Welcome to Bullish. We write this newsletter weekly-ish — a love letter to our founding community as we learn, build, ship, and grow 🤠

This is the 38th edition of this newsletter. That is pretty cool.

Consistency builds trust. Trust is the foundation of community. We’re here, showing up, week after week, listening to the people that we are building with and for, committed to making Rodeo better every day for all of us. That is pretty cool.

It is a privilege to get to build something that makes people’s lives better, makes people feel more connected, and in so doing, makes the world a better place. That is pretty cool — and we do not take it lightly.

As always, meet us in the comments to let us know what you think of new features, programs, initiatives, and to share your ideas for what you’d like to see next.

Much love ✌️

Liz + Team Rodeo

Download Rodeo (free)

🆕 New features: Contacts + Collections

The app leveled up this week. With the new experiences coming together over the last month, it’s really starting to feel alive. I can’t wait to keep building on that momentum.

Connect your contacts! Now, you can sync your contacts to Rodeo to see which of your friends are already on the app, and add them on Rodeo. You can also easily invite friends who aren’t on the app yet — so you can use Rodeo together instead of DMing each other ideas for things to do back and forth on Instagram and TikTok for all eternity only to never do them. You’re welcome.

Collections got a major glow up. First - they have a new look, thanks to Beth and Priscilla, and the app looks absolutely FIRE 🔥 And, now you can set visibility preferences on a Rodeo Collection to be “Private” (only viewable to you or anyone you invite), “Friends” (only viewable to people you’ve added as Friends on the app), or “Public” (viewable for anyone to browse or join)!

Public Collections now also live on your Rodeo Profile — so that anyone who finds you on Rodeo can see, browse, and save inspiration from your lists and recs. This is SUCH a win for anyone who shares recs for things to do and places to go. It makes it SO easy to share those recs with your community by just pointing them to your profile on Rodeo.

🧑‍🎓 We’re hiring Campus Ambassadors!

After a stellar pitch from Deven and Apurva, the team is hiring our founding cohort of college ambassadors 🤠🧑‍🎓 to bring Rodeo to our first group of universities this fall.

Ambassadors will have a first-hand opportunity to iterate alongside Rodeo’s team to shape the product through their feedback - and they'll be the first people to bring Rodeo to their school communities.

Apps are due AUGUST 9th - so tag students you think would be amazing in the comments, and restack so we can make sure this opportunity finds its way to the most delightful, talented students out there!!! 🚀

🤠 Rodeo community spotlights

Peri Ozsoy

• Location 📍🌉 San Francisco, CA

• Rodeo Collections to Join 🗂️ Bay Area Favs, Hobbymaxxing

“I went to the Savannah College of Art and Design where I earned my degree in Motion Graphics. After graduating, I worked as a freelance motion designer while always working in social media on the side. I always knew I wanted to gear my motion graphics towards social media and merge the two! One of the reasons I love Rodeo is because I am the planner friend, so this helps me keep everything in one place. Now when I get the inevitable ‘what are we doing this weekend, Peri?’ I can open Rodeo and I already have organized lists of ideas ready to go!”

@planswithperiComment for my lists that are updated daily with things to do in the Bay! #sfthingstodo #bayarea #bayareatiktok #weekendplans #recommendations

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Natalie Neptune

• Location 📍🗽 New York, NY

• Rodeo Collections to Join 🗂️ Curated NYC Tech Events

Natalie is the Founder and CEO of an experimental marketing agency called GenZtea. Natalie is a Student Career Program Advisor at Hunter College’s Cooperman Business Center, and a Top Linkedin voice for next gen — and I’ve had the HONOR of watching Natalie build an incredible platform and GenZ community over the past few years. “My Rodeo lists point people to curated NYC tech events across the city, as well as startup jobs that Hunter College students & GenZtea members can apply for!”

🌌 Across the Rodeoverse

Loved this post from Claire Mazur and Erica Cerulo of - these two have been named to Forbes’ “30 Under 30,” InStyle’s “Best of the Web,” Fashionista’s “Most Influential People in New York Fashion Right Now,” and wrote the Random House book Work Wife. A Thing or Two is their taste-making media enterprise — “a podcast and newsletter full of stuff we think more people should know about.” Thank you so much for the shout out — and honestly for this pasta recipe, which I’m absolutely going to make…

A Thing or Two

A Thing or Two We’re Doing Besides Spreading the Sunshine to Pasta

Read more

a month ago · 19 likes · 2 comments

🥲 One last thing…

Welcome to Bullish. If you’re new, welcome! We write this newsletter weekly-ish — a love letter to our founding community as we learn, build, ship, and grow 🤠

Team Rodeo has been shiiiiiiiippppinggggg 🚢🔥

As of yesterday — you can now discover and save things to do in your city on Rodeo! 🔍🤠 This was another highly requested feature (both from power users in our community and people on our team), and we’re fired up to bring this first version of it to life.

Rodeo’s EXPLORE page features events that have been uploaded by our community, for our community. When a Rodeo user saves a public event to the app, it gets added to Rodeo’s community-powered event library, making it even easier to find your next good hang on Rodeo. Curated recommendations of things to do for people like you, saved by people like you, in your city.

Download Rodeo (free)

You can browse events on Rodeo’s Explore page by date, location, and type — and save things you want to do with friends or family.

When you save an event on Rodeo’s Explore page:

• 🥲 …it will be added to your Saves, so you don’t lose it

• 🔔 …you’ll get reminders, so you don’t forget to RSVP or show up

• 📆 …add it to your Google / Apple calendar with ONE tap

And, more to come! The coolest part about building products at this stage is that they evolve SO quickly. Week over week, we are listening to feedback at every turn — so if there are features you'd love to see next that make it easier for you to spend more time IRL with the people you love, holler in the comments or DMs! xx 🫶

There is nothing more rewarding than building this with all of you. We’re so grateful.

Much love ✌️

Liz + Team Rodeo

Download Rodeo (free)

Across the Rodeoverse 🌌

Loved this post from long time Friend of Rodeo , founder of AI Snack Club, a community for women committed to learning about and using AI. She writes about how AI needs more whimsy — and we were delightedddd when Monica mentioned Rodeo as an example. We’ve always felt that building a product designed to help you spend time with your friends should be fun, otherwise… what are we even doing? Firm believer that it is clear when teams are having fun building — the product reflects it, and feels like it has a personality.

AI Snack Bites with Monica Abrams

AI Needs More Whimsy

I moderated a panel earlier this week in downtown San Francisco where AI Snack Club brought together top female leaders in the design, video, and photo space to talk about their experience with AI as a complement, rather than a replacement to creativity…

Read more

3 months ago · 23 likes · Monica Abrams

Also loved this post from Sophia Del Rosario featuring her favorite apps to to get you “out of your house and trying new things.” So fun to see Rodeo in the lineup, fascinating to learn more from Sophia re: how she sees Rodeo as similar / different to other products in our space, and to chat about features she would love to see next in the app. Thank you so much for sharing about us!

Rodeo creators we love 😍

So honored to highlight a few Rodeo Growth Lab creators who have been curating and sharing Rodeo Collections to help people get off their phones, and into the real world doing cool things. Meet them below, join their Collections on Rodeo to get inspo from their recs, and send them some love out there! 👏

Robin Ying

“I graduated from UC Berkeley about a year ago, and since then have been working as an investment analyst based in SF. I’ve grown to love the city and all of its beautiful quirks, which is why I started making SF-based content. Sam’s Rodeo video hit my feed months ago and I was immediately sold. I’ve been obsessed ever since, using it for my own content planning and managing my chaotic social life. I’d already been following along with the app’s new features and the company’s growth, so joining RGL was a no brainer and my dream side quest!!”

