pivot is one that truly marks my foray into being a business owner, because I’m no longer someone with a single idea for a single product. I am now creating something larger than what I even initially planned for and this rebrand encapsulates the expansion that I believe Close Connections will grow into.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.closeconnections.co
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/closeconnections.co
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/tomiciamarie-blunt

Image Credits
Tomicia Blunt