Launch HN: WittyThumbs (YC S17) – We help improve online-dating conversations

Few questions:

* What's your traction like? How many active users and what's the weekly growth rate like?

* When did you launch this product?

* What are your monetization plans?

* How has the YC experience been so far?

Good luck!

We replaced the name Hermes with WittyThumbs above. The OP asked us to do it right after posting but I didn't see the email till now.

Using an older internal name can be a hard habit to break :)

Wow, this is amazing. How will you scale it past the initial founder experts?

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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 (https://theblog.okcupid.com/the-mathematics-of-beauty-51bd25...).

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.

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.

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.

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.

As long as they don't get weird and pickup-artisty about it down the line. :-)