• Location 📍🌉 San Francisco, CA

• Rodeo Collections to Join 🗂️ SF Matchboxes, This Week in SF

Wesley Hucks

“I live in Tampa, FL and I am a creative strategist and video editor for a marketing agency. I’m someone who is always at a market, concert, event — never just at home. I joined Rodeo Growth Lab because this app has truly changed my life, and I want to show people how they can also get the most out of the area we live in — whether they are visiting, just moved here, or have been here for their whole life.”

• Location 📍🐊 Tampa, FL

• Rodeo Collections to Join 🗂️ Weekly Events in Tampa, Tampa Eats

@tampawithwesBuilding a list of the best places to get drinks in Tampa. Comment below your favorite spots and if you want the list leave a comment! #tampabay #tampa #thingstodointampa #tampaevents #tampaflorida

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One last thing… 🥲

Welcome to Bullish. If you’re new, welcome! We write this newsletter weekly-ish — a love letter to our founding community as we learn, build, ship, and grow 🤠

I got this text from Lija, an OG Rodeo community member (and Rodeo Growth Lab creator!) last week:

I laughed, because Lija is correct. But — we’re baaaaaaaack, baybeeeee! Over the past few weeks since we launched the "DO IT" feature on Rodeo, the team has been heads down building the most social version of the app to date.

When we launched Rodeo last fall, our first priority was to build a product that solved a clear problem for and delivered real value to an individual user. The concept was simple, but powerful: Rodeo started as a bookmarking app that helps you save and organize things you want to do — from ANY source — so you can focus on what matters: actually making those things happen, and spending more time IRL with the people you love.

Download Rodeo (free)

As the app evolved, some of the most common questions we heard from the community were: “how do I add a friend on Rodeo?” and “how can I see what my friends have saved?” This made a ton of sense — if Rodeo is the ONE place you save things you want to do, so you can actually do them, with the people you love — it is quite a logical jump that said people you love would be on said app with you. This would make it easier to share inspiration and get the plans out of the group chat.

So… we built it.

Our vision for Rodeo has always been that the app would be a tool you use as infrastructure to power your social life, made better when used with friends. Today, we take a big step towards this vision.

Now, when you add a friend on Rodeo, you can:

• see the events + places they have saved to the app

• get inspiration for things to do

• discover things you BOTH have saved

• and most important… actually do the things you saved, together !!!!! 🥲

We can’t wait to hear what you think — so meet us in the comments. Who did you add as a Friend on Rodeo? How are you using the app together? How do you like the feature, and this direction? What do you want to see next?

Much love 🤠

Liz + Team Rodeo

Download Rodeo (free)

Welcome to Bullish. If you’re new, welcome! We write this newsletter weekly-ish — a love letter to our founding community as we learn, build, ship, and grow 🤠

Hi, Sam here… the guy from all those TikToks.

It is my absolute pleasure to announce the launch of our ‘Do It’ feature. Shoutout to the team —and especially Priscilla — on full-stacking the build.

This is a simple feature, but it means a lot.

It helps us understand whether Rodeo is achieving our mission: helping friends be better friends with their friends - by spending more (and better) time together IRL.

Download Rodeo (free)

You may be familiar with the concept of a ‘North Star’ metric — the one thing all of a company’s priorities ladder up to. For our team, our North Star metric is ‘good hangs,’ proxied by how many Saves people actually DO with friends.

As of today, you can…

• Mark the Saves you plan on doing, and when you plan to do them, so it’s easier to add them to your calendar, get reminders, and make them happen

• Mark Saves you’ve already done, as a keepsake of experiences that mattered

• On your home screen, you’ll see that the Rodeo calendar highlights the days you’re doing one of your Saves, so they are easy to find

• Very soon… you’ll be able to see what your friends are doing, too 👀

We are just as inspired by people who save 100 things and do a few, as we are by those who save a few things, but make them happen. Our goal is singular in focus: to help you do more with the people you love.

We’re dying to know, so meet us in the comments — from here, what other features would help you do more of your Saves on Rodeo?

Cheers 🤠

Sam

Download Rodeo (free)

Heyyyyyyyyyyyy - hope you have a lot of ideas for MDW plans saved to your Rodeo, so you can get Good Hangs™️ on the books. See below for what’s new this week!

TL;DR:

• New features are live 🤤 Save multiple events at one time with a single tap! Filter your maps by category to view a subset of your Saves!

• Rodeo Growth Lab, Cohort 2 🧪 Applications are LIVE here - and deadline to apply is Monday, May 25th at 11:59pm EST!

• We’re hiring! 👩‍💻 Send us your favorite backend engineers

Meet us in the comments with thoughts, reactions, questions - as always, we love to hear from you, and we’re grateful you’re here.

Much love ✌️

Liz + Team Rodeo

P.S. If you’re not on Rodeo yet, here’s a code to get into the app 👇 Once you’re in, you’ll get your own invite code you can share with friends! 💌

Join Rodeo 🔑 HOWDYY

🤤 That NEW NEW

Here’s what’s new in the app this week 👇

NEW✨ SAVE MULTIPLE EVENTS AT ONE TIME. This has been a top requested feature from our community for a while, and it. is. fireeeeeeeeeee 🔥 Big shout to Priscilla, who led the charge on this one.

Now, when you:

• upload an image (e.g. a pic of a school calendar, a screenshot of concert tour dates);

• send in a link (e.g. a website with the schedule for the Knicks in the playoffs); or

• send in a social media post that lists multiple events (e.g. run club meetups this summer, vintage pop-ups in NYC this weekend)…

Rodeo will create individual Saves for each event 🤯

HOT TIP 🔥 MAP CATEGORY FILTERS. Now, you can filter any Map view on Rodeo by category - so you can easily view just a specific subset of your Saves.

FIX 🛠️ BUG BASH. The app had a few performance issues over the last week or so. Thanks to everyone who let us know, so we could make fixes. Saul + Sarah pushed an updated version yesterday that will dramatically improve the experience.

🧪 Rodeo Growth Lab: Apply to Cohort 2!!!

The application to Rodeo Growth Lab Cohort 2 is live! Our Cohort 1 creators have been absolutely crushing it for the past few weeks on TikTok and Instagram, and we cannot wait to meet our next Growth Fellows.

Read the description of the program + apply here! And tag people you think would be GREAT for this opportunity in our LinkedIn post here.

👯 A more social Rodeo: WDYT???

Sam is going viral with a video that demos a more social, friend-forward experience on Rodeo. Check it out + let us know what you think in the comments of the vid!

@wranglinsamGetting out of the #groupchat for the #knicks v #cavs

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💬 Come hang in WhatsApp

Last week, we launched Rodeo’s Whatsapp community. Chat with our team, share ideas, get support, post your GOOD HANGS™️ powered by Rodeo©️ and meet other delightful humans who care about getting out into the world + touching grass.

You’ll get sneak peeks of new features, early access to test, and, through your feedback, you’ll help shape the direction of Rodeo’s product roadmap.

Join Rodeo WhatsApp

👩‍💻 We’re Hiring!

We’re hiring a Staff Backend Engineer. If you’re interested or know someone amazing, check out the job description here. To apply, send a short note with your resume and LinkedIn to talent@letsrodeo.co (SUBJ: ‘Staff Backend Engineer’).

🥲 One last thing…

We’re BACKKKKK - last week, Team Rodeo had our offsite. It was extremely on brand.

Sam made a Rodeo Collection for the week - and the team used the new Reactions feature on shared Collections to upvote the things we wanted to do, and the places we wanted to go. We went to the beach and played cornhole (poorly, on my part, but really well if you were Sam or Deven). We did a polar plunge, led by Beth with extreme fortitude. We played Mafia, and Fishbowl - where Tim closed a heated tiebreaker fourth round in which you could ONLY use a single sound effect to clue your word to your team. We had drinks on the water while watching the sun set. We skipped rocks in the bay. We laughed. A lot.

