Austin, 2023. Newly single, I found myself returning to the dating apps—this time in a big city, something I’d never really experienced as an adult. Sure, I’ve used them before, but in a smaller town like Jackson, WY, it’s a completely different ballgame: you can swipe through every available local (plus a few tourists) in about five minutes. At that scale, you’re not so much looking for the right person as any person.
Austin, however, flipped the script. My match queue was suddenly overflowing with potential partners. At first, I followed the usual playbook: match, exchange a few texts, then grab a drink to see if we clicked. Turns out, that wasn’t a winning formula for me as a guy in his late 30s. I have a pretty good sense of what I want and often found myself disappointed. Although I tried to gauge compatibility through messaging, I quickly realized that I needed to ask more in-depth questions up front. But that led to a new headache: spending hours glued to my phone, repeating the same monotonous questions to strangers. Between the texting fatigue and the mediocre dates, I knew there had to be a better way.
The problem, as I saw it, boiled down to two things:
- Data fidelity: It’s really hard to determine whether someone is a good match using just a handful of texts.
- Data bandwidth: You’re barely getting any meaningful info in the first place.
Yes, there are apps like Match.com that try to solve this, but they skip over the all-important attraction filter as the best and most important top of funnel step. If you’re not physically attracted to someone, nothing else really matters, and that’s where current swipe-based apps do get it right. So, what I felt was missing was a middle layer between quick texting and actually meeting in person—a questionnaire that surfaces important factors like values and lifestyle. Unlike Match.com, I’d be building it to my tastes—focused on what I care about. I can make it cheeky and fun, with one or two important questions, or I can go deep and really try and pull the important parts of a person’s character out more efficiently.
And guess what? It worked. Right after matching, I started sending my survey—tactfully —and noticed a few things:
- The vast majority of matches (90%+) were totally on board, with only a small handful declining the idea. I felt this was a bit of a litmus test, and we’d never otherwise work.
- The questions were intentionally a bit opaque, so there wasn’t a single “correct” answer. This was crucial for understanding each other’s deeper values and rhythms. It wasn’t about “finding the right person for me,” but figuring out if we could be a mutual fit.
- Conversations suddenly had depth—no more mind-numbing “weather talk.” We’d jump straight into questions like, “Why do you value honesty more than kindness?”
- Bad dates no longer happened. This isn’t to say everyone was a “match”, you can only validate things like chemistry in person. However, the times I went on a date and immediately was like “nope” were gone. At minimum we’d simply have a fun evening, which I’m fine with.
Seeing these results, I started to wonder if I could build a suite of dating tools around this concept. Something that anyone could use to get more out of their online dating experience. Sure, a questionnaire builder and some analytics tools were the obvious starting points. But I could imagine a whole “dating data stack” that helps you understand your potential matches more quickly and thoroughly, learn about yourself, get coaching, and ultimately grow as a partner.
I wrote the idea down, ran it by a few people, and then put it on ice. Then December 2024 rolled around, and the idea crept back into my mind. One particularly inspired Tuesday morning, I decided to build an MVP myself. I felt I had just enough technical know-how—combined with all these new AI tools—to take a swing at it. And I actually got something working.**
I’m under no illusions; if more than a hundred people start using this in earnest, I’ll probably need real developers to keep it stable. But instead of shelling out tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars just to validate the concept, I spent three weeks of my time and about two hundred bucks in AI costs. That’s a total paradigm shift for people like me who love building new things—and I’m thrilled about what it means for the future.
So, what does the tool do exactly? In its simplest form, it’s a questionnaire builder that allows your matches to see your answers immediately after they complete the survey. You can showcase your social links at the top (and after they finish), there’s a fine-tuned OpenAI GPT4o-mini model underneath it all that helps you whip up new surveys in no time, private sharing of results with friends, ready-made templates, a date outcome tracker, OpenAI-driven analytics—bla bla bla. And I have a lot more ideas cooking, which I’ll likely ship soon.
Is this something others will find useful, or just a hobby for me? Lets find out. Head to Hitch at https://www.hitch.love to learn more and give it a go!
*Jeff certainly thinks so; **take it with a grain of salt—it might break.