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Four&me – Connect with great people and get together for amazing activities
- ismlsrn 12y agohey guys, some more background information: four&me is a social discovery network that enables you to search, create and join activities in groups up to five individuals. we've just launched our mvp today. any feedback or thoughts? this would be crucial for us to validate our hypothesis.
- ivanca 12y agoThis would be such a bless for lonely people like me, even if I get rejected by one team you could always try next time with different people. Even if the site doesn't go viral, I'm sure many people would love for it to stay alive, it can have more impact than most startups out there that's for sure. It has the chicken and egg problem but surely you can figure it out. Best luck.
- ismlsrn 12y agothanks for your thoughts! i just relocated from germany to the bay area to start a new job and have exactly the problem you've described. Finding people with similar interests was easy at college, but after graduating it gets a bit more complicated. thats the problem i want to solve for me personally for example. =) Best, Ismail @ismlsrn
- taigeair 12y agoThat's pretty cool. I relocated to Berlin recently. I wanted to tackle the same problem but in a different way. The solution I'm building is still in dev but is more similar to complete app (social to do app).
- ismlsrn 12y agoThanks! I grew up in Berlin. Let's catch up for a coffee, when I'm back home one time, if you'd like to? Ismail@fourandme.com
- niklas_a 12y agoWhat is the hypothesis?
- fourandme 12y agoOur hypothesis is that people will connect with others online and get together for activities offline. We want to provide the flexibility to do activities of any kind everywhere, e.g. joining for a run in the morning in city A with two persons, going for a coffee after lunch in city B with one person and having dinner+drinks in city C with four persons.
- nicklovescode 12y agoI downloaded the app and an iPad and found that the three suggestions I was able to visit were fairly boring. One interesting unscalable idea would be to find 10 events that are truly unique and create an event for those. Just grabbing coffee is not super interesting but if you had a very unique type of event(e.g if one of you is an archer teach four people archery) I would definitely check it out.
- fourandme 12y agoThe app lives from user content =). We've just launched it yesterday night. So please feel free to spread the word and create many creative and interesting activities. We will do so as well of course. Come see us also at the Launch Festival in SF, March 2-4. Happy to have a discussion and get your thoughts :) We provide original Haribo gummibears from Germany hehe.
- nicklovescode 12y agoIt's user content but it's your company. You need to jumpstart it http://paulgraham.com/ds.html http://paulgraham.com/ds.html
- dmcg 12y agoI wish you luck, but the App Store is a poor place to explain any concept. I'd link to a proper site.
- fourandme 12y agoThanks =). Check out www.fourandme.com
- simon_vetter 12y agoI wish I could actually use the service by pointing a browser at this url. You're artificially limiting yourself to iOS users.
- buro9 12y agoOh, this really isn't going to work in Europe or Rest of World where iPhone just isn't dominant. Shame, looks like a good idea. But no web site, and no Android = no use.
- valevk 12y agoClickable: http://www.fourandme.com http://www.fourandme.com
- BronSteeDiam 12y agoIgnore them. You can't serve everyone.
- phreeza 12y agoIt is sort of ironic that your mascots are 5 androids.
- DiscoStewDeluxe 12y agoSame concept as Spontacts (https://www.spontacts.com https://www.spontacts.com) which had trouble receiving a critical mass and thus was sold by Deutsche Telekoms Scout24 to Jochen Schweizer about a year ago.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- akent 12y agoWhat's the logic in restricting it to meetups of maximum five people?
- fourandme 12y agoWe believe that networking in small groups is more powerful than bigger meetups. We did a dozen of 'tests' with friends and came to the conclusion that having more than five people in an activity harms the fun. Example: going out for drinks and getting a table in a big city like Berlin or San Francisco with 6,7,8 people is not always easy if not having made a reservation timely... Same dilemma going out for dinner, doing sports activities etc.
- XYEaQMZJvS 12y agoIt's like a non-douchey Tinder. I approve. I hate it when cool stuff is only available for smartphones.
- _rk3y 12y agoOnly Facebook users are allowed to use 4&me. More than disappointing....