We also did some really meaningful work. We took a step back to look at the progress we’ve made since we launched Rodeo in private beta last fall. We looked at the mountain ahead, and plotted next steps to climb it. We dreamed about a Rodeo that is more friend-forward, more multi-player - one that leads to what we want to see in the world: more good hangs 😎

See below for pics, and updates re: what’s new this week.

Meet us in the comments with thoughts, reactions, questions - as always, we love to hear from you, and are grateful to have you with us for the ride.

Much love ✌️

Liz + Team Rodeo

P.S. In case you’re not on Rodeo yet, below is a code that has 50 spots 👇 once you’re in, you’ll get your own invite code that you can share with friends! 💌

Join Rodeo: 🔑HEYHEY🔑

💬 The Chat is LIVE

We talk to hundreds of users every single week across an enormous number of surfaces - comment sections, DMs, text messages, emails, live calls. We’re craving closer connection and a central place where we can build with our community.

To that end - we just launched Rodeo’s Whatsapp community. Join, chat directly with our team, share product ideas + feedback, and meet other absolutely delightful people who care as much as you do about getting out into the world with the people they love.

You’ll get sneak peeks of new features we’re working on, access to test them yourselves, and help shape the direction of our product roadmap directly through your feedback.

Join Rodeo WhatsApp

🤤 That NEW NEW

Here’s what’s new in the app this week 👇

NEW✨ Rodeo auto saves to your Collections. A lot of us are lazy. I said it. We don’t want to work hard to organize the things we save. But we DOOOOO want them to be organized for us 🥲 And, the more Collections you have on Rodeo, the harder it can be to find them when you are scrolling and saving quickly. IYKYK. So - we built a feature that automagically adds Saves to Collections that are relevant. Now, if you have an “NYC Brunch Spots” Collection, and you save a Reel or TikTok about a new brunch spot to try to Rodeo - the app will detect and add this Save to your existing NYC Brunch Spots Collection. Cooooooool.

FIX 🛠️ Collections are BACK on the Rodeo Shortcut page. We made a change to the Rodeo Shortcut page that allowed you to add Reminders, but it hid your Collections behind a second tap. This is niche, lol. But a lot of you hated it. We fixed it. Now, your Collections are back to being front and center on the Shortcut, so you can add things you save to a Collection with 1 TAP. Thank you for the feedback, we love it!

HOT TIP 🔥 Use Reactions in Shared Collections with Friends! You can now add reactions to Saves in shared Collections with friends. Create a Collection + share it with friends + add Saves + get reactions = actually do the things you save 👍

🚀 Across the Rodeoverse

This was an incredible piece by . It made our week. Maybe our month. Nothing makes us feel more confident that we are on the right path than hearing your stories of how Rodeo is actually helping you to be a better friend to your friends, and villager to your village. Less work. More good hangs.

Read Ronny’s piece below + send some love!

Diary of an AI Muggle

First Rodeo with the Girlies

How many times have you sent an Instagram video about a new cafe in town to your friends and said, “We need to go here!!” and then never actually went? Eventually, you just forget about the place. Sometimes it’s not even videos. It could be screenshots. I have over 2,000 on my phone, and probably fewer than 10 of them have made it out of my camera roll…

Read more

4 months ago · 5 likes · 5 comments · Ronny Hu

🧪 Rodeo Growth Lab

Cohort 1 is COOKING 🧑‍🍳 We’re going to open up applications to Cohort 2 soon - as well as an opportunity to submit content featuring Rodeo, even if you are not in a Growth Lab cohort. This was at popular request from several people in the community who really wanted to participate - but couldn’t commit to the full program. Watch this space!

Major love to Lija, Jenny, Apurva, and Matias, who are helping us test, learn what’s resonating, get product feedback, and grow at fire pace. Hype them up out there - creating content is not for the faint of heart. I’m incredibly proud of the progress they’ve made so far, their reflectiveness, and their endless creativity.

@giddyapurvalike girl diversify oml #uwmadison #madisonwi #coffee #beforreal #cafeshopping

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👩‍💻 We’re Hiring!

We’re hiring a Staff Backend Engineer to round out the roster as the 10th person on Team Rodeo. If you’re interested, or know someone outstanding - check out the job description here. If you’d like to apply, send a short note with your resume + LinkedIn to talent@letsrodeo.co (SUBJ: ‘Staff Backend Engineer’).

🥲 One last thing…

TL;DR - read on for the deep dive 🤿

1. 🤤 NEW FEATURES

   1. 🏡 New home screen design!!!!

   2. ⬆️ / ⬇️ React to Saves in Collections

   3. 👯 Easier to share Collections with friends

2. 🚀 ACROSS THE RODEOVERSE - TYSM for the love from Friends of Rodeo Rachel at Jumpstart, and Kate at Becca!

3. 🧪 RODEO GROWTH LAB - Thank you to everyone who applied to the first cohort of the Rodeo Growth Lab in May - we were blown away by the interest, loved seeing the way different people use + talk about Rodeo, and are so honored that such incredible humans are excited to help us learn and grow. I don’t take it lightly. Watch this space - stay tuned for other opportunities to get involved!

Much love ✌️

Liz + Team Rodeo

P.S. In case you’re not on Rodeo yet, below is a code that has 50 spots 👇 once you’re in, you’ll get your own invite code that you can share with friends, family, partners, teammates, etc. who would love the app! 💌

Join Rodeo: 🔑HEYHEY🔑

🤤 That NEW NEW

Here’s what’s new in the app this week 👇 Reply in the comments to let us know what you think - only rule: don’t hold back!

🏡 NEW HOME SCREEN DESIGN - now, the home screen is organized to make it easier for you to find and do the things you’ve saved to Rodeo. You can see the things you’ve saved on the calendar, tap quickly to see all your Saves on a map, view your Saves by categories (Restaurants, Bars, Entertainment, etc.), and scroll down to browse your Collections.

🐴⬆️🤠⬇️ REACTIONS ARE LIVE - you can now add reactions to Saves in your Collections. Save things into Rodeo > add Saves to a Collection > share a Collection to get reactions from the group > make decisions… actually do the things you save.

👯 EASIER TO SHARE COLLECTIONS - we made it easier for you to share / add friends to Collections on Rodeo.

🚀 Across the Rodeoverse

Was so much fun sitting down with Rachel Macnaghten, growth leader at Jumpstart, to talk about the things that we are keeping front of mind as we grow Rodeo from 0 to 1. Read the post here + send Rachel some love!

Loved this post we saw this week on IG by Becca - a women-founded comms agency at the intersection of culture and hospitality. Check out the post + send Kate and the Becca team some love. And - big shout to Sara Devitt, friend of Rodeo who saw Becca’s post and shared it with us!

🥲 One last thing…

Happy Wednesday. TL;DR - details below!

1. RODEO GROWTH LAB 🧪 Sam and I are looking for 3 creators / Growth Fellows who LOVE Rodeo to create a ton of video content with us in May 2026 to accelerate our learnings. This is a PAID opportunity. Read more and apply here by this Monday, April 27th - must be obsessed with (a) Rodeo (b) making TikToks, and (c) testing + iterating at speed of light.

