Ask HN: We met on HN and built Like Secret, what do we do now? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: We met on HN and built Like Secret, what do we do now?

26 pointsdrewblaisdell16 comments

Hello HN,

My friend Jesse and I met in late December (through a thread on HN, nonetheless), and after a month of coding, we launched Like Secret (http://likesecret.com/). We had a bit of a boom of users on our campuses when we launched (we're both students), but we don't know where to go from here.

Like Secret lets you pick the friends you are romantically interested in. If they pick you back, there you are both notified of the other's interest. If not, it remains anonymous. We know there are other applications similar to this, but we think we have the best implementation out there.

The anonymous component has made any sort of viral growth difficult, because users obviously aren't going to recommend the website to the people they want to use it.

So, in the interest of determining whether or not this is worth continuing to market and develop, do you guys have any idea how we might overcome the inherent marketing difficulty here? Of course, we would love any general feedback about the site as well.

1) Give users the option of posting it to their walls anyhow. Suffice it to say that I think you've thought this one a step or two farther than a significant portion of your users have. More broadly, very few social plays have failed because their users were just too darned smart.

2) If you don't want to have the difficulties associated with getting immature introverts dates, could I suggest doing something more important than getting immature introverts dates? I say this as exactly your target user for this, just older and (hopefully) wiser. If you're committed to doing social software, how about making something which people are proud to say they use or where the viral channel is built into the core experience of using the application? If you're flexible on what you're going to spend the next period of your life building, how about something which makes the world substantially better?

P.S. If you care, more than anything else, about doing right by the users of this application, you should say: "OK, here's what you should do: TELL HER YOU LIKE HER. We're not going to do the allow-you-to-wistfully-stare-out-window-while-avoiding-rejection thing because, honestly, we'd be selling you a fantasy which is directly against your interests. TELL HER YOU LIKE HER. You know how many people get dates because they use crush apps? Almost no one. Seriously, we could show you numbers. They're pathetic. Almost everyone who gets dates gets dates because they ASKED SOMEONE OUT ON A DATE."

I don't think it's the developer's job to tell people how to live their life. If people enjoy apps like LikeSecret and they use it, then it's the developer's job to provide it. The problem OP has encountered isn't because he's targetting "immature introverts", it's because he hasn't figured out a good marketing strategy. The solution to that isn't to act morally superior and ditch the app, but to try out different strategies and see which one works best.

Patrick's point is that he's building a piece of software that only appeals to a certain type of person and that the software makes that certain type of person feel like they have a chance. Essentially, it's a false promise. Entering your top 5 girls you want to date into this list is NOT the way to date the top 5 girls on your list.

"I really like a girl, Oh, let me enter her details here! Maybe my funny comment about recursion in my political science class will make her enter my name in this box too"

That's not how it works, instead, just ask her. Just asking her is 1000x more likely to get you a yes. It's also 1000x more likely to make you feel uncomfortable. The good news is that since it makes you so uncomfortable, if you actually do it, there won't me much competition.

I'd say this if you were sitting across the table from me, only in a charming way that'd make you laugh. Then we'd get beers and sing some drinking songs.

This page: http://www.likesecret.com/pages/jobs

Come on guys, really? "potential to revolutionize online dating" Did you write that with a straight face? :P

This idea is old as heck. There are dozens of apps around the web and on Facebook that do this, some with tens of millions of monthly actives.

You're talking about building zoosk.com, at best. Aim higher. Please. Pleasepleaseplease.

Edit

Just FYI, I've built about half a dozen Facebook apps that have reached at least 10MM monthly actives. This is not your cliché HN "I hate viral and Zynga is evil" advice.

What you're doing is not original. It's also the kind of thing that awkward engineering types think is great, but most people just think is creepy.

If you're really interested in new approaches to online dating look at sites like howaboutwe.com or spoondate.com. Don't do the easy thing -- do the awesome thing.

I definitely agree. This is already a pretty core functionality of OKCupid and, in fact, I implemented this same idea my senior year of school (called it the "senior scramble" -- it got ridiculous). I'm fairly certain this concept has been around longer than the internet and it hasn't gain prominence for a reason -- fortune favors the bold.

As others have said, you aren't the first one with this idea. The typical way to make this viral is to send out a message to anyone picked that "someone has a crush on them". The problem with this is that this "crush" might just be somebody making guesses as to who has a crush on them. OkCupid actually changed their behavior recently to say who rated you with a 4 or 5 instead of making the user guess, likely because of this problem.

Not proposing this as an idea (I'm glad you're not doing this) but just throwing it out there so you understand different options and the consequences of this particular virality strategy.

The best first step might be encouraging people to automatically post to their Facebook wall that they have submitted a name. This could encourage people who are interested in them to join the service and hope!

I have thought this should exist for as long as I can remember. I actually wrote a blog post about it 364 days ago (odd coincidences).

Regarding growth, there must be a spin you could put on the share-this-on-facebook process to make it positive/appealing. Off the top of my head: - keep track of relationship status of the users, and if two get in a relationship after joining and liking each other, encourage them to post it. - making something else go viral that mentions likesecret (eg. a radio station posted a photo of a lottery ticket with their logo and said they would split the winnings with sharers. they had over a hundred thousand shares in just a day or two) - somehow taking advantage of any of the college meme pages that are trending these days... they'd hit your target audience big if you could figure out how

Just keep in mind that Your Product is NOT “The Product”[1] and that MVP is a deceptive concept[2].

[1] http://www.ashmaurya.com/2011/06/your-product-is-not-the-pro...

[2] http://johnnyholland.org/2012/02/making-sense-of-minimum-via...

If you give the option for people to post it to their walls--maybe the people they've selected, but just that they've used the program, I think many people would end up doing this. If a kid wants his friends to use it (to see if his matches pan out) this should be made as easy as possible.

Well, if your service works for a pair of users, then they might want to recommend it. Perhaps you could prompt users to have the app post to their wall or whatever if they have a success.

I think a more important question is: how do you monetize? I'd figure that one out first and then plan marketing efforts towards that.

How many connections has your site made possible?

We hit 40 today, but it's not possible to know how many of those are "tests" by our users.

There's at least 4 tests that I know of as a Pomona student.

clickable: http://likesecret.com

Reply on news.ycombinator.com