Hi HN, we are the founders of WittyThumbs (<a href="https://wittythumbs.com/" rel="nofollow">https://wittythumbs.com/</a>), a place for people to learn how to improve their online-dating conversations. We started this company because it’s the resource we wish we had years ago.<p>The two of us had that sinking feeling in our early 20s that we’d missed our best opportunity to date because while everyone seemed to have thriving dating lives in high school and college, we were preoccupied by more “nerdy” endeavors. Having focused on career at an early age, we were relatively clueless about dating.<p>We spent years dissecting dating and learning the skills piece by piece, like it was an engineering problem. The skills and confidence eventually clicked for us. We discovered rules we could follow to help us navigate the messy world of modern dating. Looking back, we saw no reason why it had to be a grueling 10-year process. We started blogging about texting techniques and Lior coached dating professionally for in-person clients.<p>Having earned a reputation among our friends for being dating and texting gurus, it got to the point where tons of friends were asking us for advice every time we’d hang out. Liron wrote some custom chat software that organized all the shared texts and screenshots of various men talking to various women. Suddenly we were all hanging out in these chatrooms and analyzing one another’s texts. So we’ve seen signs that many people really need this kind of dating advice.<p>On WittyThumbs, you can post anonymized online-dating conversations you’ve had and get feedback from our team of experts and the user community. You can also request a private 1-on-1 chat with an expert to get realtime advice about a conversation, or about any dating subject.<p>We’d be happy to answer any questions you have about us, our company, or plans for the future.
Thank you for creating something and trying to help people in one of life's most important activities. I want you to know that everything after this is coming from a place of genuine respect and support. My preemptive apologies for being blunt.<p>"The two of us had that sinking feeling in our early 20s that we’d missed our best opportunity to date," is a bad sign.<p>First, you were in your early 20's! Grow, learn, break a heart, get your heart broken, travel, read, get fired, start a nonprofit, experience life. Why were you so caught up in finding your optimal date while some of the best (i.e. most painful) growth opportunities were passing you by? I am not sure you have the perspective or life experience to be counseling people on something like dating.<p>Second, dating is not a game you can "win." One of my favorite professors ever, a statistics genius with possibly a touch of Aspergers, explained to our class one time how dating is like science. A "failed" experiment is knowledge gained about the world! A "failed" relationship is a chance to learn about yourself, others and relationships. The only way is to try.<p>Third, this is creating an arms race of banter instead of allowing people to genuinely connect. There's a famous OK Cupid article demonstrating why being your most authentic self is actually beneficial to your dating life (<a href="https://theblog.okcupid.com/the-mathematics-of-beauty-51bd25ae9a75" rel="nofollow">https://theblog.okcupid.com/the-mathematics-of-beauty-51bd25...</a>).<p>There are a number of other reasons I think this is not a good way to spend your time, as a business, as a life pursuit and as a thing that detracts from the world, but I'll stop here so I don't sound like a complete jerk. I would strongly urge you to reconsider. Mostly, I think you just need time. Again, kudos on making a thing.
Just shared this with a friend who could use some help in this dept.<p>I think with products like this, the first instinct is to play up the potential "ick" factor, or to view it as Silicon Valley enabling the idea of privileged people looking at prospective dating partners like objects instead of people. However, I'm really for these services! I think they're fun, and they can really help people who for whatever reason have issues with social interaction.<p>We don't berate people who get help with diet and exercise (or who try and automate it), so why throw shade on people who get help with how to talk to prospective partners. From years of online dating, I can attest that changing up your approach and trying new things is exactly what gets you some success.<p>I wish all people were more open and empathetic online, but the truth is some people (yes, mostly women) are absolutely bombarded with messages that are at best emotionally vacant and at worst misogynistic, and that shuts down openness. Try going on a ladies OKCupid for a bit, you'll see how bad it is. Anything that can help set you apart from those messages, and elevate your conversation is in my view a good thing.<p>As long as they don't get weird and pickup-artisty about it down the line. :-)
Congrats on the launch guys! I've been tinkering around with similar ideas for some time now, and I gotta admit your guys' execution is awesome. Feels like Tinder meets Genius.<p>I assume you guys are running OCR on the uploaded screenshots? Do you plan to expand this to a dating coaching service?<p>One last nit-pick: Your website looks rad, but the Disqus style comments kinda kills the vibe for me. Makes it feel a little tacky or spammy... Is that just me? I think a custom commenting system would be best, but even the Facebook comments plugin would be a step above this.
It may not be the mainstream opinion but I have to put this [1] here as a case against text communication in dating.<p>[1] <a href="https://therationalmale.com/2011/08/26/buffers/" rel="nofollow">https://therationalmale.com/2011/08/26/buffers/</a>
Firstly I agree with the posts below talking about actually having human connection. This is the most important thing.<p>I also want to point out that this is actually pretty damn good. I know I was clueless when I first started dating and this would have helped.<p>I think this could be a great first step for people who want some feedback about what they're doing right and wrong. The problem is when these people meet face to face these same issues will come up. Again, they're going to need some feedback. That might be a good avenue to move into later if this takes off?<p>Primarily though - work on yourselves and understand who you really are. Once you do these things the rest should fall into place.
I made something similar that crowdsource tinder responses, got 7000 unique visitors in the first week but I got tired of maintaining it<p><a href="http://sharpmagazine.com/2016/04/06/this-guy-built-an-app-to-crowdsource-his-tinder-replies-and-its-working/" rel="nofollow">http://sharpmagazine.com/2016/04/06/this-guy-built-an-app-to...</a><p>I still have the code that actually allows you to directly connect to Tinder's API... so your users could just sign in with facebook instead of having to take screenshots. Don't know if you're interested but shoot me an email if you are<p>nathan.mh@gmail.com
Is this like <a href="http://www.evolveapp.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.evolveapp.com/</a> (Techstars Boston '17.)
Few questions:<p>* What's your traction like? How many active users and what's the weekly growth rate like?<p>* When did you launch this product?<p>* What are your monetization plans?<p>* How has the YC experience been so far?<p>Good luck!
Nice idea overall, something fresh and that some people will find really useful (I can manage alright myself :) )<p>It seems to me that all advice is given by your experts, which is nice but also time consuming. Since you're gathering all this data, have you considered using machine learning instead?
This definitely sounds like a service a lot of people could benefit from, and I wish you the best of luck, but my mind went straight to White Christmas episode of Black Mirror...
You know there is a luxury brand who's been in business , like forever: called <a href="http://www.hermes.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.hermes.com/</a>