Design budget for rebuilding the dating site we all want back.

EA community

Shreeda Segan

ActiveGrant

$5,000raised

$5,000funding goal

Fully funded and not currently accepting donations.

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.

Shreeda Segan

3 months ago

Progress update

What progress have you made since your last update?

We got 75 people to beta test our compatibility questions! We are focusing on WOMEN right now. The majority of the responses are from single women. You can see and/or share the typeform here: https://shreedasegan.typeform.com/to/dSmutmIr
Continuing to build and design out the MVP!
Finished v1 of our pitch deck; found an advisor

What are your next steps?

Finish the pitch deck
Get 50+ women in just one city (Austin) to sign up
- promoted tweets/IG posts
- guerilla marketing (flyers around town)
- set up dating event/mixer

Is there anything others could help you with?

get single women in Austin to do our questions
donate more money so we can do the marketing in Austin
- I quit my part time job to focus entirely on this project
make warm intros to potential investors

🥦

Mae Schaefer

3 months ago

This seems interesting and I'm glad someone else is trying it (and glad that those people aren't Manifold, no offense).
One problem: You should probably more-clearly identify your AI-generated accounts as fake and purely for testing purposes? Unless the intent is to actually give the false impression that there are more accounts than there actually currently are.

Shreeda Segan

3 months ago

Thanks for the feedback Mae! @mshaze

The current site is just a demo & purely for testing purposes. It's in no way the actual product or real accounts.

I'll also draft an official update to the Manifund project right now.

Shreeda Segan

5 months ago

Progress update

What progress have you made since your last update?

built out the minimum viable design for user onboarding
published more on our substack (meetmeoffline.substack.com)
created internal brand guidelines
internal design thinking workshop on profile design

What are your next steps?

code and build the onboarding design
minimum viable design for user profiles
minimum viable branding work
keep publishing on our substack

Is there anything others could help you with?

subscribe to our substack (meetmeoffline.substack.com), share and like posts, become a paid subscriber
recommend single women who would volunteer for user research interviews
something else? let us know what you have in mind

Shreeda Segan

5 months ago

early previews of onboarding @shreeda

Jay Schreiber

5 months ago

The "Global Catastrophic Risk" and the "Health and Development" labels here look wrong.

donated $600

Austin Chen

5 months 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

5 months ago

Progress update

What progress have you made since your last update?

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

What are your next steps?

collaborate on customized design components
design our pages
work on minimum viable branding

Is there anything others could help you with?

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

Shreeda Segan

5 months ago

Here's the user journey!

donated $100

🦋

Jacob B Raser

5 months 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.

Shreeda Segan

5 months ago

Thank you!!!! @Onethousandnos-

Miti Saksena

5 months ago

(Unhelpful comment alert) love the intentional(?) GCR, Global health n development, LTFF tags on this project.

Shreeda Segan

5 months ago

@MSaksena something something total fertility rate

donated $600

Austin Chen

5 months 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!

Shreeda Segan

5 months ago

Thanks so much Austin! Appreciate your wisdom as well. @Austin

donated $20

🐌

Jasper Cacioppi

5 months 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

5 months ago

@J_C Totally understand your skepticism. I still think it's worth the attempt and am glad you think so, too.

🐌

Jeb Stone

5 months 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

5 months 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

donated $100

🦋

Jacob B Raser

5 months 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

5 months ago

Awesome! Make sure you're subscribed to our substack. @Onethousandnos-

Shreeda Segan

5 months 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.

donated $100

🥭

Dean L

5 months ago

Really excited to see someone attempting this. It's sorely needed. I'm curious how you plan to get normies to use this like they used to use OkCupid. Are you going to raise donations for marketing as well?

Shreeda Segan

5 months 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.

donated $300

Mikhail Larionov

5 months 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

5 months ago

Thank you so much! I've found a designer but will keep this in mind if anything falls through! @vernon99

donated $200

Mike Saint-Antoine

5 months ago

Cool idea, good luck!

Shreeda Segan

5 months ago

Thanks so much! @mikesaint-antoine

donated $600

Austin Chen

5 months 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

5 months 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!