8. Isabelle Andrews: Building the“Hi Franky” App Where Astrology Meets the NFL

0:00I'm Victoria and the game's on. I am so excited. Today, I am bringing you an interview with the creator of the app, Hi Frankie. Hi Frankie is an app that combines football and astrology, giving you player outlooks for the week, telling you what sign every single player is, and looking at outlooks for specific games coming up in the following week of football. Izzy is so wonderful to talk to. She's someone that you just want her to win. You want her to win. And her app truly is so fun. I use it every single time that I am watching football. So I cannot wait for you to hear all about her journey becoming a tech company owner of building a brand new brand.

0:50And she even teaches us a little bit about astrology because frankly, I don't know that much about astrology. So she's giving us some tea. She's teaching us a little bit. And I think you're going to absolutely love the episode. You can follow her on social at highfrankie.app. You can download the app. It's only on iOS currently, high space Frankie with a Y. And if you're on social and you want to follow us at Hey Victoria Henderson, at Giovanna Scroggins, and The Game, The Podcast. I hope you love the interview as much as I did. Izzy, welcome to the game. We're so excited to have you. I'm so excited to be here.

1:28This is going to be so fun. So let's jump right in. Can you give us a little bit of background on yourself and what Hi Frankie is? Because Hi Frankie is something that the girls absolutely must know about since I downloaded it, since I met you. I've literally looked on this probably every single day of my life. So can you give a little rundown? Who is Izzy? And tell us about this fabulous app that you created. I'm Izzy, the creator of Hi Frankie, which is a new app. I launched about a month ago that I am deeming the most fun football app. And Frankie is a persona of a girl that is welcoming you into football fandom with open arms.

2:06And there's no gatekeeping or name a player or mansplaining of the rules or anything. And it's really just about highlighting the most fun parts of the game and all the things that made me fall in love with it and allowing others to fall in love with it easily as well. So we've got drama and lore and astrology, which we'll talk about and really highlighting the unpredictability and how fun that is. And also just the players and who they are as people and why you want to root for them. So it's been a labor of love over the last few months that I just, just kind of launched it about a month ago.

2:39And so check it out. It's wild that you only launched a month ago because we launched about the same time. And yeah. And it's just so impressive what you've been able to do with the beginning of the season. So when you first introduced Frankie to me and our like original chat, you had mentioned that you wanted Frankie to be like your bestie. So where did the inspiration for Frankie come from? Where did the name come from? Like, does that have a good story? Tell us about this girl. And is she not just you in Apsorum? She's not necessarily me. We have a few differences. I actually don't. I was recently thinking about what her sign would be because I don't think that she's an Aries, but I need to kind of figured that out.

3:21I think she might be a Virgo. Anyway, so the idea for Frankie comes actually originally from a version of it that was focused only on astrology, which I'll talk about in that I did fantasy football for the first time last year. And I'm like you also kind of new to football fandom over the past several years. I didn't grow up with it and learning it as an adult. Like I don't feel like people get credit for how complicated of a sport it is. I think if you grow up learning it, you don't think it's complicated, but coming into it with fresh eyes at like, you know, 30 years old, I was like, what is happening in this sport?

3:55Why is it so hard to follow? And I find it to be like a sport that when you don't know what to look for, it's not as fun to watch. Like you can, you can watch basketball and know what's happening. Cause you're just watching them score. But with football, like it's so much more fun when you actually know what's going on. So I had kind of my own journey of getting into football and growing my own fandom and finding that there was just a massive lack of media that I thought was interesting. I think that's changing quite a bit. Definitely this year, last year, Taylor Swift, effective at all. Like I'm so glad to see that there's such an incredible, there's so many incredible creators and, and, you know, podcasts and everything that are just doing this work really incredibly that just didn't exist when I was getting into it.

4:40and so I wanted this idea that someone was having open arms bringing you into the sport and saying like you don't you don't need to be called you don't need to worry about being a bandwagon fan you can be brand new here you can ask you can ask what a first down is but you can also go deep on play calls and strategy or you could just only focus on the drama and the relationships and like just get into into that stuff if you want and the pop culture angles of it and I'll say that I also got into football via like a group of girls. I didn't get into it, you know, on my own necessarily. And I just had a really welcoming experience in Bill's Mafia also just being such a lot of Bill's fans that are also girls from the game.

