The "Global Catastrophic Risk" and the "Health and Development" labels here look wrong.
""A clone of 2011 OkCupid" is the app that everyone wants to use and no one wants to make, and it has been since at least 2016" — Alyssa Vance (https://x.com/alyssamvance/status/1696554182302384199)
We are building this. Our team has been slowly but steadily at work. Check out offline.floomby.us.
Also read and subscribe to our substack: https://meetmeoffline.substack.com/p/what-really-makes-the-dating-app.
This project's goals are to create a dating-site-as-a-public-good. VC-backed dating apps often have incentives directly at odds with the incentives of user's. Normies and conventionally attractive people get away with using such apps. But what about the underserved market of smart, thoughtful people who want to prioritize matches based on VALUES and IDEAS rather than looks, superficial interests, or advertised status?
Obviously manifold.love was an attempt at such a goal but we can do better. We'll be aiming our product towards a larger market of users than just the silo'd rationalist/EA communities. We also have a better compatibility question-set, focusing on scissor statements and questions that demand choice, even if it's somewhat uncomfortable.
We have ideas for distribution, like running events, generating personality quiz reports based on users' answers, etc., etc. But we first need a designer. Any consumer-facing product can't afford to look like shit. Our team is strong in product and engineering. None of us has a design background, however. We also know that design is critical for attracting women :)
We have an extremely experienced senior designer on board to help us. Even $5K is a heavily discounted price to pay her, but it's a start.
Shreeda Segan — writer and thinker. wrote https://summerofprotocols.com/research/dangerous-dating-protocols last year — the paper that pre-empted this project
Josh Hoover — powerful generalist engineer, hired by a handful of rationalists/EA types
Gabriel Duquette — UX engineer, writer of compatibility questions
Causes: insufficient network effects to take off. Design and marketing funds are critical for addressing this! It can't look like shit. And we need to run events or ads or some combination thereof for acquiring users.
Outcomes: there continues to be a woefully underserved market of smart, thoughtful singles who don't have the infrastructure to find each other!!! less power couples, less babies, more loneliness, less QOL ):
We've been fully bootstrapped for now.
Jay Schreiber
3 days ago
The "Global Catastrophic Risk" and the "Health and Development" labels here look wrong.
Austin Chen
3 days ago
@JJ Haha, I think it was a joke (see below), but in the interest of not confusing people I've removed those tags, leaving just "EA community".
Shreeda Segan
16 days ago
onboarded our designer & paid her half the funds thus far as upfront deposit
worked with her to fully document the user journey
published a preview of our mission and positioning statement: https://open.substack.com/pub/meetmeoffline/p/a-preview-of-offlines-mission-and?r=1ug4n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
collaborate on customized design components
design our pages
work on minimum viable branding
continue to contribute money or spread the word on this project on X, Facebook, group chats, substacks, etc.
subscribe to our substack (meetmeoffline.substack.com) and maybe offer to be a beta tester when we recruit those
volunteer your own engineering or design resources
recommend single women who would volunteer for user research interviews
let us know if you live in Austin, TX — we're thinking of launching live there first and then expanding to other cities
something else? let us know what you have in mind
Jacob B Raser
16 days ago
Found the community which catalyzed lived change in the rapid personal growth trajectory I wanted, and was intellectually spring loaded for, after long term isolated study in uninspiring isolated community, via “2011 ok Cupid” so yes; we need that back.
Miti Saksena
18 days ago
(Unhelpful comment alert) love the intentional(?) GCR, Global health n development, LTFF tags on this project.
Austin Chen
19 days ago
Approving this! I think bringing together people and making new relationships happen provides massive social value, and am glad that these other donors agree. Best of luck with development of this dating platform!
Jasper Cacioppi
19 days ago
Not super optimistic about your chances re: network effects, but if any underdog is worth supporting, it's people trying to make a dating app that's actually good.
Shreeda Segan
19 days ago
@J_C Totally understand your skepticism. I still think it's worth the attempt and am glad you think so, too.
