About a year ago, I developed a matching system for a local startup accelerator. This system connected founders, mentors, and investors based on industries, skills, and job functions, facilitating over 5,000 meetings that led to some amazing outcomes. Inspired by this success, I enhanced the system to focus on email introductions. Here’s how it works: - It analyzes backgrounds and interests. - It sends intro proposals to each person. - If both respond, it makes the intro.
My goal is to help people meet interesting contacts without the stress, using email to keep the process simple and integrated into daily routines. I’d love for you to try it out and share your feedback. Your thoughts and suggestions for improvement are greatly appreciated!
The question I find my self asking is "what type of person is using this?" "who do I want to connect with?" "why would I want to connect with them?"
You have a bunch of corporate logos, but I don't know what you are implying with them. That people who work there are using Overlap? Why are they using it?
I was happy to find "success stories" in your footer, but clicking on that lets me tell you about my success.
I need/want to hear from your users that they are having success. I want them to tell me why I need overlap.
The more I think about it, the more I am wondering why this is better than LinkedIn, where everyone already is. Sure, I get spam, but that's easy to filter, and I am there filtering it.
I feel like overlap is going to be giving me more spam, and now it's in my inbox, which is precious to me. Why is overlap going to earn a place in my inbox?
I've never understood the Bumble Bizz (which I think failed), but LinkedIn has been quite successful for me.
A matching system for an accelerator seems very different than a more generalized site, which it seems you've built here.
Let me be clear, I'm not saying what you've built isn't valuable, but distribution is the key to getting something off the ground, and a two-sided marketplace, which is what you have, needs a good distribution strategy.
Have you thought about focusing just on the accelerators, incubators to grow overlap, so that when people like me are hearing about it for the first time, I'm not wondering why I would use it, but rather, I know, person X,Y,Z met there, or it was successful in this way. Etc etc.
Kudos for building this! I’ve just signed up and seems amazing. Hope it delivers upon that expectation.
Is that... something that happened? Could you elaborate? Anecdotally that was limited to like 2021 if I could even say that, but I would imagine you do feel that in some genuine way and it must vary by region and demographic.
The majority of gen Z people don't feel comfortable asking/being asked out in person because app-based dating is all they've ever known (https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/gen-z-yearns-pre-digital-160...)
Many posts on HN and other sites discuss the struggles people have meeting new people outside of school or work. People don't want to talk to strangers in bars, cafes or gyms. Everyone wears headphones and looks at their phone on buses and trains and waiting in lines, and socially it's increasingly considered rude, weird or scary to start a conversation with a stranger in these places.
Even going to meetups or social gatherings rarely leads to lasting relationships for most people. On rare occasion people will be genuinely passionate about a hobby and reach enough repeated interactions through that hobby to form adult friendships with peers, but most often people will be too busy with other things in their life and never progress beyond acquaintance seen a few times a year.
I didn't really see an indication of that in the article you linked, although it's perhaps plausible. One thing that did stand out to me was the below quote:
> “The divide seems partly generational. In my informal survey process (texting people and bringing up this topic at parties), I found that millennials were more excited about meeting in person. Claire (a pseudonym) said she asked a guy out about a month ago and that it felt “great”. It was a delight to go on a date and not be surprised by what somebody looks like or how it feels to physically be in their presence,” she says. She added that she “will never go back to the apps, no matter how this shakes out”. Christianna, 29, said she’s met the last three people she’s dated in person: one at a house party, another at a concert and another at a queer line dancing event. Several men in their 30s said they barely use the apps and primarily meet people in person."
None of the other things you mention are news to me, unfortunately; anecdotally I do think it's true that many people are lacking in close friends, and for that reason I try my best to be approachable and a friend to a small number of people, but fwiw I'm not Gen Z or in the U.S (Canadian, as negligible as that may be) and don't necessarily feel like the fact people have less close friends compared to some arbitrary historical point necessarily means people have broadly or suddenly become less approachable; I do feel for those who struggle to meet people.
> Even going to meetups or social gatherings rarely leads to lasting relationships for most people. On rare occasion people will be genuinely passionate about a hobby and reach enough repeated interactions through that hobby to form adult friendships with peers, but most often people will be too busy with other things in their life and never progress beyond acquaintance seen a few times a year.
I feel like this can be somewhat true and not true depending on many factors, but generally I do think it's rare that something will lead to long-term interpersonal intimacy, but that embracing that rarity is a good idea rather than not, it means you need to set real time and energy aside to build it up or establish circumstances where eventually you'll hit it off with someone, as an incidental event of you already being somewhere (not being too eager and dropping the hobby when it's either working out or not).
My impression is that in these cases where things haven't worked out longer than a couple months, potential prospects and prospectors are equally likely to not be prepared for what will be required of them in turning a burgeoning friendship into a deeper one, and don't necessarily appreciate the contrast between the effort required back in their hometown or back at their high school, and now out in their new city in their busy life, especially if they struggle to discover with whom they might have chemistry or have little to no ability to carry a conversation (which could very-well be impacted by the earlier Gen Z things you mention). This is a years long project, and it's just pretty hard, because you need to develop trust, have chemistry, be able to navigate and contribute to a conversation, and simultaneously not be too wanting.
Aside from that, imo these struggles are true of previous generations too, but the circumstances were a bit different, such as older millennials, and basically anyone who's bothered to care about expanding their social circle as an adult. Many haven't even given it a passing thought, or they've intentionally isolated themselves in the deep suburbs, or accepted too early that friends just stop being around eventually; any that have left their home town for a different or greater urban area would have had to figure it out at some point, it just might not necessarily have been as common, and they may not have had the same type of horrific manipulation of their attention on a moment-to-moment basis (as you mentioned). None of my older relatives have made new friends as adults on their own that I can think of, they just weren't in a position to need to or accidentally had kids early on and devoted their attention to that. The constraints are a bit different in terms of degree and kind now.
I signed up and it feels like my data was just collected, and I'm unsure if it's just the user responses or ingestion of my linkedin text that will be used.
Overall leaves me with a negative experience ... Maybe an email confirmation saying something might be good reassurance.
Will this work for any type of job networking or is it just for tech people?
i tried to login and it gives me a
"Your account is being set up, check back here later."
and a prompt to change my password
Yeah, as soon as you get a single signup from someone using their work email, you add the logo. Got a @google.com signup? Google logo right on the homepage ;).
I've seen a few places write "used by engineers at" rather than "used by", which is at least accurate and doesn't imply any business relationship with the company (even if most people don't notice the difference).
Just to clarify, no "hate" towards the OP, I hate the game, not the player.
Games only exist while someone plays them, so every player is complicit in its existence.
“A lot of other companies are unethical so I am too” is not an excuse.