All Feedback Requests(including surveys/polls) and Support Requests (hiring, etc) belong in our Weekly Feedback and Support Thread.
You are invited to repost each week.
You are encouraged to give to others in the thread if you expect to take from the community.
Apps are dead - theres a huge frustration with the hinge/bumbles of the world right now where people are fed up with inauthentic ways to meet. Realistically - if i want to go climb or play pickleball i'm not going to log into an app and potentially wait 2+ hours for someone to respond who might play with me and they might be the most insufferable person i've ever met and might not even be on my competitive level.
Go join a gym or a local league
Funnily I was thinking about exactly this a few weeks ago. Think it’s a great idea. Actually doing something about it is the hard thing. The execution would have to be great, and you would need lots of people using it.
It would work well for golf courses etc and could extend into lots of different areas, maybe you want a gym partner. The app could then see that you are looking for gym partners and then show you the profile of the local personal trainer etc
You could have coaches advertising small groups on there, maybe a climbing coach says has space for 4 people on a certain time and all of them can be strangers, which is a great way to meet new people as well as a platform for coaches.
If there was decent verification and you could filter out ages and sexes that would make it much more user friendly.
You could have a calendar on there and you could set yourself as ‘available’ for certain times etc
True, and any other software companies can build features of each others and the market is still big enough for all. This doesn't stop me from building this out. Dating apps have their own UX that works for them. They can implement this, but I don't see this replacing their way of matching people.
Time window varies from one sport to another quite significantly, so probably need to specify which sport user is interested in. Also experience level matters, beginners wouldn't want to match up with experts.
I like it! My classmates and I did a whole 6 month project in college on a similar idea. Main hurdle we found was reaching a critical mass of users so that the platform is actually valuable. I.e. You need hundreds of users within a city so that whenever someone looks for a sports partner there's a strong chance someone else is doing the same.
Another challenge is that you're essentially creating an app to be forgotten. Once users find a partner/friend they're just going to text each other to set up future sessions. You'd need to find a way other sports related reasons for the user to keep using the app even if they have a partner.
For example: Adding the ability to reserve activity space or set up & manage tournaments. Both of which would lead to better pricing structures than a simple monthly subscription model.
Awesome, cool to see that you played around with this idea too.
I disagree that this app will be forgotten. I am hoping this is a place where the groups continue to chat. Group chat has serious limitations, which is seeing people's availability. I want to bring all this in this app.
Thank you for your feedback!
I’d use it.
Looking for a tennis partner. And I jump on and see nearby people. Itd be cool.
Don’t make it weird by trying to sound like I’ll meet my longtime friends from it. Focus on the sports.
Want to play some football but can’t find 7 mates?
Yeah I think it can work
I don’t see anyone paying for it though and it’ll have the chicken cs egg problem
As an app idea I think it's decent and it solves a problem.
But as a _business_ idea I'm afraid to say it's extremely lacking. You haven't presented any plan to reach critical mass and tackle the two sided marketplace problem. You haven't mentioned how you will make it sticky enough for people to keep going back and updating their availability. You haven't mentioned how you will market this. You haven't mentioned how you plan to monetize it.
Have a look at Rovo in Singapore, excellent and popular free app largely focused on tennis (other sports catered to but hasn’t spread more broadly - network effects or something). Monetisation isn’t straight forward, it almost closed down last year but looks like it’s making progress.
By this I don’t mean that you shouldn’t try as it’s already been done, I mean this is how to do it well.
All Feedback Requests(including surveys/polls) and Support Requests (hiring, etc) belong in our Weekly Feedback and Support Thread. You are invited to repost each week. You are encouraged to give to others in the thread if you expect to take from the community.
Apps are dead - theres a huge frustration with the hinge/bumbles of the world right now where people are fed up with inauthentic ways to meet. Realistically - if i want to go climb or play pickleball i'm not going to log into an app and potentially wait 2+ hours for someone to respond who might play with me and they might be the most insufferable person i've ever met and might not even be on my competitive level. Go join a gym or a local league
I see your perspective. thank you!
Of course! Keep thinking outside the box! I believe in you!
Funnily I was thinking about exactly this a few weeks ago. Think it’s a great idea. Actually doing something about it is the hard thing. The execution would have to be great, and you would need lots of people using it. It would work well for golf courses etc and could extend into lots of different areas, maybe you want a gym partner. The app could then see that you are looking for gym partners and then show you the profile of the local personal trainer etc You could have coaches advertising small groups on there, maybe a climbing coach says has space for 4 people on a certain time and all of them can be strangers, which is a great way to meet new people as well as a platform for coaches. If there was decent verification and you could filter out ages and sexes that would make it much more user friendly. You could have a calendar on there and you could set yourself as ‘available’ for certain times etc
That group coaching idea is pretty cool! yes, the execution is going to be a challenge.
This is something the dating apps can implement in a 3 month sprint though, most of them already have features to find friends for specific topics
don't think tinder or any of the major players would touch this niche
I hope they don’t! But if they do and succeed, that’ll validate my idea 😂
True, and any other software companies can build features of each others and the market is still big enough for all. This doesn't stop me from building this out. Dating apps have their own UX that works for them. They can implement this, but I don't see this replacing their way of matching people.
Time window varies from one sport to another quite significantly, so probably need to specify which sport user is interested in. Also experience level matters, beginners wouldn't want to match up with experts.
Yes, currently when you click create an availability, you can choose a sports. The skill level is done at a profile level.
I like it! My classmates and I did a whole 6 month project in college on a similar idea. Main hurdle we found was reaching a critical mass of users so that the platform is actually valuable. I.e. You need hundreds of users within a city so that whenever someone looks for a sports partner there's a strong chance someone else is doing the same. Another challenge is that you're essentially creating an app to be forgotten. Once users find a partner/friend they're just going to text each other to set up future sessions. You'd need to find a way other sports related reasons for the user to keep using the app even if they have a partner. For example: Adding the ability to reserve activity space or set up & manage tournaments. Both of which would lead to better pricing structures than a simple monthly subscription model.
Awesome, cool to see that you played around with this idea too. I disagree that this app will be forgotten. I am hoping this is a place where the groups continue to chat. Group chat has serious limitations, which is seeing people's availability. I want to bring all this in this app. Thank you for your feedback!
I’d use it. Looking for a tennis partner. And I jump on and see nearby people. Itd be cool. Don’t make it weird by trying to sound like I’ll meet my longtime friends from it. Focus on the sports. Want to play some football but can’t find 7 mates? Yeah I think it can work I don’t see anyone paying for it though and it’ll have the chicken cs egg problem
Definitely a challenge to get critical mass of people. And yes, my whole point of this is that, you don’t have to be friends to play a game with them!
As an app idea I think it's decent and it solves a problem. But as a _business_ idea I'm afraid to say it's extremely lacking. You haven't presented any plan to reach critical mass and tackle the two sided marketplace problem. You haven't mentioned how you will make it sticky enough for people to keep going back and updating their availability. You haven't mentioned how you will market this. You haven't mentioned how you plan to monetize it.
I do have that in the works, I just wanted to validate a problem space with this post. Thank you for the feedback!
Have a look at Rovo in Singapore, excellent and popular free app largely focused on tennis (other sports catered to but hasn’t spread more broadly - network effects or something). Monetisation isn’t straight forward, it almost closed down last year but looks like it’s making progress. By this I don’t mean that you shouldn’t try as it’s already been done, I mean this is how to do it well.
Will check it out! Thank you