A year ago I wrote about the trust problem dating apps have. I got a lot of messages after that piece, most of them landing on the same point: “you’re right, but who is going to fix it?” Well, for a while now I have stopped commenting from the sidelines. Together with the team at Spotier, we are building Slide, a dating app built around real people.
I am not writing this to announce a win. It is a bet, and an ambitious one. I just want to explain why I think it is worth doing and how we are approaching it, so that I can come back in a while and see how well, or how badly, I called it.
Why dating, and why now
For a whole generation, dating apps have become the normal way people meet. That is the good part. The bad part is that as they grew, they picked up every illness the internet has: fake profiles, catfishing (people pretending to be someone else), romance scams, bots pushing you towards dodgy links. Every one of those experiences chips away a little trust. And when trust drops, people either leave or stay on, but defensive, cynical and tired.
To me this is an important problem, not just a business niche. We are talking about how people find a partner, friends, sometimes a family. If the tool that makes it happen is full of masks, we all lose something.
The problem is not just fraud, it is endless swiping
Even when everyone is real, the classic format has a ceiling. A profile is a set of carefully chosen photos, filtered, sometimes years old. The decision is made in a second, with a thumb. After a while, people turn into images in a queue that never ends, and swiping becomes a reflex rather than a choice.
I am not blaming anyone for that. The format worked and built an industry. But I think it left room for something that brings back the feeling that there is a person on the other side of the screen.
What we are building, concretely
Slide starts from a simple idea: real people, shown as close as possible to how they actually are. A few things rest on that:
- Verified profiles. We want you to know that the person you are talking to exists and is who they say they are.
- Video Reels. Short clips where you see how someone moves, talks and laughs. Much harder to fake than a photo, and much closer to reality.
- Poke. A light way to show interest, without the pressure of writing the perfect opening line.
- Instant Chat. When the interest is mutual, the conversation should start right away, not after a maze of steps.
None of this is magic. The point is how it fits together: verification and video build trust, while Poke and chat turn that trust into a conversation.
Safety and respect as product principles, not a terms-of-service page
I have seen plenty of products treat safety as a legal box to tick: a page of rules, a hidden report button, done. We want to start from the other end. Every product decision has to answer one question: does it make people feel safer and more respected, or less? If a feature drives engagement but encourages ugly behaviour, we do not want it.
I admit that is easier to write than to do. Every online community tests its limits. But I would rather have the principle clear from day one than try to bolt it on later.
The hardest problem: an empty app is useless
This is the part that keeps me up at night. Dating is a network-effect business in its purest form. An online store can sell to its very first customer. A dating app with nobody around you is simply useless, however well it is built. You need density: enough real users, in the same place, at the same time. I wrote about the budget side separately, in what it really costs to launch a mobile app.
And the market is dominated by giants like Tinder, Bumble and Hinge, with budgets and brand recognition we do not have. We are not trying to beat them at their own game. We are trying to play a different one, where authenticity counts for more than volume. Whether that is enough, we will find out.
What I bring from my previous online businesses
I have built, and got things wrong, often enough online, from online stores to a SaaS for customers around the world, to know a few things I do not want to forget here. I wrote about them at length in my lessons from 20 years of entrepreneurship, but for Slide they boil down to three:
- Measure retention, not just downloads. One user who comes back is worth more than ten who install and forget. Growth without retention is a leaking bucket.
- Listen to users. Not to what they say they want in a survey, but to what they actually do in the app and what frustrates them.
- Build trust before growth. It is tempting to inflate the numbers as fast as possible. But in a product that is about trust, every fake profile let in through haste is a debt you repay tenfold.
I learned one more thing from how I choose the startups I join: look at the problem first, and only then at the solution. Here the problem is real, and anyone who has used a dating app has felt it. The solution still has to prove itself.
A bet, not a promise
I do not know whether Slide will succeed. I know the problem is worth solving and that we have a team that believes in it. We will make mistakes, adjust and listen. When we have something to show, I will write honestly about both what worked and what did not.
Until then, let me ask you: what would make you trust a dating app again?