2. NEW FEATURES 🤤 See below - let us know what you think in comments!

3. RODEO IN ROLODEX 💙 Read our feature here!

4. WE’RE VIRAL (again) 🚀 Hit the comments, share to stories, DM to friends!

Much love ✌️

Liz + Team Rodeo

P.S. In case you’re not on Rodeo yet, below is a code that has 50 spots 👇 once you’re in, you’ll get your own invite code that you can share with friends, family, partners, teammates, etc. who would love the app! 💌

Join Rodeo: 🔑HEYHEY🔑

🧪 Rodeo GROWTH LAB: May 2026

At Rodeo, we produce content to learn and grow. In May, we’ll run a Growth Lab with a cohort of 3 growth fellows / creators who will work directly with me (head of growth) and Sam (ceo + co-founder). By producing a high volume of strategic short-form video content over a 30-day sprint, we will accelerate our ability to:

1. Showcase diverse use cases of Rodeo - we want to show how different people use the app to power their social lives, so more people can see themselves in the product we’re building

2. Test new features - we are building Rodeo in real time, every day. Our content is one of the main ways we learn about what features are resonating with our community, and what value we can unlock next to help them spend more time IRL with their friends

3. Grow our community - expand beyond our founder and team-led content, and unlock new learnings for how to reach new audiences who need Rodeo

🤤 That NEW NEW (features)

Here’s what’s new in the most recent version of Rodeo:

• ⏰ Add reminders IMMEDIATELY when you send things to Rodeo - this is really cool, and was a TOP feature requested from our community. People have been begging for Rodeo to do even more to remind you about the things you save (and I quote: “please make your app more annoying”), so that you don’t forget to go back and actually make them happen. Now, you can set a reminder in the exact moment that you send something into the app - incredibly fast and convenient. You don’t interrupt whatever it was you were doing - and we’ll pop it back to you later when you actually have time to figure it out. Out of your head - into Rodeo. Sigh of relief.

  

• ✏️ Edit your saves when you send something in - another big request from people using the app (obviously lol). Now, you can edit the things you send into Rodeo - and share feedback to help us improve our processing technology so we can make Rodeo better for you over time.

  

• 👀 All Saves / My Saves - now, your “All Saves” will show BOTH the things you have saved into Rodeo AND things that other people have saved to shared Collections on Rodeo that you’ve joined. You can filter for JUST your Saves to find them easily - and also see what other people have been saving! See what your friends have been saving → go 👏 make it 👏 happen 👏👏👏

  

💙 Rodeo in ROLODEX

We were beyond honored when and asked to feature Rodeo in . It’s one of my favorite newsletters - these two are incredibly sharp. I read every edition. They did a beautiful job sharing our story - read the piece here and send Jade + Mufaro some love!

🚀 We’re going viral!

Hit the comments, tag a friend, share to stories and tag Rodeo, send in the DMs, repost the video, save it - whatever feels inspiring. Small actions add up to make a HUGE difference - we see every single one of you out there, and we appreciate the support more than you know!

🥲 One last thing(s)…

It does reach a real person™️ - and it never, ever gets old 🥹 We love y’all!

Over the past few weeks, and especially since we launched invite codes last week, we’ve been seeing an uptick in the number of beta users who are creating SHARED LISTS (collections of Saves) on the Rodeo app.

In conversations we had with a number of Friends of Rodeo this week, it became clear that not enough people yet understand (or have explored) the full value of this feature set.

SO - today we’re going to chat more about Lists on Rodeo. Why make them? Why share them with others? What examples of shared Lists have we seen so far? How do Lists help you unlock the power of Rodeo to help you close the gap between INSPIRATION and ACTION - aka, more time IRL with the people you love, doing the things you said you wanted to do? This one is a little longer. Go with me on this journey.

In the comments, I want to hear from you - what shared Lists have you made on Rodeo so far? Who are you using shared Lists with? We can’t wait to continue to learn from how all of you are using the app today to help shape our vision for what we build next.

AND - in case you’re not on Rodeo yet, below is a code that has 50 spots 👇 once you are in, help us GROWWWW our beta community by sharing your 3 invites with friends, family, partners, teammates, etc. who would love the app! 💌🙏

Much love ✌️

Liz + Team Rodeo

Join Rodeo: 🔑EU9Y1H🔑

👯‍♀️ Rodeo with friends: Shared LISTS

Q: What are Lists?

A: Lists are collections of things you have saved to the Rodeo app.

Q: Why create Lists?

A: Create Lists to organize the things you’ve saved into categories. It makes it easier to find those things later, so you can actually do them. You can create as many Lists as you want, and you can “pin” the ones you use the most - so you can save, organize, and find the things you save to Rodeo quickly and seamlessly. Some examples:

• a List of vinyl bars 💿

• a List for a specific city 🗽

• a List of your fave coffee shops ☕️

• a List for a trip you’re planning 🧳

• a List for things you want to do / places you want to go in April 📆

• a List of vintage stores 👖

• etc.

Q: Why created SHARED (or collaborative) Lists?

A: This is where things get REALLY cool. With shared Lists, Rodeo goes from being a “single player” experience (a tool you use by yourself), to a multiplayer experience - a tool you use in collaboration with others, so you can actually get plans out of the group chat and make 👏 them 👏 happen 👏👏👏

Some common examples:

• 👯‍♀️ My friend group at University of Miami has a shared Rodeo List. Instead of sending things into GroupMe and losing them in the constant thread of chat, we send flyers for events, social posts, and things we want to go to together into our Rodeo List. Everyone can see all the things other people have shared, what is coming up soon, and we can make it happen. So helpful, because there are a million things to do across campus and no one single place where they currently live or are shared.

• 🌹 I have a ‘Date Night’ List with my partner, and we both send in ideas for things we want to do, or places we want to go, or restaurants we want to try. Instead of losing them in IG DMs, we can keep track of them and actually have something to go back to when we are making our plans. It has genuinely helped us do way more of the things we said we wanted to do together.

• 🧃 I have a shared List with my wife for things we want to do with our kids. Anytime we see posts on Instagram with activities, or a flyer in a coffee shop, or a link in a newsletter, or a birthday party invite - we send it into the Rodeo List. On Saturday mornings, it’s so much easier to sit down and plan what we want to do each weekend.

• 🧳 I have a shared List with a group of friends who is planning a trip to Las Vegas, like a group travel itinerary. In the weeks leading up to the trip, we are all adding ideas for places we want to go, and things we want to do. We would have probably used a shared Note or something in the past, but on Rodeo, you can see all the places on a map, what is close to other things, etc. As we firm up when we are doing things, we add dates / times, and then we can view ‘By Day’ in the list to see what we are doing each day. It’s incredible!

Q: How do I create a Shared List on Rodeo?

1. On the home screen, tap the “+” button. Tap “New List”

2. Name your List, add a few Saves, and press “Done” to create the List

3. Tap the “…” in the top right of the List, or press the “+” button next to your name at the top of the List to copy the link to your List

4. Share the link to your List with anyone who has the Rodeo app - or give them one of your invite codes first, if they don’t have the app yet!

5. Once people join your List - anyone can save things into it to contribute 🔥

🤩 Rodeo Shared LISTS we LOVE

Two shared Lists that we are LOVING right now on Rodeo below!

🌸 Katie Romero’s Cherry Blossom Crawl List

, as most of you know, is Rodeo’s founding Creator in Residence - she curates and shares incredible recommendations for things to do in NYC, and her content and taste is exceptional. Katie made a shared List on Rodeo to share all the places you can go to see the cherry blossoms in bloom across NYC. If you’re in the area, it is truly a magical experience - and it only lasts for a few weeks!

Subscribe to Katie’s newsletter to get all kinds of amazing recs for things to do - and of course, click below to join her Cherry Blossom Crawl List on Rodeo!

Join Katie's Cherry Blossom Crawl HERE

🍑 Star Campbell’s Atlanta Events List

Star curates events and things to do in the Atlanta community, and has saved OVER 100 events and things to do for the month of April to her shared List on Rodeo. She just started sharing the List with her friends and members of her Discord. I LOVE that Star is encouraging her community to add / contribute their own events to the shared List, too. That is extremely wholesome and hopecore to me. I love that it is hyperlocal. I love the idea of communities of people on Rodeo sharing things to do in their own community. Curated for the community, by the community.

Follow to support Star here on IG - and click below to join her Atlanta Events List on Rodeo if you’re in the area!

Join Star's Atlanta Events HERE

🚀 Help us share Rodeo codes!

We’ve got a couple of videos going viral at most times, which rocks. BUT - we also literally can’t get to everyone in the comments who asks for codes 😅 I don’t want to automate it yet (e.g. Manychat) - I think it’s important at this early stage that people know that we are real people talking to them and building this thing with them. That’s how we build relationships and trust with our community - showing up, engaging, listening, learning. Consistently, over time. Brick by brick.

