Suggested by Eric Niehaus almost 3 years ago

Problem: dating apps are extremely inefficient. You'll send 1,000 swipes — spending hours doing so — and only end up actually going on 1-2 dates. what's more, dating app profiles are poor at representing people: they only show the best version of the person and don't tell you what they're actually like to talk to. also, on dates, you almost always know within 5 minutes if the date is going to go well, so the following 1-2 hours are kind of wasteful.

Solution: get paired randomly with another local person to talk one-on-one. that way, you get to see what they really look like normally and how they actually talk, and you can get a way better sense if you actually click. it's like speed dating and 50x richer of a medium for getting to know people. It's guaranteed "dating" unlike dating apps.

Omegle is a very popular website that does this but creates international matches, so the odds that you meet someone that you could actually meet up with is almost zero.

Modes: you could create multiple modes, e.g. making friends, going on dates (speed dating), meet up with people who are also going out tonight, interest-based (philosophy, engineering, etc.)

Case Example:

A. Girls are pregaming before they go out for the night and jump on this platform to chat with other groups of guys who are also pregaming before they go out (or people who are about to go to the same concert.

B. A guy who just moved to the city and has niche interests that few people want to talk about. He jumps on to talk to other people who are interested in philosophy.

Note: You could let people skip their "match" at any time or you could institute a timer, e.g. you have to talk to each other for 5-min. maybe people who pay to be able to skip immediately.

1. The tech is established
2. People are very used to dating apps and are increasingly comfortable and preferential toward FaceTiming people before they commit to going out with them
3. People dislike how inefficient dating apps are.
4. There's too much optionality in dating apps and you're constantly comparing with unrealistic standards — quick to dismiss people because they're not "real" in the same way that someone whom you're video chatting with is
5. Girls get overwhelmed with how many matches they get.
6. Guys, on the other hand, are frustrated by how few matches they get.
7. Both get ghosted.