- fourandme 12y agoThanks. What would be your preference and why? With our 1st version we want to learn from our users, so feedback is more than welcome :)
- gtirloni 12y agoRegular logins were once popular.
- imaginenore 12y agoGo see how Reddit did their registration. You don't even need an email.
- BronSteeDiam 12y agoThis is more like AirBnB than Reddit.
- dreen 12y agoI think social login is fine as long as you give people a bunch of options (twitter, gmail, fb etc) If you give one option at the beginning it should be non-exclusive
- bjelkeman-again 12y agoI don't use services with a Facebook login. They know enough about me as it is. Regular local logins should be an alternative.
- jschwartzi 12y agoI don't use Facebook, but I understand that a lot of people are uncomfortable with meeting random strangers from the internet unless they've already posted a lot of information about themselves online.
- personlurking 12y agoI've been hoping a "small Meetup" would be created one day. Congrats! One thought: allow people in their profile to list a few interests, then when someone with those interests is nearby, it pings you with the suggestion to do something now or set something up with that person soon.
- fourandme 12y agoCheers! Good one ;-). Will discuss this with the team. Let us know if you find anything else: ismail@fourandme.com
- jantos8 12y agoWe are actually building a similar system and the feature you are talking about will be included in a little bit different way. Our system called Inging will be web only at first. We should be ready to release a beta in a month. Inging is an Interest Based Social Network connecting you with others purely based on your favorite activities! The URI is http://www.inging.io http://www.inging.io . Right now we are allowing people to sign up to get the first invites as soon as we release the beta.
- seannaM 12y agoMy assumption about such an app is that similar to couch surfing, the most motivated users are guys looking for a hookup, and that will probably be a turn off for other demographics. I don't have an Iphone or else I'd be interested in testing the hypothesis.
- Untit1ed 12y ago5 people is a pretty crowded hookup...
- seannaM 12y agoWhen you see one hot woman and four awkward guys playing tennis poorly everywhere in SF, you'll know why
- personlurking 12y agoUnfortunately, CS turned into what you described but even when it wasn't so apparent, it was still happening "secretly". Before it overtly became about guys looking for a hookup, I was a frequent participant in events in a big city, and after a few months, I got to know the 'seedy' underbelly, ie who had hooked up with who, etc etc. In most of these cases, they weren't locals hooking up with locals so perhaps the missing foreigner-hunting aspect of Four&me will help to keep things more level...who knows, though
- empressplay 12y agoYour T&Cs (particularly the waivers) aren't legal in Australia and yet the app is still available to download here. Might want to get some region-specific T&Cs before distributing the app outside of the US? For example, in the state of Victoria at least you can only waive liability in the a) case of death and injury and b) only in the cases of recreational sport (but you have to use specific language available on the Victorian government website). Also, I don't think an Australian can give up the right to sue. This does create a potential liability issue in terms of operating the application here (and I imagine it does in many other jurisdictions as well.)
- BronSteeDiam 12y agoSo that's the reason I have to have a US iTunes account to download software. "aren't legal in Australia and yet the app is still available to download here" Why wouldn't this affect web apps?
- ismlsrn 12y agoThanks! Didn't know this. Will check this out and decide what to do.
- aharonovich 12y agothis is a MUCH needed app. well done.
- rguzman 12y agoFirst, I really like this concept! I'm hoping you guys will be able to suggest activities that are missing 1 person based on where I am and such. I signed up and was pretty excited. But then there is only 1 activity nearby with 1 member on it (probably another HN reader). And I live in Manhattan -- I'd expect lots of activities. The biggest problem to address is the chicken&egg problem: nobody will use it if people aren't already on it. In this particular case, this means that you really have to go out of your way to organize activities. I suspect this means that you should only launch in a city you can organize a large number of activities in and then grow from there.
- ismlsrn 12y agoThis is the reason why we reach out to you guys, thanks! We see our after-launch chicken-egg problem and therefore we'll change a few things to proceed with a regional focus. For the next 2 weeks we'll keep it open though to get some more feedback for the idea and product itself.
