Project summary

""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.

What are this project's goals and how will you achieve them?

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 :)

How will this funding be used?

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.

Who is on your team and what's your track record on similar projects?

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

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails? (premortem)

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 ):

What other funding are you or your project getting?

We've been fully bootstrapped for now.