From the founder

Happy Fourth, and a note on the people worth depending on

By Matthew Firth, founder of NexSpark · Jul 4, 2026 · 3 min read

Happy Fourth. Wherever you are today, a backyard, a rooftop, Piedmont Park waiting for the sky to go loud. I hope there's good food and someone beside you worth sharing it with.

Here's the thing I keep turning over on this particular holiday. We call it Independence Day, and independence is worth celebrating. But the best days of my life, today very much included, have never really been about being independent. They've been about the opposite: who saved me a seat, who I texted "you coming?", whose shoulder the fireworks lit up next to mine.

Independence is a gift. So is having people worth depending on.

A holiday like this can also be the loneliest day of the year, if you're on the outside of everyone else's plans, scrolling through other people's cookouts. I know that feeling, and I know how many people are quietly in it today. It's a big part of why NexSpark exists at all.

Because we're not trying to take your independence away. We're trying to help you find the people who make it sweeter, the person worth building a life with, the friends worth building a table around. That's the whole project: using the same technology that's left so many of us scrolling alone to actually put people back in the same room.

So today, no pitch. Just a wish: I hope you're with your people. And if you're not there yet, if this is a year you're looking around the cookout wishing someone specific were next to you, we'll be here tomorrow, ready to help. Today, go watch the sky.

Happy Independence Day, Atlanta.

Matthew