5:26And I really wanted to translate that because I just know that it's such a male dominated kind of, again, like kind of gatekept thing that people are like, you know, you have to prove your fandom or, you know, prove that, you know, stat lines and all these things. And I'm like, well, did you know that he's a Gemini? Because that's really important. I bet you didn't. I bet you didn't. So where does astrology kind of tie into all of this? Because you're saying like, did you know he's a Gemini? Where did it come from that you wanted to dive into the astrology? Because I'm so it's, it's the app I never knew I needed.

6:00And so I'm wondering, how did you come up with that? Yeah. So I did, I did fantasy for the first time last year. And at that point I was like probably four seasons into like being seated as a bills fan. Like I was like, I am actually a fan. I feel like I know what's going on. I know my players really well, whatever the fantasy, like you have to know so many more players and so many more teams and things that are happening in the league that you, if you're not paying attention to within the context of your own team, then you might, you know, it's, it's a lot more information to figure out. And I remember being like, so daunted by the idea of even doing fantasy.

6:36I shared it. I shared a team with my friend because I didn't even want to do it alone. I was like, no, that's too scary. And knew that there was like no way that I was going to like onboard overnight to like understanding, you know, all the strategy that goes into, into fantasy. So week one, I, we were deciding on a tiebreaker. And I literally just Googled the Zodiac signs of each player and what their, who had a better horoscope that week. And we chose that way. And it worked out what for us that week. It didn't, doesn't work every week I'll say, but completely leaned into it from there and just did our entire season based off of astrology being like, why not?

7:12Like I, the more I talked to people that had done astrology, the more I saw people that were like, yeah, like you go off stats, but you also kind of go off the vibe and like, you kind of have to trust your gut on things. And I was like, this is feeling really synergistic with astrology, I think. And, you know, did, did really well in our, in our season also, like we didn't, didn't win, but we had the most points in our league. So I just felt like we were killing it the whole time. And then like, was just so fun to be, you know, flexing on our league to be like, well, I knew, I knew to bench him because he's a Gemini and the moon and Scorpio wasn't going to vibe.

7:47So you didn't, you didn't think to look at that? Like I knew that. So that was kind of the origin of it. And I think generally, as I got more into football, one of the things that got me super into it was like understanding who the players are as people and their backstories and all of that. And astrology is a way to kind of like learn about people as humans. And so even like I was listening to your latest episode and you thinking that Gemini, like Josh is interesting, you know, the fact that he's a Gemini was surprising to you. You're immediately going to start connecting him with other people that you know, and like your personality traits versus how they might match up with a Gemini man.

8:27And it just kind of gets, even if you don't know anything about that person on your screen, you get like a little glimpse into their moods and their patterns and their energy, like anyone else would have, even if they're completely off, you get to have that sort of like insider look into the person that you're really not going to know much about. and you're only seeing as an athlete on the screen, you know, you're really able to kind of think about them more holistically as humans. So I started, I actually built a version of the app at the end of last season that was just like a player lookup.

9:00So just searching a player name and then seeing their sign and their outlook for the week. I've since made it like comically more in depth than that. So it's like the exact degree of the sun sign that the player was in when they were born and then matching that up to the game days, planetary transits and their degrees, and then also matching it up to their teammates synergy as well as the opponent synergy. So if you're a wide receiver, you also look at like the inputs for your quarterback and your O-line and things like that and the cornerback on the other side of the field and how you might with them versus like, you know, who might be poised better in that, in that matchup.

9:43So we, you know, just, I kind of went crazy on that data. It just is so much fun. And there's so much more you can do with that, that I would love to, love to lean into. And yeah, I think that the astrology angle of it is definitely like my most fun aspect of the app. Like, and I think that when you think about astrology, like the thing about astrology in general is that even if you don't believe in it or like, you don't need to, you know, it's not, it's not something that's going to predict every outcome or really control that like, you know, it's not going to control an outcome necessarily, but it's fun because it's reflective and you get to just think about personalities and energies and connection with people and, you know, why they act the way that they do, what makes them confident, what motivates them, what throws them off.

10:27And that's something that like anyone can relate to whether or not you believe in astrology. So I think you I have friends that I would think would be highly skeptical of this. And instead they're like, wait, what is what does it say about Jared Goff next week? Tell me more about the stars are saying what now? And it's just because it's like a fun reflection. Yeah. I don't know. I love it. I would be so interested to look up like player celebrations versus their zodiac sign and how when they celebrate, like, is there a through? I'm sure there's a through line there. I'm sure. Definitely. I mean, I'm sure they're highly fire sign oriented, very flashy.