SO - if anyone is feeling INSPIRED to pay the Rodeo love forward… I would LOVE your help and support! 🙏 If you have a spare invite code, reply to someone in the comments of the video below, and shoot them a DM. And if you need more invite codes, don’t worry - you can request more in the app once you’ve used your first 3!

Want to shout out some PHENOMENAL Rodeo community members who are ALREADY doing this: , , , , Samm, Tessa, Chris, Lee, and Ryan. We see you, and appreciate you so much! 🤩

🥲 One last thing(s)…

Samm - you’re a legend. That’s all!

P.S. It’s now 8PM and I’ve written the words “shared List” so many times today that I now feel like it sounds weird. Should we call this feature “shared Lists” ?? Or something else ? LMK if you have thoughts 👀

Invite codes are LIVE in the app 🔥 Since we launched our private beta in November, our team receives hundreds of DMs, texts, emails, and comments every week from community members asking if you can get codes to share Rodeo with your friends, partners, teammates, moms, etc. Today, we couldn’t be more excited to give you invite codes, to learn who you choose to bring in, and to be inspired by the ways you use Rodeo together.

We spend all day, every day thinking about the future of the platform, and what we should build next to help ALL of us live our mission: spend more time, IRL, with the people we love. SO - be loud. Meet us in the comments. Help us learn, so we can build better, and faster. Who are you inviting to join you on Rodeo? Why? How are you using the app - separately, and together? What else can we do to make it easier for you to actually do the things you save, with the people you love?

AND - in case you’re not on Rodeo yet, below is a code that has 50 spots 👇

Every user now has 3 invites 💌 💌 💌 feel free to ask a friend, or ask each other!

Much love ✌️

Liz + Team Rodeo

Join Rodeo: 🔑EU9Y1H🔑

@wranglingsamwho will get your Rodeo codes??? 👀👀👀 @rodeo_app #friendgroup #thingstodo #productivity #adhdtiktok #groupchat

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🤠 BOLO: Building On LinkedIn Only

If you saw our newsletter yesterday, you already know we were causing some chaos 😈 Big love to everyone who committed to the bit with us - life is too short not to be silly on the internet together. Click here to read more from Sam on what we were up to!

🥲 One last thing(s)…

Last week, you heard from on the launch of Rodeo 2.0.

We’ve heard great feedback from our beta community so far - and with a big infrastructure change, the best feedback is sometimes… the absence of it 🥲 It’s a massive win that users have been able to continue to experience the magic of Rodeo without interruption. Want to give a MAJOR shout out to Rodeo teammate Sarah, who led the charge on this project.

Fun things from across the Rodeoverse this week below - as always, meet us in the comments. We love to hear from you!

Much love ✌️ and GET OUT THERE this weekend!

Liz + Team Rodeo

❤️‍🔥 Rodeo Lists worth joining

has been cooking up some new content to help us learn more about how people are using (and want to use!) the List features on Rodeo. He’s been creating Rodeo Lists with recommendations for things to do + places to go from creators we love. All of the Rodeo Lists linked below are collaborative - you can join them, and you’ll get updates when creators add new spots. Check them out + join below!

• What’s Up Moaners List on Rodeo 🙀 the funniest food account we’ve found in modern times. This former D1 soccer player ranks spots based on how much the food makes her… moan. Can’t make it up.

• Little Kid Big City List on Rodeo 👧 Beth curates incredible recommendations for things to do with kids in NYC. The parents on Team Rodeo are OBSESSED with her content, and we have tons of friends who are, too.

• Tastebuds NYC List on Rodeo 🌍 we are HOOKED. This friend duo spins a wheel to try food from every country in the world - but only at spots in NYC.

😎 We bring you… TIMTOK

This week, Tim takes to the Tok, to share (in his words) - “overly detailed updates” about what’s new, what we’re working on, and what we’re thinking about on the product side of the house. In my words - only Tim could speak about onboarding flows for 4 minutes in a way that pulls us in for more. His is a beautiful mind 🥲

@no.bull.timNew onboarding roundup for @rodeo_app - no cuts no bull

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🛸 This week across the Rodeoverse

Our team couldn’t help but pull the thread on the most wholesome idea of all time from Rodeo power user and community member Lija Chang. Lija has been quietly building a community on Rodeo for a while now. Over 75 people have joined her “ATL with Lija” List on Rodeo (‼️) - where Lija shares recs for things to do in Atlanta, and encourages members of her List to add their own events, too. The goal? Spend time with people they love, in the city they call home.

@lijachangjoin us at tinyurl.com/ATLwLija 🙌 i can't even put links in my bio but someone already joined my @rodeo_app list from my bio 😭 going to be posting round ups more often instead of weekly for the love of the game there's so much good stuff happening 🏇 @Sam Levy @Sam Levy @lassoing_liz @Cam’s Hot Tables @katherine @peaches #atlanta #rodeo #atl #fyp #atlantaevents

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Loved this post from Gabriella Persson on LinkedIn about Rodeo’s partnership with our founding Creator in Residence, Katie Romero. Spot on 🎯

Spied on TikTok - this delightful human on Rodeo’s waitlist posted a video in search of a code to get into the app. For everyone who has been messaging us asking for codes for friends, family, etc… watch this space 👀

@matchesbyave@rodeo_app @Sam Levy

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🥲 One last thing…

Today, we released an update to the app that’s been some time in the making. This week’s post is a special edition: an intro to Rodeo 2.0, coming to you live from the desk of , Rodeo’s co-founder and Chief Product Officer.

🤝 Partners in tryin’

Rodeo has struck a chord because of what we stand for: simple tech for doing things IRL with friends. This isn’t just one company’s byline, it’s part of a growing movement that’s breathing life back into… life.

To build tech that’s useful for people, I believe you need to build it with the people it’s for.

Our approach to building in public with our community isn’t just to provide transparency — it’s to earn the opportunity to collaborate and build Rodeo with all of you. Y’all have been amazing at helping us so far. (Thanks for that. 🥲)

And so, in the spirit of continuing to earn your collaboration, and to empower you with informative context, today we’re sharing a deeper dive into the product. “Rodeo 2.0” isn’t just a couple of new features — it’s a new foundation for the app.

Let’s talk about it.

⌛️ It was about time

Rodeo has taken some very different shapes over the last couple years — many of them focused on time. Along the way we got better at building smaller concepts, so we could make more of them and learn faster.

The Rodeo you know today started as a half-baked idea last August. It was built fast and loose. We hacked cheap solutions. We repurposed code from our social calendar eras. In short, we startupped, and it worked. We validated a new idea, and fast. The cost of that speed was a burning platform. So we made the leap, and built a new one.

Don’t worry — we brought all your Rodeo 1.0 Saves along with us.

🕸️ Connecting the dots

Infrastructure projects normally focus on performance and reliability at scale, which is true in this case, too — but it’s not the full story. We also redesigned our foundational system around connections, by moving to a graph-based architecture.

Um, cool. What does that mean?

In Rodeo 1.0 every Save was a silo, unconnected to other imports of the same link, or other Saves of the same place or event. Every individual thing you sent into the app was separate and unique. But the reality is that the things we do, and the ways we discover those things, and the people we do them with, are all connected in ways that multiply quickly.

Rodeo 2.0 is now built for these interwoven relationships, enabling future app capabilities like…

• Seeing which friends also saved a concert

• Seeing more social content saved for a restaurant

• Seeing other events happening at a venue

The product’s future isn’t fully charted, and we have a long way to go. But now, we have the infrastructure in place to move fast.

