Gen Z is the loneliest generation of all time – this app aims to change that

Lili Vogelsang is 32 and has made at least three pivots in her career so far. However, fundamentally, the entrepreneur always wanted and still wants the same thing: to solve annoying problems. Problems that aren't as existential as food, housing, or education – but are simply annoying for those affected. And above all: the problems are extremely widespread.

Initially, Vogelsang addressed certain pubic hair issues. With Sentou, she founded a D2C business that marketed skin care lotions under the slogan "Selfcare for down there." Razor burn in the intimate area, pimples, rashes, ingrown hairs – she wanted to remedy all of these. To achieve this, Vogelsang gave up a promising career in strategy consulting.

And for this, she repeatedly received well-intentioned criticism from mentors and investors. She was, after all, a founder with so much potential. "Intimate lotion – Lili, don't you want to do something else?"

No, she didn't want to. Sentuo was her baby, after all, but then a new business was born by accident. Vogelsang studied the topic of effective networking and wrote a book about it, "Soul Talk: The Art of Good Questioning."

And that, in turn, led to the next thing: Now Lili Vogelsang wants to help Gen Z members who struggle to find new friends. With an app that's like "Duolingo for social skills."

Vogelsang is once again sitting in a Berlin café, talking. Just as she has spoken to Gründerszene about her companies in similar settings in the past: calmly, but full of energy for what she does. Full of warmth, yet still from the sober perspective of an entrepreneur. It's hard not to become a fan of Lili when you listen to her.

This has also happened to thousands on TikTok. As "Lilicurious," Vogelsang has almost 130,000 followers, her videos have been viewed almost seven million times, and she's often recognized on the street: "Oh, I love watching your videos," people say. And: "It's always like talking to a friend."

Friend. That's the key word. Despite everything Vogelsang has done and learned professionally over the past few years, there's one thing she's always been: a good friend to her circle of people. She seems to be something of a natural at it; at one of our previous meetings, she talked a lot about the important friendships in her life, and it seems she's never had a hard time building and maintaining them.

She also mentions her circle of friends in her TikToks – and then finds such sad comments underneath: "How did you manage to find these friends? I feel so alone!" "The more I talked about friendship, the more messages like that I received," Vogelsang says.

What the entrepreneur observes is a phenomenon that has now been fairly well researched: Gen Z is incapable of friendship. They are the loneliest generation of all time. Almost half of the respondents to a Bertelsmann Foundation study , 45 percent, reported feeling very or at least "moderately lonely" in the spring of 2025.