- jantos8 12y agoHi everyone, We are actually building a similar system called Inging™. We are ready to release a beta in a month. Inging™ is an Interest Based Social Network connecting you with others purely based on your favorite activities! The URI is http://www.inging.io http://www.inging.io . Right now we are allowing people to sign up to get the first invites as soon as we release the beta.
- AlexMuir 12y agoThe TM on your brand looks unfriendly and as though you're writing in the style of Paypal T&Cs. I thought you might be trying to make an ironic point but it doesn't seem that you are (Correct me if I'm wrong).
- jantos8 12y agoHi, We don't fully understand what you mean by "writing in the style Paypal T&Cs", but for the second part. Not trying to make an ironic point. We are always open for suggestions and productive criticism.
- resu_nimda 12y agoIt's clear that either English is not your first language, or you are not familiar with the culture of youths and young professionals in the US. This may present a problem since that appears to be your target demographic. 1. You don't need to put "TM" everywhere, especially not on the main logo of your website and in forum posts. Notice how nobody else does this. It looks out-of-touch and off-putting to most people. 2. "Motorcrossing" is not a thing, nobody says that. For one, it's "moto" without the 'r'. Second, it is not commonly said in gerund form. This is just one issue with choosing to focus on the "-ing" suffix. Baseballing? Soccering? Photographing? They just don't make sense that way. 3. Another issue is the way that form modifies the base words. The way you highlight it on your site changes "diving" to "div-ing," which is strange. This is because the word "dive" is not fully preserved. Same goes for "dat-ing." 4. "Inging" is not something I would likely say out loud. Similarly, "What is your *ing?" is awkward. Personally I think it would be very difficult to build an identity and community around "ing," not to be attempted unless you have a strong grasp on cultural linguistic trends. 5. The parallax scroll of the top image does not work well on iOS. On chrome it does not move until the scrolling stops, and on safari it is very janky.
- jasonvision 12y agoThis is a pretty cool concept. It obviously has a lot of overlap with Meetup (which I've used for years) though I like the fact that it is more immediate. Meetup tends to involve RSVP'ing for an event upfront and many times events are closed days in advance. As a business owner myself, sometimes I just don't know when I'll have time off and like the spontaneity that something like Four&Me could offer. I think you need to start with a specific region though. It could be quite discouraging for users to login somewhere (like London) and see nothing happening around them. It makes it more likely to uninstall the app and not even consider using it again... Not quite sure how you could go about doing this. To address some of the criticism surrounding facebook logins - yes, this may be a put-off for some people, but then it has also worked remarkably well for a lot of apps, and for most non-tech-savvy users, it changes the registration process from filling in multiple fields, to a couple of clicks - I personally think there is an appeal to that, particularly for a new product. Plus, you're not asking for too much from users when they connect through FB (though perhaps you could cut this down even further - do you really need my interests? Or could this be another step where I could just click and type a few myself?). Good luck with the app! Hope to see it grow!
- ismlsrn 12y agoThanks Jason! As a business owner would you consider to use an app like four&me as low-cost demand generation tool for the service/product you are offering? Regarding your thoughts: We'll change a few things to proceed with the regional focus. The next 2 weeks we'll keep it open to get some more feedback for the idea and product itself. But I'm 100 % with you that we must change a few things. As of today we only display the interests, but for future versions we will use them to "match" people with similar interests. There are so much pro's and con's for social logins. As a tech savvy guy I love the simplicity of it...
- orasis 12y agosocial networks can't be launched broadly. Unless you can niche down to a space where you get very high penetration, this thing is DOA.
- phreeza 12y agoThat is an interesting hypothesis. Certainly true for facebook, but as far as I know not true for the new breed of social networks like snapchat and tinder? Though one could argue they are focussed on narrower demographics as opposed to geographically constrained locations.
- fourandme 12y agohttp://www.inc.com/john-rampton/8-companies-to-watch-out-for-from-launch-fest-2015.html http://www.inc.com/john-rampton/8-companies-to-watch-out-for...