🐎 And we’re off

Rodeo 2.0 has a couple notable changes right out of the gate:

1. Saving multiple places. A top request from our beta community. Before, when you saved a TikTok — “3 new bakeries to try in the West Village” — we created a single Save on Rodeo with three locations, and you couldn’t unbundle them. Now, each bakery will be saved as its own entity on Rodeo. You can still view them all together with the TikTok so you won’t forget why you cared — but you can also view each bakery, add them to different Lists, and unsave them without impacting the others.

   

2. A simpler and mappier design. Rodeo’s app design also got a gut renovation. The map is now always accessible beneath the Lists, and you can see your location with a blue dot, if you want. We also removed a few filters on Lists to further simplify the experience. We worked hard to maintain the lo-fi unfussy aesthetic, so we hope it feels familiar. Same vibe — new and improved usability.

   

🙏 Tell us what you think

Rodeo is built to strengthen your close personal relationships. If it’s not doing that, it’s not working. For more on this, here’s my rant post about mutualism: our business succeeds only when the user succeeds.

We’d love to know how it’s working for you — and also how it might not be, yet. What could make it better? What do you miss about Rodeo 1.0? The good and the bad.

Rodeo is for you and yours, after all — so your feedback points the way.

Til next time,

👋 Tim

This week, we were mentioned in a LinkedIn post by friend-of-Rodeo Jonas that picked up quite a bit of traction:

Jonas goes on to explain:

Investors are pouring billions of dollars into AI. But smart money is quietly deploying millions into IRL at the same time. The nuance is - it's not AI vs. IRL. It's that the more we live online, the more premium real-life connection becomes. They're not competing investments. They're a hedge on each other.

To me, a hedge implies there’s a world where one wins and the other loses. I believe the rise of AI + IRL are inextricably bound. But I also believe it’s incomplete to think that the rise of AI is the only thing driving our collective pull to spend more time, in real life, with the people we love. It’s bigger than that.

What I’m most interested in is not why the money is being deployed into IRL as a category — VC investments are a lagging indicator. The Christmas lights I’m obsessed with untangling: why is human behavior shifting in this direction in the first place?

The reality is that it starts with us. The everyday person. You. Me. Many of us deciding — and voting with our feet, our time, and our wallets — that we are interested in spending more time in person, in community with others.

Then comes the creators, companies, products that arise to enable this behavior — much like Rodeo exists to be infrastructure that powers your (social) life outside of work. These initiatives gain traction, and only then follow the investments, pouring fuel on the fire. The capitalismification of it all.

So, back to the core question: what is pulling us — now, in this moment in time — to spend more time offline?

I think there are a lot of forces at play:

• We’re still in the post-pandemic pendulum swing. In 2020, we saw a rise in communities congregating online. This was borne out of necessity — it was the only place we could convene. For the past few years, since we were able to again, we’ve shifted — people want to be together, in real life.

• What is happening in the world is dark. Coming together IRL right now, for many of us, is necessary. In America, we are at war. We are watching our neighbors require the support of community infrastructure for reasons that raise all sorts of alarms. The information we are attempting to process (disseminated largely via the internet) is impossible to comprehend. Coming together is survival. It is resistance. It is how humans have stayed connected, informed, energized, motivated, and hopeful in spite of it all to keep fighting for a world worth living in.

• And yes, of course, the rise of AI also pushes us to gravitate to what is real. Whether it is an overwhelm with AI taking over our social media feeds, or the overwhelming sense that AI is coming for our livelihoods, people want what is real. It is grounding.

This week in the comments, I want to hear from YOU: what do you think is driving our collective pull to spend more time IRL with the people we love? There is a movement building. We at Rodeo are a part of that movement. If you’re here, you likely are, too. What do you believe is driving it?

Much love ✌️

Liz + Team Rodeo

P.S. Code below has 50 spots - share this post with someone who needs the app 👇

Download Rodeo, Code = 8214

🔌 Rodeo in WIRED

We absolutely loved sitting down with Louryn Strampe from WIRED a few weeks ago to talk all things Rodeo. Louryn reached out to us a while back, as a user and superfan of Rodeo herself — making for the kind of conversation that flowed effortlessly. Louryn just gets it. She writes:

I'm constantly screenshotting show flyers, for example, and Rodeo “wrangles” them by adding a date, a brief summary, a map to the venue, links to buy tickets, and the primary source. You can sort and name new collections, and view them by date or on a map. Wrangling a restaurant plan? You can snag a reservation in the app. Want to invite your friends? Lists can be collaborative, and you can send a calendar invite from the app. Sharing is a breeze, and you get a little push notification when Rodeo is done doing its thing.

The main thing I like about Rodeo is that it collects everything in one location. For example, when I was planning a vacation with my best friend, I didn’t have to sift through Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, my Notes app, and our texts to remember suggested activities. They were all inside Rodeo. And when I was preparing to move to a new city, the same principle applied. No fretting about missing an event or forgetting the name of the restaurant recommendation my bartender gave me one night. It’s all in one spot.

…Levy says the goal is to get you outside doing things with your friends. And that's exactly what I've been using it for—touching grass, spending some time with the people I love, and broadening my comfort zone.

Read Louryn’s piece here, and let us know what resonates!

🤠 Rodeo across the interwebs

We loved seeing news of our launch last week cross the desks of builders and creators we admire a ton. So grateful to each of you for sharing our story.

• is the creator and founder of , where she writes weekly about all things branding, content, the internet, business, and culture. Her pieces always stay in my inbox until read.

  

• is the founder of Hot Smart Rich, a media and investment platform built at the intersection of content, community, and capital. She wrote about Rodeo in this week’s edition, here.

• Claire Zau is a Partner and AI Lead with GSV Ventures, who shares her expertise on the future of tech across platforms. Claire included Rodeo in this week’s roundup of hot startup funding rounds here.

🥲 One last thing…

It was a banger week on the internet for Rodeo, and we’ve been having SO much fun celebrating with our community. Thank you to every single one of you who has shared our news, hopped into comments, and cheered us on. It means more than you know. We’d love for you to join us — on LinkedIn and IG here and here — and of course, here on Substack, where I suppose we live now.

Much love ✌️

Liz + Team Rodeo

🤠 Rodeo’s Creator in Residence Program

This week, we shared the news of our team’s $8.5M fundraise with Zoya Hasan in Forbes. Towards the end of the piece, Zoya previews:

This week, with the news of our fundraise and our announcement that we’ve opened the next 50,000 spots in our private beta - we are also proud to share that our team is investing in a new kind of program, one that we believe others in our space will look to as a blueprint for how brands engage with creators for years to come.

Team Rodeo will partner with a small, curated group of Creators in Residence - people we look up to as tastemakers, who create extraordinary content, who are talented and experienced community builders, and whose missions align with ours: more people spending time IRL in ways that fulfill them, with people they love.

Our CIRs will be people who believe in the vision for what we are building, who are obsessed with the app themselves, and who are personally invested in sharing Rodeo with their communities and the world.

Whereas more traditional relationships between brands and creators can feel short-lived, one-off, surface level, and transactional - we aim to build a model that weaves CIRs into the fabric of Team Rodeo and our community, and enables CIRs to benefit from the immense value, experience, and perspective they bring to our team, especially this early in our journey. We view our CIRs as long term, invested partners who help build our company, product, and community alongside us.

If there are creators and tastemakers you love that you think scream Rodeo and who you think we need to meet - share in the comments!

❤️‍🔥 A deeper dive with Katie + Ochuko

This week, I had the absolute privilege of diving a bit deeper into the launch of our Creator in Residence program with , Rodeo’s founding Creator in Residence, and in Ochuko’s newsletter . I can’t wait for all of you to learn more about Katie - you probably already follow her for her incredible recommendations in NYC, and if you don’t, you can check out her newsletter - it’s killer.

But for today, know that finding her was the moment that led us to decide to launch this program:

As Seen On is one of my favorite publications on the internet, and Ochuko is wildly talented - there are few people who have a stronger pulse on the intersecting threads that tie business, consumer, tech, (pop) culture, and who know how to tie those threads together in a way that helps the rest of us make sense of it all. If you’re not subscribed already - run. Take a read, and meet us in the comments!

