
Four&me – Connect with great people and get together for amazing activities - fourandme
https://itunes.apple.com/app/id958283662
======
empressplay
Your 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
So 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?

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jantos8
Hi 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
The 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
Hi,

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
It'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.

~~~
jantos8
Hi and thank you for your feedback.

The misspelling of motocross was an honest mistake. And yes, english is not my
fist language. I am actually from Germany. But the funnier thing is that a lot
of my american colleagues missed that misspelling too.

With some words it works with some it does not. We already took that under
consideration. The landing page tries to make a visitor instantly understand
that the system is all about finding others in your area with the same
interest in activities.

The highlighting of the "ing" part is just a branding teaching concept. Inside
the system the "ing" is not being highlighted of course.

At the end it is kind of like asking "What's your thing?". I guess if you
dislike using that phrase, it goes back to personal preferences and what you
like or dislike saying.

We also understand that a product is not appealing to every single person it
gets seen by. We did get a lot of positive feedback so far. Not only from the
family and friends group, but also from external sources.

Thx for the parallax hint. We did get rid of the parallax scrolling feature
for mobile devices. I personally was not able to reproduce the chrome or
safari issue. The only time I saw it not behaving correctly, is when the site
was loaded in chrome being bloated with tabs and eating up a bunch of memory.
One of my partner's browser always has that issue ;) For some reason he does
not like closing tabs!

Thx again for your input and taking your time to look over our landing page.
It always helps when others take the time to share their point of view and
thoughts! Have a great weekend.

~~~
fourandme
Good luck with your idea ;-). Why don't you open your own thread/news? Liebe
Grüße und komm uns mal besuchen, können einen Kaffee trinken

~~~
jantos8
Vielen Dank für den Hinweis. Um ehrlich zu sein habe ich nicht gewusst, dass
man eigene Beiträge posten kann. Ich dachte immer das die Leute von hacker
news / YCombinator interessante Nachrichten teilen.

I wünsche euch das Gleiche, VIEL ERFOLG!

I think that there is plenty of room for growth and platforms in the activity
based niche. Our products seem similar, but are completely different at the
end. Especially when it comes to the approach -> "Bringing people together!".
Same thing with SameGrain. Same goal, different approach. But all are
completely capable of co-existing, in my opinion

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seannaM
My 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
5 people is a pretty crowded hookup...

~~~
seannaM
When you see one hot woman and four awkward guys playing tennis poorly
everywhere in SF, you'll know why

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rguzman
First, 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
This 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.

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jasonvision
This 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
Thanks 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...

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dmcg
I wish you luck, but the App Store is a poor place to explain any concept. I'd
link to a proper site.

~~~
fourandme
Thanks =). Check out www.fourandme.com

~~~
buro9
Oh, 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.

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personlurking
I'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.

~~~
jantos8
We 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.

------
DiscoStewDeluxe
Same 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.

------
XYEaQMZJvS
It's like a non-douchey Tinder. I approve.

I hate it when cool stuff is only available for smartphones.

------
fourandme
[http://www.inc.com/john-rampton/8-companies-to-watch-out-
for...](http://www.inc.com/john-rampton/8-companies-to-watch-out-for-from-
launch-fest-2015.html)

------
ismlsrn
hey 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.

~~~
nicklovescode
I 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
The 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
It's user content but it's your company. You need to jumpstart it
[http://paulgraham.com/ds.html](http://paulgraham.com/ds.html)

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_rk3y
Only Facebook users are allowed to use 4&me. More than disappointing....

~~~
fourandme
Thanks. What would be your preference and why? With our 1st version we want to
learn from our users, so feedback is more than welcome :)

~~~
bjelkeman-again
I don't use services with a Facebook login. They know enough about me as it
is. Regular local logins should be an alternative.

~~~
jschwartzi
I 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.

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akent
What's the logic in restricting it to meetups of maximum five people?

~~~
fourandme
We 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.

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orasis
social 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
That 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.

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aharonovich
this is a MUCH needed app. well done.