Jeb Stone
19 days ago
The value of online dating networks scale by city or metro penetration, not national penetration. 10% market share in (say) NYC should drive much more conversion and interaction in NYC than 1% penetration nationally would across the board. My humble suggestion is, pick ONE city and nuke it from orbit with marketing. It's the only way to be sure.
Shreeda Segan
19 days ago
@jebstone this is something we are strongly considering, starting with Austin since Josh and I both live here and know people :)
when we raise money for marketing budget, we'll likely do local events and try to scale this strategy by implementing it one city at a time
Jacob B Raser
16 days ago
@shreeda I already wanna fly regularly to Austin bc it’s THE innovation center rn imo for my areas of self growth; I would make even more frequent trips if y’all had events there! even during times and versions of my future I am a non resident
Shreeda Segan
19 days ago
We found a designer we want to work with and are very excited. Additional funding will help us compensate her well for her time.
We also plan to raise again in the future for marketing events! Thanks for everyone who has pitched in so far. Every little bit helps.
Shreeda Segan
19 days ago
@dmlar Thanks for your pledge! Yes, we absolutely are going to raise donations for marketing in the near future. Re: getting normies, I think it's more about expanding beyond an initial beachhead of rationalist / postrationalist / etc, types. We want to do events in-person at select cities to get started.
I think we can also advertise a single high-quality man on our substack as a weekly classified post. I know from talking to Randa, author of hotsingles.nyc, that this strategy led to her recruiting thousands of female subscribers so I am confident this strategy will drive women to join the site. Our bet is that if the women are there, the men will come.
Mikhail Larionov
19 days ago
Getting this to a minimally funded stage. Was thinking about if for ages myself. A dating product has to be nonprofit. Lmk if you’ll need help with finding a designer. vernon99 in Telegram.
Shreeda Segan
19 days ago
Thank you so much! I've found a designer but will keep this in mind if anything falls through! @vernon99
Austin Chen
22 days ago
Thanks for the proposal! I've been impressed with Shreeda's writing at Meridian, as well as choice of coverage of on Byrne Hobart, Emmett Shear, and Dwarkesh Patel. I didn't know she was working on this dating site and think it's an important problem to tackle.
I agree that design is critical for a consumer-facing site like this; it's good that you also recognize this. Right now, as a user I would immediately bounce seeing this front page:
as the general UX design and the animal avatars don't inspire confidence, and communicates that this is very much in beta. I would go so far to posit that design is actually a key part of product here, and I'm a bit skeptical that hiring somebody external to help a bit would work (as opposed to having someone with design chops in the core team).
As a funder, I'd be a lot more excited to fund this if you had lined up a specific designer who wanted to work with y'all on this. $1k-$5k is a very small ask, so my main question is on whether you have the ability to identify someone with good taste, and can actually convince them to sign on.
Another major thing that's hard about dating apps is distribution (this is partly what we found with Manifold.love). If you had any kind of proof that you would be able to get distribution, that would bolster this proposal a lot. Even just like, running in person dating events before your website even works would be promising.
Finally, I think you need a clearer story about what tiny audience you can bring on as a beachhead. Famously, startup lore has it stated that it's better to have a thing that a few people like a lot, than a thing that a lot of people want a little. I think that Manifold Love's early targeting of rationalist/EAs was quite good, and that one thing that tanked it was trying to expand too fast with things like online ads -- it just diluted the applicant pool. A focus on serving a few users very very well is a lot more important.
Shreeda Segan
19 days ago
@Austin thanks so much for this comment. I basically agree on all points. Good news today is that I now have a specific designer lined up and she's willing to be a dedicated, in-house team member that I'll be working with directly. She's an ex-colleague of mine: https://www.instagram.com/serena_eom
The current design is not the intended design at all. I completely agree it's untenable!!!! Hence wanting to hire a designer to help re-do it :)
I'll get back to you about the distribution part. I totally agree that a beachhead is important. I think rationalist/EA was maybe a bit too specific. I want to broaden it to them + postrats + gray tribe, etc., etc. I want it to be value inclusive rather than exclusive. Cross-hybridization between adjacent subcultures, I bet, would lead to stimulating relationships. And not be so small that all the people on the dating site in your city are the ones you already know!