🥲 One last thing…

After a combined 17 years building products designed to translate digital experiences into real-world relationships, Rodeo marks the next chapter for co-founders Sam Levy and Tim MacGougan: this time, focused on helping friends be better friends to their friends.

The idea of Rodeo is simple, with profound implications: save things, so you can actually do them with your friends. Today, our social lives are scattered: saved folders on social media, screenshots, DMs, group chats, Partiful invites, calendars, Luma links, that poster you saw in the coffee shop.

Rodeo brings all of these plans and ideas for things to do into ONE place, organizes them for you, sets reminders, and helps you take the next step — so you can focus less on remembering and planning, and more on spending more time with the people you love. The app is a “social utility” - a tool used by individuals, made better with friends. The infrastructure that powers your {non-work} life.

With this capital, our team brings Rodeo to the world in the year of the fire horse ❤️‍🔥 with and alongside our founding community: a growing movement of people as passionate as we are about getting offline, showing up for our people, and making the time we have here count.

In November, we opened the first 20,000 spots in our private beta and were blown away by the reception to Rodeo. Today, we’re opening the next 50,000 spots in our beta to continue preparing for our next level of scale, learning from our community, and building a product that meaningfully improves their lives.

Comment below if you’d like to join Rodeo — we’ll drop you a code to get in.

Then, we’ll see you offline 🫡

Team Rodeo

None of this would be possible without…

• OUR TEAM 🤠 Sam, Tim, Saul, Sarah, Beth, Priscilla, Liz, Deven, Katherine, Cam, Janice. The Avengers of consumer, and the team to watch in 2026.

• OUR INVESTORS 🤠 The funding round was led by Foundry, Oceans, and 359 Capital, with participation from BAM, Starting Line, f7, Genius Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Gaingels, as well as strategic angel investors including founders and C-level executives from Duolingo, Pinterest, Hinge, Kayak, Influential, Snap, and more. You bet on us, and we’re forever grateful.

• OUR COMMUNITY 🤠 We build for you. Thank you for believing in our vision, and for being with us every step of the way.

Let’s get into it.

Our team is cooking - we’ve got big news dropping next week, and we’re getting ready to release an extremely sleek updated version of the app (more below). Pieces are falling into place, after many weeks of heads down work.

We are loving our Substack era. It was so much fun hearing from you last week in the comments - what resonates, what questions you have, what you’re excited about. Thanks for jumping in with us.

This week in the comments, tell us: how are you using Rodeo in your life right now? What types of things are you saving? What personal goal is Rodeo helping you work towards?

For example - it’s a big priority for me in 2026 to show up for my friends. Last year, I started a new job (heyyyy), my partner started a new job, and I had my first son. It was a wild year - and I felt like my friendships / IRL time with my people took a hit. So many people were there for me - but showing up IRL just wasn’t something that I was able to prioritize, given health, family, career, etc. And I know that totally makes sense, and no one is upset about it, and I don’t feel bad or guilty - BUT selfishly, I missed my people! In 2026, I’m working on building my community. Showing up. Being there for my friends, in the work and in life. Rodeo is helping me do that, by making it easier and more seamless for me to keep track of plans, and then make those plans happen. It’s not one magic feature - but small, consistent reductions of friction that add up for me in major ways.

I had coffee with Tim in my first week at Rodeo last summer - and we talked about how, over the years, we’ve found ourselves building the things we ourselves need the most in that moment. That’s pretty special.

Much love ✌️

Liz + Team Rodeo

P.S. Code below has 50 spots - tag / share this post with someone who needs the app! And while you’re there… give us some stars 🥲😘😇⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Download Rodeo, Code = 8214

🚀 A viral start to the Year of the Fire Horse

We’ve had a big week on TikTok, with WranglingSam going repeatedly viral sharing demos of the app. These comment sections are the most fun of all time. Come meet us out there, welcome new people to the Rodeoverse, and share how you’re using the app!

@wranglinsamThis weekend only… #vintage #shopping at @NORMAL?

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💭 Sam’s Corner

When our private beta went live last November, we were blown away by the level of interest in Rodeo. As an MVP, the initial infrastructure of the app was built to accommodate only so many users, and so many Saves per user (some people are saving hundreds of things!). This was by design - we do our best not to overbuild, so that we can validate ideas before investing too much time and resources. This is critical to our ability to move quickly as a team.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been upgrading Rodeo to be able to accommodate our next level of usage. If you’re seeing a few loading delays or glitches, that's why - thanks for flagging issues, and for hanging in there with us.

An even stronger version of the app is landing imminently. Sarah and Deven built a new foundation that will enable Rodeo to thrive at scale. Saul, Priscilla and Beth have tightened the look and feel of the app, to stay true to our commitment to keeping Rodeo simple, yet powerful. The update will enable us to build more of the features and ideas that people in our community have requested.

When it drops, you'll know - we can’t wait to hear your feedback when it does.

🤠 Rodeo across the interwebs

When you share about what we are building, we consider it the ultimate honor, and we do not take it lightly. We LOVE using this newsletter as an space to thank and elevate the incredibly talented people we are lucky to meet through building Rodeo. All of you are amazing and kind - and we hope you continue to find other inspiring and delightful people through this community.

This week, meet Lija Chang, a Rodeo power user and senior at Georgia Tech, who is using the app to help make the most of her last semester in college. Katherine and the team had a chance to meet Lija this week to learn about her experience using the app.

Lija has been sharing how she’s using Rodeo on TikTok - curating a diverse range of events in Atlanta to share with her community. Lija is making collaborative Lists on Rodeo - so that other people can join and share events they find, helping to get each other out of their individual social bubbles. Lija even had her first person offer free tickets to an event in the area for someone in her community - we see you, Mary!

Check out Lija’s content below - and join her ATL Lists on Rodeo!

@lijachangjoin us at tinyurl.com/ATLwLija 🙌 i can't even put links in my bio but someone already joined my @rodeo_app list from my bio 😭 going to be posting round ups more often instead of weekly for the love of the game there's so much good stuff happening 🏇 @Sam Levy @Sam Levy @lassoing_liz @Cam’s Hot Tables @katherine @peaches #atlanta #rodeo #atl #fyp #atlantaevents

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🍽️ Cam’s Hot Tables

Cam is kicking it up this week, hosting a new giveaway to help one lucky member of the Rodeo community level up their next trip. Hop into the comments on TikTok or IG, tell us where you’re going, who you’re going with, and what you want to do - we’ll pick one person, and help curate an experience you might not otherwise do to make your trip even more special. Rodeo (and in this case, Cam) - doing the unsexy work to get you offline, doing cool things, with the people you love.

@cams.hot.tablesLet Rodeo LEVEL UP your next trip!! Comment with the most likes this week wins!! DM me for a code if you want to try @Rodeo! #startup #travel #giveaway #rodeo #levelup

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🥲 One last thing…

We moved to Substack to be closer to YOU. Our goal in making this move is to create more space for community. Before, our newsletter felt like a one-way conversation. Yelling into the void. We chose this platform so we can connect more directly with the >1,200 of you who have been building Rodeo with us from day one. We want to hear from you. Learn from you. Continue to build real, actual relationships with you. Learn about you, and elevate your stories. We want to build something extraordinary together - so that all of us can spend more time IRL with the people we love.

So - meet us in the comments. Meet us in the Notes. Tag us when you read something on Substack that feels Rodeo-coded. We can’t wait to see you out there.

Tuesday 02/17 marked the first year of the Lunar New Year - aka, the Year of the Fire Horse, aka our year 🐎❤️‍🔥 We have much to share in the weeks ahead - stay tuned, and saddle up. 2026 is going to be quite the ride.

Much love ✌️

Liz + Team Rodeo

P.S. Code below has 50 spots - tag / share this with someone who needs the app!

