November 25, 2013 at 08:59From dating to the city
Hi {{habrauser}}.
In this article, I will talk about our project, about the initial plans, and about what we have come to, the process and views on the future.
The last couple of years it has been fashionable to do geo-social ratings. I don’t remember who started it, but in the RuNet "Fir-trees" from Arkady Moreinis were noted. Now the term "geo-dating" is almost a curse in the ranks of young Internet entrepreneurs.
My story begins on a fine summer day, when I opened the TechCrunch RSS feed, it seems, and an article about the Tinder service caught my eye. I must say that by nature I am extremely shy. I think I’ll be even more shy than Raj from TBBT. Go up to the girl and talk! Yourself? Out of the blue? No, fire!
So, the article described how to become popular on this service, Tinder. About which I did not know yet. I read, tried, and I liked it.) Especially hooked on simplicity.
I decided to try to do something like this with us, in Russia, because There were no analogues, and I just wanted to try. Our company was just closed, and 40 people dismissed us, issuing even some compensation. As you understand, I decided to try to copy Tinder in Russia. Aboard!
At the last project, I met a talented Python \ Django programmer, and by that time I myself had translated all my projects into Python. Wonderful language. Zhenya listened to me and replied that he was interested in the idea and the stack of technologies that we would use. He is in the game. From now on, it will be on behalf of "we."
Tinder is a mobile application, but we decided to make the web from the very beginning. True, with the condition that all interfaces will be implemented in an adaptive version. For many reasons, probably the most important is the lack of competencies in mobile programming, and the process of making changes with the web is still more flexible at the moment.
A prototype was worked out, although we looked back at the above-mentioned service, we still fantasized and created our “own” product.
When all the pages have been created and the basic scripts have been completed 100 times, it is time to do the graphics. I must say that I have quite a lot of experience in Internet projects, and have enough proven specialists. Nevertheless, I decided to turn to the side, take a chance, refresh my acquaintances, and look at other points of view. Posted on frelansim and fl. I write ads in a special way, the main thing is to convey the importance of my product and the degree of importance of the work and the person you are looking for, I will probably write a topic someday. Again, having experience behind me, I was very critical of the work in the portfolio of responding designers.
As a result, a wonderful designer was found who agreed for 7,500 rubles. (do not forget, I did not work, and we did this project for personal money), make us all the screens + their adaptive versions. It seems that he was somewhere in Thailand then, and rather regarded this work as rest (actually and correctly), he was given a full carte blanche and “rubber” terms. After two weeks of pretty hard work (rallies every evening), the design phase was completed. We were happy and we liked it very much (Hello, Artem, thanks for what you did for us.).
This turned out to be the main page:
and her mobile sister.
About a month has passed since the start of development. Probably worth mentioning the layout. We also searched for a layout designer remotely, and found a cool Ukrainian guy. Which not only agreed to help us for 7,000 rubles, but, carried away by the idea, brought a lot of useful things from himself. Remember - a good specialist at each stage can add something that you did not even think about and did not know.
We are approaching the main stage of our project - revitalization. Programming. Eugene, when he found out that I was fired, he supported me in every possible way mentally and refused money, agreeing to a share. Well, I hope someday I can thank him. The development process took another 1.5 months, since I had to work in the evenings between work. Yes, and we did not burn, it was important to have fun and learn new things. By that time, I began to actively seek work. Along the way, Zhenya and I have another common content project, to which I devoted a couple of evenings a week. There will be a separate article on the development and technologies used.
The first alpha versions showed that the model is viable, and many received warmth. But closer to the release of the project, we realized that we want something completely different. Not dating, or rather dating, as one of the components of the project, but pursuing a different goal.
Tinder is based on the fact that you choose people depending on your current position. We introduced the term “Places” - points that are important for you on the map. For example, I definitely have “Home” and “Work” + a couple of places where I like to walk. This is where our differences with Tinder begin and our hopes for the future.
While we were doing our service, I was increasingly thinking about the importance of the city for people. What does “City for people” mean? And not only the city, but the space as a whole. I managed to take part in a study called "one day in life." Further, the KO quote is “The most negative peak of the day is leaving home, and the most positive, respectively, is returning”. And what actually makes a house, a house? Is the city not home? With our project, we want to expand the framework, make places in the city animated, familiar and “our”.
For the time being, we do not intend to remove the dating functionality, as it's pretty funny.) View photos, enjoy, chat, date. But it is your choice. By the end of the year, we will fix the bugs found and add the functionality of events around your place (cinema, theater, concerts, lectures) and an offline service for meetings of initiative city groups.
If you are interested, join (sorry, registration is required so far).
I know that, in principle, this is useless to say. And this must be understood, sorry, the fifth point. But do not start your projects with a solution, begin by studying the problem. The question is which problem is best solved.