11:07Right. It's really cool hearing about just how like deeply integrated this is. So when you open the app, you have three options. You have the ask Frankie option for like new fan. You have no idea what's going on. You just want someone to be nice to you and teach you. You can ask Frankie questions. You can also do your player lookup. And when you player lookup, that's going to tell you their sign. It's going to tell you where they were born and then an outlook. And then you also have the matchups and like you, you highlight matchups every week and the highlighted matchups. That's where we're getting all of that data of like team versus team, player versus player.

11:49That's kind of where all of that is. Just for the girls who haven't downloaded the app yet, I want them to know exactly what they're getting and how all of this like super cool info is like manifesting into an app. Yeah. So again, it started with astrology, but I think it's grown into something much more than that and that I wanted it to feel welcoming to any entry point into caring about the sport. And I found that when I originally launched that version of it last year, that was just the player lookup. I had friends that were like really interested in using it that went to use it. And we're like, I don't even know who to look up.

12:19I'm like, yeah, because you don't have the context of who you want to even learn about or, you know, what is going on in the league or anything. So I think this feeling of being in the know and kind of highlighting the headliners, but in this silly, playful way that is just like, well, yeah, the head, like the last night's Bills Patriots game was a division rivalry. And there's like, definitely that's important, but also like the real story is the digs Josh breakup. And this is like, you know, some say a revenge game and that's just like, it's just like a more fun kind of angle on why something would be important and kind of a cheat sheet to the game is something that we're, that we're also working on, you know, improvements too.

13:02But yeah, so it's like the three tabs to your point are kind of content oriented as the playbook. So just kind of a league context of like what's going on right now and like what's the latest drama and things like that. And then it's the ask functionality and then it's your, your Zodiac zone where you can kind of do that player comparison and week over week, see what your, your players are up to on from the stars perspective. Yeah. I love that you also have the gossip in there because you're like, this is what's going on. Like I was reading Jackson darts thing before. And like the way that you state it is just so funny.

13:40You're like, I don't know what's going on over there. Something's feeling very off. Like, yeah. Well, I also didn't want, like, I thought a lot about the actual content that would be in here and if it would be more kind of news outlet, you know, neutral style versus I kind of was like, that's kind of boring. Like, I just think that that's like, you have a thousand versions of that already available. You don't need someone to just regurgitate the news to you in like a slightly different tone. It's more fun. And I think that there's like a personality behind it being like, you know, sharing a hot take or something that you can agree or disagree with or, you know, and kind of spark conversation, I think is a little bit more fun than, you know, just factual neutral statements.

14:24So, yeah, Jackson Dart, I wish I could root for him, but for some reason, I really don't like his vibe. And that is just what I wrote about because I'm just like something's off. You don't worry about it. You know what? But it's the same. It's like we were just talking about like guys telling you, oh, you have to just go off vibe that week. Well, like I pick players just off of their vibe as well. Yeah, totally. Well, and I know like I think you guys highlighted to like all the different ways that people have chosen their fantasy teams. And I'm so obsessed with that where it's like, oh, I chose the guys that all smile in their photos because that seems like they're confident.

15:01And like that feels like a good energy. Like incredible. Yeah, you can totally just read the vibes. And I think that astrology can kind of help that too, to be like, I typically don't vibe with Scorpio men and therefore maybe I don't want to pick one up. You're like, this team is anybody but Scorpios. Yeah. I also like the idea of bringing in more about the user's astrology into the app too, to kind of be like, you are very intuitive and lucky this week, like yourself. So maybe lean into your random choices of who you're bringing off your bench versus play it safe this week. Don't make any crazy bets.