Download Rodeo, Code = 9723

🇬🇧 Rodeo is LIVE in the UK!

Last week, we went live in Australia and New Zealand, and this week Rodeo’s private beta went live in the UK. The UK was the #1 top requested region from community members on our waitlist and in our comment sections, after the USA and Canada, and we believe it has the potential to be an incredible market for us. Tag your UK friends in the comments, so we can get them codes and get them to the rodeo!

🤠 Rodeo across the interwebs

When you share about us, we consider it the ultimate honor, and we do not take it lightly. We LOVE using this newsletter as an space to thank and elevate the incredibly talented people we’ve been lucky to meet through building Rodeo. You all are amazing, and we hope you continue to find other inspiring and delightful humans through the Rodeoverse.

NOTE: If you are a creator, or lead a community that you think would LOVE Rodeo, comment and let us know (a) what your community is, and (b) why they need Rodeo - we’ll hook you up with an exclusive Rodeo code with spots to gift your people, so they can skip the 35k+ waitlist and get right into the app.

• Meet Rachel Macnaghten - a London-based startup growth and marketing leader (we love), who shouted out Rodeo in this killer post that shines a spotlight on 7 startups doing great marketing work. Thank you, Rachel!

• Big love to Sam - a TikTok creator we discovered when they shared about Rodeo this week. We see you!!

• Loved this post from Peyton - a creator who shares about events and experiences in NYC. So much fun to hear Peyton explain how they use the app to save ideas, make content recommending things to do in the city, make plans with friends, husband, etc. LOVE hearing your favorite features.

🍽️ Cam’s Hot Tables

Cam saved Valentine’s Day last week for some lucky members of the Rodeo NYC community - and we’re back with another week of hot reservations to gift away this week. The whole point? Rodeo exists to do the unglamorous work it takes to get you offline. Less friction = more spending time IRL with the people you love. Our app reduces the mental load, and makes it easier to plan with friends. This just takes it one step further. Getting cool reservations is annoying - we can do the work, so you can have fun 🫶

@cams.hot.tablesWelcome back to another week of amazing NYC resys!!! Comment below to win our res at Minetta Tavern and DM me for a code to Rodeo’s private beta!! - - - - #Foodie #startup #restaurant #nyc #rodeo

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🥲 One last thing…

Hey y’all! See below for updates from us this week 👇

As always, grateful to you for being here, for hyping us up out there, and for sharing your experiences with us to make Rodeo better for everyone. Nothing makes us happier than hearing the ways the app is helping you get offline and spend more time with your people. See last screenshot 🥲

Much love ✌️

Liz + Team Rodeo

Tap to Update Rodeo (code = 6664)

🚚 We’re moving to Substack

I love Beehiiv, and I’m a vet of both platforms, but it’s time to move us over. Substack is more oriented towards community building, and as we grow, I’m craving the ability to connect more directly with the >1,000 of you who are here now. We meet such incredible people in the Rodeo community every single day and week in 1:1 interviews and chats, and of course we write to you here — but it’s one-directional. Yelling into the void. Building Rodeo with our community, to me, means opening lines of communication, and creating opportunities not only for you to connect directly with our team, but also with each other.

We also have a ton of Friends of Rodeo on Substack. I know we will be able to reach more new people who would benefit from Rodeo through the platform’s ecosystem, and partner in creative ways with the creators, tastemakers, and community builders who are already excited about what we are building.

💌 @Cams.Hot.Tables saves Valentine’s Day

Cam is off to the races 🏇 All week, he’s been dropping hard-to-get reservations and giving them away to people in the Rodeo community in NYC — just in time for Valentine’s Day, when it’s actually quite tough to score a reservation at a top spot.

The whole point of Cam’s Hot Tables? A chance to live our mission in a way that feels true to our brand — Rodeo doing the unglamorous work required to get you offline. Less time planning, more time IRL with the people you love.

We’re paying for a few of the dinners and sending some surprise treats to people who scoop the reservations this week — so hop in the comments, say hey to Cam, and shoot your shot!

@cams.hot.tables

Day 1 of paying for your Valentine’s Day!!! Come back tomorrow for the next reservation! @rodeo_app @Sam Levy - - - - #valentinesday #giv... See more

🇳🇿 We’re LIVE in Australia + New Zealand!

When we initially launched, we heard a lot of people in our comment sections from countries all over the world asking for Rodeo. These were some of the top countries we heard — so our team expanded access to our private beta, which is now available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. New Zealand first, because of Peaches ☺️

Stay tuned next week for where we drop next! 👀 And if you have friends in other countries - forward them this newsletter, and tell them they can join our international waitlist here.

🥲 One last thing…

Startups are hard. Notes like these and people like you keep us going. You’re the reason we do what we do.

Hi everyone! Keeping our intro short and sweet this week, because our team is heads down cooking up a lot of incredible things. From newsworthy updates, to a better-than-we-could-have-dreamed-up partnership, to a refresh of the app that looks sleeeeeeeek affffff… we’re cranking.

See below for updates from us this week 👇 Grateful to you for being here, and for helping us build, as @user..112358 on TikTok calls it, the “app of the decade.”

Much love ✌️

Liz + Team Rodeo

P.S. Reply with thoughts, ideas, or feedback - I always love to hear from you!

Tap to Update Rodeo (code = 6664)

🎙 Sam on Tasteland

This week, we were stoked to have Sam invited as a guest on the Tasteland podcast with Friends of Rodeo Daisy Alioto and Francis Zierer. Listen to the episode here!

📰 Rodeo across the interwebs

• Rodeo made another appearance in the Platonic Love newsletter, created by Aliza Sir and Aja Frost. We’re so excited to welcome the first 100 members of the PL community into the Rodeoverse this week - very here for this crossover between communities dedicated to helping friends be better friends to our friends.

• Safi Aziz, one of our beta community members, is the founder of Joust, a social experience startup that hosts game nights in incredible locations across NYC. Safi featured a video Sam made recently in Joust’s newsletter - showing how people can save Joust events into Rodeo to remember and make them happen.

• Loved this post from Fernanda Grace Lins, who heard about Rodeo from a friend, and has been using it to get plans out of the group chat. Thank you so much for sharing about us with your community!

• Big shout to Emily Jones, who shared about Rodeo on LI, after hearing about it from Rodeo beta community member Monica Abrams’ AI Snack Club - a community for ambitious women to learn AI together. We love to see it!

👀 🇬🇧 Sneak peek JUST for you…

We’re excited to share that we will soon be expanding our private beta to the UK, Australia, and New Zealand !!!!!!!!!!!! We’ve had a ton of interest from people in these three countries, and we cannot wait to bring Rodeo to more of the world. If you have friends in these regions - forward them this newsletter, and tell them to join our international waitlist here!

🍽️ Weekend restaurant reservation GIVEAWAYYY

Meet Cam’s Hot Tables, a new account led by the one and only Rodeo MBA intern Cam Overholt. A foodie AND sommelier, Cam snags hard-to-get reservations for restaurants in NYC, and gifts them away to people in the Rodeo community. Meet us in the comments to scoop a res - and follow Cam to hype him up out there!

@cams.hot.tables

It’s finally time for this week’s hot tables!!!!! Comment below and tag a friend to win! @Sam Levy @rodeo_app - - - - - #nyc #foodie #res... See more

🔥 ICYMI: new features!

Last week, we announced drop of two highly requested features from the community - pinned Lists and SEARCH! 📌🔍 Now, you can pin the Lists you use most often in Rodeo, and search through all of your Saves - making it easier and faster to add things to the Lists you use most, and find the things you’ve saved in the app.

@lizf.xo

NEW FEATURE DROP 🚨❤️‍🔥 lmk what you think + what you want us to build next! 🤠@rodeo_app #startup #friendship #lifehack #productivity #thi... See more

🥲 One last thing…