
Apply HN: Let's – Meet amazing people, do fun stuff - hashvin
Let&#x27;s is a mobile app that aims to facilitate people meeting other great people nearby to do fun stuff like grabbing a drink, having a bite, going site-seeing and more!<p>Unlike other social apps similar to Tinder, Hinge, and more, Let’s takes a focus on activities. On Let’s users create activities for which they would enjoy having company and specify certain preferences regarding the type of partner they would enjoy joining them. Eg.) The partners age, gender, etc.<p>Users can also choose to seek activities nearby to join in which case they are shown the listed activities and can show interest in joining those users by swiping left or right.<p>With Let&#x27;s we believe we can facilitate fun and easy real life meets in short time frames that can result in networking, relationships, social enjoyment and overall fun.<p>Let&#x27;s is currently in development and we aim to launch this summer. Ask anything, we enjoy questions, challenges and any constructive feedback. Thanks!
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alaskamiller
The activities are pointless, they're just marketing gimmicks and it turns out
sex is the easiest sale. Down To Lunch came out five months ago and have now
taken off so that means people want it. Your biggest challenge isn't the
software, it's just matchmaking implemented in gaming for decades, it's
marketing and convincing thousands to use it to gain value from a network
effect.

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hashvin
I will agree sex sells, but there is a geniune market that wants to make more
friends or have a relationship that are not looking to have sex immediately.

I also agree the software is not the biggest challenge, anyone can build
applications and it really does not cost as much as people want you to
believe.

I agree also that its the marketing and viral effect. * that being said do you
have any recommendations and tips regarding marketing strategy?

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metamicah
You mentioned how you're different from a bunch of dating apps -- do you see
your app as primarily competing in that space? My first reaction was instead
that if successful, your app would do more to disrupt the Meetup.com space
than say, Tinder.

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hashvin
I do see Let's bridging between the two platforms of Tinder and Meetup. It is
more similar to Meetup for sure and that is the way we want to target the
market as I believe it is more broad and approachable.

However as it is focuses on 1-on-1 meets I do see it being somewhere in the
middle of the two. We are not trying to be a dating platform, but I do see it
possibly being used as such by some users.

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ryporter
You really have to change the name. I couldn't read your pitch without
fixating on what would be grammatical errors if "Let's" were not a proper
noun.

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hashvin
Haha, I appreciate your feedback and will take it under consideration. The
intention was that when you select to do something its always like: Let's ...
grab a drink, grab a bite, watch a movie, go running.

but I can see what you mean. Another name we played with was Friendify but
seemed needy which is not really true about the audience.

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hashvin
Maybe if you see it as a Logo it might be less annoying:
[http://postimg.org/image/rbbasbaqr/](http://postimg.org/image/rbbasbaqr/)

This is the current logo, the red is used as the theme of the app is in red.

In the future I will make sure to put it in "Let's" quotes. ;)

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wingerlang
I kinda like the name, and the logo as well. Have you thought about making it
more of a "name"? Like reddit?

So the name would be "lets" and later on maybe people will go "ahhhh, like
'let's go to blah'!" Some will get it and some won't, but it will still feel
more like an actual name than a word.

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hashvin
it is definitely something to consider. When I was trying to come up with a
name i kept thinking I wanted something that would stick in peoples mind and
reflect the nature of the app but at the same time I kept finding articles on
how you should thinking of random things eg.) tinder, reddit, bing I ended up
going with my gut.

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mpbm
How many people want to do something social, but don't want to do it with
their current friends? Have you found anybody who says they need to do this
and are frustrated that nothing works right yet?

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hashvin
Hi! I have actually spoken to a number of different people regarding this and
a vast majority liked and would use something like this. I do understand where
your question is coming from so I am going to add some context to their
responses.

1.) Some people said it would be awesome to use when they travel to meet up
with people at conventions and or other tourist that are also traveling to go
site-seeing or enjoy company together.

2.) Another person said, because she is 'single' and most of her friends are
in a relationship it is often bothersome for her to go on third wheel or fifth
wheel outings and she doesn't really have any friends that are not in a
relationship in her circle.

3.) An answer we heard often was from people that just moved to a new place
and/or got a new job they said it would be an great tool for them to get to
meet people and or enjoy company during their lunch breaks.

Right now many of them did say that they were using other social apps to meet
people mainly Tinder. At the same time they all felt that Tinder was not made
for this purpose but they did not know of a better tool.

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I-M-S
Perhaps you could initially target one of these groups and try to make Letz
(+1 for that version of the name) the best app for their specific use case.

Also, one trick to make sure people in interviews are being honest with you is
to get them to commit to a concrete action. It can be as simple as getting
their e-mail address and then sending them an e-mail with a fake link just to
see if they click on it, or as hardcore as asking 20$ in advance for a
"premium access to the finished app". This way you'll see if they REALLY need
what you are building.

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hashvin
haha, I like the $20 dollars commitment. we actually started development of a
pretty much full blown app, I dont want to call it an MVP because this app is
quite complex but I only did so because in order to give a good
product/solution I wanted to make sure it could result in conversion/giving
the users the desired result of their install. I will be targetting a specific
market to start and be running a prelaunch campaign for beta testers in the
upcoming week, I will let you know what the result is.