15:38You know, the stars are not in your favor right now, so don't push it, you know. so I'd love to bring more of the user into it as well and kind of also give them like compatibility ratings maybe with the players to be like if you ever met Josh Allen in person you guys would totally hit it off I know it I met this girl the other day and I was telling her about the podcast and she was like oh cool whatever I tell her I'm a Lions fan and we get to chatting and she was like if I wasn't married I would definitely be an Aiden Hutchinson's DMs and I'm like honestly his DMs are probably flooded which I love he's like handsome crowd pleaser what's do we know his sign I literally was just looking this up because I'm like wait because I feel like he is such a good balance of like hot and fiery and athletic but would also hug you when you cry even if you just started dating him definitely yeah he is such a good vibe in this that's based off nothing like I don't feel like I even know him but oh my god he's a Leo and he has a really really good he's a 10 out of 10 this week which again very rare 10 out of 10 wow did he have a good game I didn't even I don't know what's the lines game but nothing like not like a crazy standout week for him last week who are they playing this week oh so that'll refresh what is it tomorrow so after tonight's game will be the next like the the weekly refresh happens where a new score will be okay so last week he was a 10 okay because they're playing the chiefs on sunday we'll have to check it out you know tomorrow morning Yeah.

17:24I'll text her in the morning. So girls, this is how you use the app. You start gossiping about players saying who you think is a good vibe. And then you look up their sign and figure out. I feel like you literally just described him though, as a Leo, like, like being super fiery and confident, but also being, you know, grounded and someone that would be kind to you too. I've always thought of Leo as it's like more pompous, but every Leo that I've ever met has been like pretty warm and every Leo I've ever dated has also been like kind of a cuddly guy. Yeah. I don't, I feel like just fire sign has the connotation of being like loud and confident and all that, but it's not, I think the other thing that I am desperate to put into the app, but I don't have all the info for it is, you know, moon and rising signs and, you know, further chart details.

18:12I can get most players birthplace that's like usually available around, but all of like, birth time, I'm definitely not going to catch. Every mom that we're interviewing, because we plan on interviewing moms throughout the lifetime of the game. But if we have a mom on, I'll be like, this is kind of weird, but. But I do think that that is important because it gives a lot more context. I think your full chart gives you way more context. I was just saying, I don't feel like I'm in my, I'm an Aries and I do identify with that, but I don't feel like I am in the most Aries mode of my life right now.

18:48I'm not super chaotic or spontaneous or anything. Like I'm very planned right now. And I'm really leaning into my Virgo side a lot more. So that's why I'm Frankie feels more like a Virgo. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Cause Frankie's, Frankie's on it. Like she's sassy, but she's on it. Yeah. That's the goal. I think, I think a lot to your question earlier of like, is this, is this just me in, in, you know, app form? I do think a lot of like my journey even building it is informing the tone of like it is supposed to be fun don't take it too seriously if it's something that's like if I get like a prediction wrong like who cares like it's literally just meant to be again some like a conversation starter some aspect of community in some way to say like you're welcome here and like there's there's room for you here and you know you can interact with this this character that like has fun takes and and that's kind of It doesn't need to be like breaking news about, you know, all the most interesting things happening in the league or think pieces, you know, controversies.

19:49Like, I don't need to do all that. It's just I like the fun parts of football. And that's what I'm leading into. I love it. OK, I would love to talk to you a little bit more about building the app, because technically you are a tech business owner, tech founder. You started in the tech world, which is heavily male dominated around a heavily male dominated. Yeah. Double. Yeah. So it seems like the creation of the app came naturally to you and it seems to kind of parallel what we've done at the game. It kind of like naturally came and grew and the girls are ready. But on the business side, can you tell us a little bit about from creation to where you are now and how that journey's been?

20:38Yeah, yeah, it's been a wild one for sure. The original version of it was truly just fun side project. Like I work in product management, which is, you know, adjacent to software engineering and basically deciding, you know, what kind of features to build and experiences to build for users. as I've kind of grown in my career, which is a great thing. But as I've grown, I've become someone that doesn't do as much of the actual hands-on work and I'm, you know, running a team and doing kind of more forward-looking strategy. And I really missed being able to like build and ship things myself. And so in a bit of a creative lull last year is when I did that kind of initial version of it.

21:19And I've, I'm not a software developer. Like this is all self-taught stuff. Like, I don't know. I'm every day learning an unbelievable amount about how to build an app and run a business. Like, I don't have a business degree. Like, these are all just things that I'm figuring out on the fly, which thank God there's so many incredible resources available to me to do so. But yeah, last year was really just a fun side project. And then this year I just kind of chipped away at it for the first kind of half of the year. I didn't, you know, sit down and really focus on it at all. I was just sort of in the background thinking about ways that I could improve it and expanding it to these other tabs and other content and everything.

