> When did you launch this product?
Before today, we've been quietly testing various iterations of a live dating & relationship advice service on the web. We think dating advice is a big need that has many use cases (e.g. texting to get a first date, how to act on a date, how to read signals/hints, how to define a relationship, how to handle a breakup, how to get your ex back). For YC S17, we decided to double down on the use case of texting on dating apps in order to get a high-quality first date.
Today is the first time we've gone live with WittyThumbs, a dedicated site around this use case, and the first time we've built annotated posts (like Genius's song lyric annotations) to showcase the kind of advice we give.
> What's your traction like? How many active users and what's the weekly growth rate like?
Our experts have given live advice to over 1,000 users on various topics and have had good repeat-usage numbers. The most encouraging thing is that some of our users are extremely passionate about the service and really appreciate having us on call. We ourselves would have been such users only 5-10 years ago, so it's nice to validate that we're not the only ones.
> What are your monetization plans?
It's basically what you see at https://wittythumbs.com/chat - we charge for our experts' time giving you live advice. Professional dating coaches usually require setting appointments and paying ~$200/hour, so we're high quality and affordable. In fact, you can use us to get 5 minutes of advice here and there (e.g. help me interpret this text I just received), and only pay for the time you use.
> How has the YC experience been so far?
We got into YC on April 27 and the first day of the batch is actually tomorrow, so it's early in the game. I will say the biggest thing about getting into YC, or any incubator really, is that it's really nice to have a support network of smart people who you know are there to help you.