Grouper Sets You Up With Three Facebook Strangers, But ‘It’s Not a Date’ (opens in new tab)

This idea is really good! (I'm socially average I would say, more on the outgoing side, and I see my friends totally going for this. If I think of 10 friends randomly (single or otherwise), and give them $20 credit towards either eHarmony or this, I see them all - except maybe one or two who are aggressively looking for a relationship, choosing Grouper). However, if I think of 10 random friends of mine from those whom I think are most likely to join a dating site - 9/10 of those would go for eHarmony or something because they are looking to get in a relationship and not just play around. Bravo! You just have one thing to look out for - mismatched expectations. I think females will like this more than males because they will feel more secure and they like to get input from girlfriends generally.

This will be a success. One of the things our church has done is something called 'dinner for 7' which is a system whereby people opt in that they are interested in meeting new people, and the church sets up a group of 7 who then agree to meet and have some dinners together (nominally hosted from house to house). It really helps you meet folks, interact and engage with them. It 'forces' what would otherwise have to be a very random event (you found yourself in a group they were in at some social event).

For the record, the "Auction House" is something my buddies & I refer to as the "Vampire Cougar Bar."

The place has fancy red velvet furniture, oil portraits on the wall, and a dark feel. It's sometimes full of older women who seem to be looking for younger men. We don't fill that bill anymore, but sometimes someone younger friends can be suckered^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hconvinced into coming along. Good times, good times.

Decent scotch selection. Not great, but workable.

  > We took our $400 travel reimbursement check from YC and
  > used that as seed capital for Grouper

I once returned a book to Amazon. If I used that money to fund a startup, it'd be rather disingenuous to call that Amazon-funded. Makes for a good headline though.

That aside, it sounds like a fantastic idea.

This has the potential to go viral. $20 with free drinks is not bad. Initially it might be awkward but I feel that if the matching is good enough connections can start easily. I would add that they send each participant a summary of each other's profile if they haven't already thought about it. This will give all parties some insight and tool to start a productive conversation.

So it's not a date, but you do have to have 3 men and 3 women? If it's not a date, then why the gender requirement? And why match on attractiveness?

If it is a date but for whatever reason they don't want to say so (I'm guessing because of the social stigma around online dating in some circles -- check out the description of Blendr: it's exactly like Grindr but it's totally different), what about gay people?

" “Lol,” he wrote " ...

What has happened to journalism.

That article is a great example on a startup providing a compelling story for coverage by media. I don't doubt that they used the 400$ given by YC for Grouper but the 400$ probably was not the limiting factor.

"The Grouper algorithm mines your friend graph, ... and then sets you up with someone of the opposite sex whom you're not Facebook friends with"

... That is the ex that I don't want to see.

This platform could potentially take social networking to the next level, getting strangers with similar interest to actually meet. And not just on a dating/adult level, but on a wholesome and casual scenario. People don't do this because of our social and cognitive limitations. I guess having an algorithm to do the picks takes out that awkward task. They say that a stranger is a friend you just haven't met yet, well, we will find out.

First I thought if they base it on just your Facebook profile alone it's going to be pretty weak match.

But then thinking back to the dating sites I've tried where the match was poor anyway I thought maybe I'll give it a chance.

Most dating sites don't live up to the promise of a perfect match so you might as well opt for a quick one ;<).

Good for them! Bootstrapping at its finest.

Sounds like a great idea, but no matter the temptation I can't get the courage to give third parties complete access to my FB profile. Is there anyway you could have "access all photos" to "access profile photos", or put some sort of limitations on what you access?

Ill never have a facebook account, but that is a killer idea.

Forget the triple date part, look at this -

  We applied to YC with paperbuff.com. In the 36 hours before   
  our interview, we ditched paperbuff and built qomments.com, 
  were rejected, then decided to build a product people would 
  actually want

I am sorry, but this is ridiculous. This is not only a waste of everyone's time in YC, but it also takes away an opportunity from other people who could have pitched in their place. There is really nothing "LOL" about it.

So this is a triple "non date"? That sounds like it has a lot of potential to be awkward. What kind of social engineering goes into picking the people?