[hansonkin]

Great question! This is definitely the hardest challenge for apps of this kind. There's a lot written out there on how to tackle the cold start problem.

My strategy is to focus locally first especially in NYC where I live. It's going to be a combination of running around in the city going to in person events and doing social media. If I can prove out the concept in one city, then I'll start focusing on other large metropolitan areas.

[nprateem]

I've tried to building some variation of this app several times and it was always at the end that I realised growing it would be a nightmare.

I've had another idea that might hopefully get some traction once I can do an MVP. Hopefully someone solves it soon so I don't have to bother.

[hansonkin]

You're right about there being a lot of similar apps in this space. I think it's evident that the approaches tried so far haven't resonated with people in a meaningful way. And it's very possible my approach is wrong as well. With social apps, the smallest nuance in how it makes people feel can be the deciding factor for whether people use it or not.

I would love to hear more about the challenges you faced as you grew out your previous iterations.

[nprateem]

Tbh I never bothered going to market. I couldn't see a way to monetise. They seemed to suffer several problems:

- Hyperlocal. Basically every few miles is a new market

- If there are no users, new users will search once and never return

- If they succeed and people make new friends, the app becomes redundant (so how to monetise)

- Meetup tried most monetisation options in the early days (eg sponsorship, venues paying, etc). They binned them all because they didn't work (there's a YT video about the founder talking about this if you can dig it out)

- In the same video the meetup guy said they started charging groups partly to cut spam

- You need active users but no spam

So there are multiple challenges. Iirc YC won't fund this kind of app probably because of these issues.

No easy answers really... if you have any I'll be all ears. A better meetup is definitely needed.

If I were to give any advice it would be not to code anything, but work with a business model canvas/value prop canvas until you can find an approach that solves these.

*Update* (Rate limited):

Yeah all those things rely on seeding it somehow and retention.

Anyway, good luck.

[hansonkin]

Yeah I'm not currently looking for YC funding. My goals for this probably don't align with that of YC. I would consider the project a success if I can provide value to people and monetize enough where I can support myself and a small team. If I can make the equivalent of a typical software dev role with this, I would be happy to work on this full time for the rest of my career.

As for making friends, I think new users never returning after initial success is thinking too short term. Throughout someone's life, there will be different needs for your social life. People move around or drift away from existing friends. Also, I want to be clear that this app is NOT a friend making app. It's an app to help you find people to do things with. This means if you want to explore a new hobby and none of the people you know do it, you can use this to build your own group to explore the hobby.

Also for retention, the long term goal for this project is to build a full social life platform. I think there are tools that can be built to help people maintain friendships after making them. The long term vision is for to be the one place you go to manage all parts of your real life social life (not social media). Right now I'm just tackling the portion of the problem that is most pressing which is discoverability.