[mdevere]

Thoughts:

1. Felt a little strange signing up without understanding anything about your process. How are you planning to match me with other people? You don't know much about me yet.

2. I would definitely be interested to meet with a bunch of HN-type people over dinner and chat nerdy stuff.

3. How are you planning to ensure a good turnout? I would hate to show up to find that most people had dropped out at the last minute.

[shakers]

great questions.

1) we check you out. this is how we know you don't know the other people and what you're interested in (at least at a basic level). we found filling this kind of info out makes people even more weirded out, since it's more dating style and so we do what we can in the background instead. after the dinner, we make sure you had a good time, and if not, try to figure out how we can change your dinners so that you have a great time.

2) awesome, based on the responses we've gotten so far, you're not alone.

3) we always plan a full meal. that is, if somebody from the table we'd planned can't go, we fill it with someone else. if someone says they'll attend and cancels, we email them and let them know that we have a three strike cancellation policy. it's not fair to others when they cancel and we have a low tolerance for that.

[meesterdude]

> if someone says they'll attend and cancels, we email them and let them know that we have a three strike cancellation policy. it's not fair to others when they cancel and we have a low tolerance for that.

FWIW, this might be counter to your target audience. People who sign up for a service like this will be more likely to present with some form of social anxiety that has inhibited them from socializing normally in the first place. Certainly not everyone, but certainly not no one either. Trying to respond with a heavy hand to such people will only alienate them further; try responding with compassion and understanding and above all else respect. saying you have "low tolerance" for that basically means you have low tolerance for people's quirks and flaws. Attending might be a struggle for some people.

Also, you don't need to mention names or faces; but you could mention some interests that each person has that you would be going to dinner with.

[codewithcheese]

I would like to present a counter point to your generalization. I am interested in this. I work from home on a own business. Do not suffer social anxiety, however my social outgoings are limited due to work from home alone. I would suggest that this type of random dinner would not be very appealing for people who suffer from social anxiety.

[Paul_S]

I don't live in SF but I'm really curious, how do you "check people out"? I hope you send PIs after them.

[jccc]

1) we check you out.

How? Are you keeping the details of this secret?