21:58And then probably in like April or so, April or May, I was like, okay, I'm going to lock in and I'm going to do this before football season, which is an insane timeline to give myself. I have like three months before August, like I can do this and enlisted help from some friends that have expertise in different fields. I have a friend that, you know, is helping me with design now, which took me like in my head, all these things are things I can do myself. And I'm like, they are not the best versions of them one. And two, they take so long. Like, is it the best use of my time to be like, you know, in the weeds of something that's not my expertise.

22:32So I'm starting to enlist more help, which is great. In the meantime, though, I have, I still have my full-time job. So it's something that I do on nights and weekends and just kind of have to dedicate my social life to right now, which I'm happy to do because it's just such like an incredible learning experience. I think even if, you know, even if it pivots to be something else, like who knows what the future of Frankie will hold, but I have found so much inspiration and just like creative learning that I'm doing on a daily basis that I don't feel like I was energized by, you know, in my job day to day.

23:06And I think also the exact point of being up against both tech and sports industries being extremely male dominated is what helped inspire Frankie's voice and make her feel inclusive and safe and really lean into that. Like, I'm not taking myself seriously because like, you guys are so annoying over here. Like it doesn't need to be as, you know, as like serious and strict as like a lot of these, a lot of the energy can feel in this space. And I think a lot about like, I made the choice to not include any stats in the app whatsoever. Like I originally was thinking stats would be a factor in the astrological outlook score.

23:53And I would like weigh them a little bit. But I decided like, no, like literally there's so much of that already existing. Football is such a data heavy place already. And it's really interesting stuff that's happening, but it's so serious. And like, let's literally remove all of that and not think of players as numbers and think of them as human beings and literally just who they are in the off the field and what emotions they're up against and, you know, where they're finding their confidence and all that kind of stuff is just like so much more fun and interesting to me to kind of pivot away from the traditional sports media that I feel like is, is kind of forced on our throats right now.

24:27Yeah. Yeah. I, I mean, I think that you building this on nights and weekends is incredible how no social, which is fine. you know what there's phases and periods of life and I mean I'm after your own heart I decided to create a podcast like three weeks before the season and here we are and now I'm like meeting women like you and I think this is also why the work is so important is because there's so many girls out there who want to go out on their own and do something and I know a lot of girls have messaged me being like it's so cool that you're doing this and I'm so happy that more women are doing things like this.

25:09And, you know, I'm sure that you've received kind of the same reaction of like this male dominated media is not a bad thing. And there's amazing announcers out there and genius analysts. Yeah. Yeah. And I consume a lot of that to be clear. It's just like you want that and fun. Like it can't just be, it can't just be. Yeah. And I think there is a big and there. Going back to the kind of business side, do you have a piece of advice for women who want to start their own business but kind of don't know where to start or also in a nine-to-five kind of classic job with not that much time or maybe not as many resources?

25:54Like, what is your best piece of advice for a woman starting a business? And you can do that either in the tech realm in sports or just on its own? Great question. And I feel like a fraud answering it when I'm like, I don't know, who am I to say? I'm just figuring it out myself. I would say, yeah, yeah. I mean, that, I mean, that alone is like, you need to believe in yourself. You need to not do what I just did and like actually, you know, be, be confident in the things that you, you believe to be worth your time and energy. I think something that's been pleasantly surprising, I think that you kind of mentioned as well, is just the outreach that I've gotten from people that feel really inspired by the app or the idea in general, or just this like new culture of fandom that I think is coming around and how many people are willing to help.

26:48And I think I was feeling very unsure about how to engage people, engage with people that I knew I wanted their help on, you know, certain things or I wanted to talk to them, but like the more I've reached out to people or responded to, you know, people that have reached out to me talking to as many people as I can and just getting new nuggets of info and inspiration and feeling like a, it's helped me feel so much more supported. I think then when I am spending hours on end alone in my apartment, trying to make the app work like that can be really, it can be like so soul sucking sometimes that when you get those glimmers of someone, you know, a nugget of inspiration from someone else, you just feel so much more energized to keep going.

27:30And I think it's important that you, you continue to seek that and like continue to keep community and, and talk to your users a lot too. Like that is something I'm having so much fun with going to bars and just finding the groups of girls that are at the sports bars and understanding how they watch football, what they're craving and what they're, you know, missing from the current landscape and what they would find interesting. Like, I think, I think being really close to your customer, which is fun because it's like me and my friends and people that I want to talk to anyway, is, is like a huge advantage as well to figuring out kind of what it is that you want to build.