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I-M-S
I would be most interested, especially to compare how your experience differs
from ours (we also have a B2C app that needs to overcome the ghost town
syndrome in order to be successful).

You can reach me at e-mail written in my profile!

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hashvin
IMS cant find your email in your profile not there. "Let's" stay in touch and
try to help each other with our growth strategies.

Do you see what I did there? lol

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bestattack
How do you know people want this? Tinder exploded because "lightweight"
dating/hookup filled a niche that wasn't served by any of the intense, profile
based existing dating sites.

This moves in the direction of more intensity bc you aren't just swiping but,
in some sense, agreeing to meet. This isn't necessarily a bad thing - and it
may be good because it can absorb some of the Tinder backlash - but I think
you need to understand the space and your niche and potential users incredibly
deeply.

So, how will you get users?

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hashvin
Before I started on development on this idea I run some surveys in order
understand if people would use this. Not to mislead you I surveys about 60
people and the response was say 45 out of 60 responded that they would use
this app, the demographic surveyed was 19-30 singles that have used mobile
social platforms like Tinder.

User acquisition is always a little daunting and considering this is a user
driven app it is always very important.

My game plan is to: 1.) Target the specific market above via Facebook and
other advertising means, primarily people that have moved recently. (Targeting
as a social app, not dating as Facebook restricts this)

2) Social Validation - I intend on getting bloggers with long reach in the
travel, dating and social genres in our launch cities to talk about the app
and give their opinion in order to reach their followers. I expect high
conversions in a short time frame from this. (This can go both ways I
understand that)

3) I plan to start launching city by city in order to acquire users rapidly in
a single market. This is to avoid churn from having a location based app in
which users are unable to find enough people near them.

4) I would like to take large communities and target them specifically; for
example large corporations, universities and the like. I intend to target them
because these potential users are usually going to spend a significant amount
of time close to one another and will have a level of comfort with each other
which can help drive high activity on the app and organic growth.

If you have any suggestions I would appreciate your input as user acquisition
will play a key roll in my success and it will be challenging.

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I-M-S
In my experience, tactics you mentioned are much easier said than done. You
mention launching city by city - what I would suggest is focusing on how
exactly you are going to launch in ONE city (the first one). I don't know your
financial situation, but I think you are underestimating the costs of
organizing even small-scale promotional activities and perhaps overestimating
reach of you as an individual and/or willingness of others to share/help (if
you have a development team, I can tell you they are mostly not prone of
"leaving the building").

See my other comment how to gauge if user interest in interviews is real or
hypothetical. Hope this helps!

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hashvin
Thanks, I appreciate the time taken to give this feedback. Honestly, I expect
user acquisition to be very challenging, the industry average cost of
acquisition is currently at around $2.50 / user and considering I will be
running pre-rev for atleast a year will further stress the company. I am
working on a concrete plan of action and am quite sure I can get down COA
substantially considering I managed to get it down from another startup of
mine from $1.00 -> $0.35 but that was in a completely different market and it
was an easier sell.

I will check out your other comment, if you have any suggestions on marketing
ideas I would appreciate it.

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thecneu
Is this available yet? Also I think letz will be easier for the app search
engines. There is a lot of Let's * apps out there.

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hashvin
Not available yet but projected launch this summer. we are currently working
on onloading strategy to get users on quickly upon launch.

We saw the same problem you described with alot of Let's we will probably
change it. Im on the fence but there are more pros than cons to the change.

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ajsgarage
Very interesting. I think this is a solid area for rapid development. I do
have some basic operational questions though: How extensively have you and the
team researched civil and/or criminal liability regarding any undesirable use
and outcome of the service? What kind of legal advice has been offered? Are
you working with a reputable risk-management / insurance firm to explore
coverage options?

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hashvin
I was hoping this question would come up. Not because I have the required
answer at this time, but because I wanted others to chime in and give me some
thoughts and perspective on this.

We have not done extensive researched on liability the company might face due
to an undesirable outcome from use of the service. Likewise we have not looked
at any coverage options as of yet.

We will definitely do so before launching but my opinions are as below: For
companies like Tinder, Uber, Care.com etc to exist there must me some solution
to this, it is a matter of formalizing it for us. We are building the app so
that it does not set you up on a meet but rather gives you options and both
users initiate and confirm the meet themselves. I feel this can assist in
limiting the liability as we are just facilitating users. The last thing we
intend to do is have a very straight forward Terms of Service to add some
protection and have notifications to the user, that if its your first meet we
recommend a public area etc etc.

Have you had had to deal with something along these lines? Is there any
recommendations you can give?

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blitzo
i suggest mobile phone fortification before every possible meetup. i don't
know in any other country but in mine mobile phone is attached to citizen'S
ID.

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hashvin
On this topic we have all accounts tied to Facebook and we are checking for
the Verified tag on accounts. I know this is not completely reliable but its a
starting point right? Otherwise we need to get into manual verification which
would limit scale ability and growth rate.

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hashvin
I would love to hear peoples thoughts on how they would go about getting
customers: Client Acquisition. I have put our thoughts down below in one of
the comments.