I hope you were interested in our experience and the project.) For all questions, I will be happy to answer in the comments.
PS Now we are in search of a mobile developer who could take on the iOs version. On the terms of cooperation - it’s better in PM, it will either be some small amount, or the percentage is still not clear what.).
Background
So, the article described how to become popular on this service, Tinder. About which I did not know yet. I read, tried, and I liked it.) Especially hooked on simplicity.
Briefly about how Tinder works:
You are shown people sorted by geographic proximity to your position. Your will to like or skip (Mark also started from this, we remember hot or not). If the likes on both sides match, they will open a private chat.
I decided to try to do something like this with us, in Russia, because There were no analogues, and I just wanted to try. Our company was just closed, and 40 people dismissed us, issuing even some compensation. As you understand, I decided to try to copy Tinder in Russia. Aboard!
At the last project, I met a talented Python \ Django programmer, and by that time I myself had translated all my projects into Python. Wonderful language. Zhenya listened to me and replied that he was interested in the idea and the stack of technologies that we would use. He is in the game. From now on, it will be on behalf of "we."
Process
Tinder is a mobile application, but we decided to make the web from the very beginning. True, with the condition that all interfaces will be implemented in an adaptive version. For many reasons, probably the most important is the lack of competencies in mobile programming, and the process of making changes with the web is still more flexible at the moment.
A prototype was worked out, although we looked back at the above-mentioned service, we still fantasized and created our “own” product.
When all the pages have been created and the basic scripts have been completed 100 times, it is time to do the graphics. I must say that I have quite a lot of experience in Internet projects, and have enough proven specialists. Nevertheless, I decided to turn to the side, take a chance, refresh my acquaintances, and look at other points of view. Posted on frelansim and fl. I write ads in a special way, the main thing is to convey the importance of my product and the degree of importance of the work and the person you are looking for, I will probably write a topic someday. Again, having experience behind me, I was very critical of the work in the portfolio of responding designers.
As a result, a wonderful designer was found who agreed for 7,500 rubles. (do not forget, I did not work, and we did this project for personal money), make us all the screens + their adaptive versions. It seems that he was somewhere in Thailand then, and rather regarded this work as rest (actually and correctly), he was given a full carte blanche and “rubber” terms. After two weeks of pretty hard work (rallies every evening), the design phase was completed. We were happy and we liked it very much (Hello, Artem, thanks for what you did for us.).
This turned out to be the main page:
and her mobile sister.
About a month has passed since the start of development. Probably worth mentioning the layout. We also searched for a layout designer remotely, and found a cool Ukrainian guy. Which not only agreed to help us for 7,000 rubles, but, carried away by the idea, brought a lot of useful things from himself. Remember - a good specialist at each stage can add something that you did not even think about and did not know.
We are approaching the main stage of our project - revitalization. Programming. Eugene, when he found out that I was fired, he supported me in every possible way mentally and refused money, agreeing to a share. Well, I hope someday I can thank him. The development process took another 1.5 months, since I had to work in the evenings between work. Yes, and we did not burn, it was important to have fun and learn new things. By that time, I began to actively seek work. Along the way, Zhenya and I have another common content project, to which I devoted a couple of evenings a week. There will be a separate article on the development and technologies used.
The first alpha versions showed that the model is viable, and many received warmth. But closer to the release of the project, we realized that we want something completely different. Not dating, or rather dating, as one of the components of the project, but pursuing a different goal.
What we wanted and where we came to
Tinder is based on the fact that you choose people depending on your current position. We introduced the term “Places” - points that are important for you on the map. For example, I definitely have “Home” and “Work” + a couple of places where I like to walk. This is where our differences with Tinder begin and our hopes for the future.
While we were doing our service, I was increasingly thinking about the importance of the city for people. What does “City for people” mean? And not only the city, but the space as a whole. I managed to take part in a study called "one day in life." Further, the KO quote is “The most negative peak of the day is leaving home, and the most positive, respectively, is returning”. And what actually makes a house, a house? Is the city not home? With our project, we want to expand the framework, make places in the city animated, familiar and “our”.
For the time being, we do not intend to remove the dating functionality, as it's pretty funny.) View photos, enjoy, chat, date. But it is your choice. By the end of the year, we will fix the bugs found and add the functionality of events around your place (cinema, theater, concerts, lectures) and an offline service for meetings of initiative city groups.
If you are interested, join (sorry, registration is required so far).
Little tip
I know that, in principle, this is useless to say. And this must be understood, sorry, the fifth point. But do not start your projects with a solution, begin by studying the problem. The question is which problem is best solved.
I hope you were interested in our experience and the project.) For all questions, I will be happy to answer in the comments.
PS Now we are in search of a mobile developer who could take on the iOs version. On the terms of cooperation - it’s better in PM, it will either be some small amount, or the percentage is still not clear what.).