stdout.chat
Terminal-style text chat, matched by shared interests
stdout.chat is a one-on-one text chat for iOS with a terminal aesthetic — monospace, dark screen, slash commands. I started it in March because every "meet people" app puts a camera between you and the other person, and I wanted the opposite: you are exactly as interesting as what you type.
Three design decisions I keep defending: text-only (moderation actually works on typed messages; nothing to leak), interest matching instead of roulette (kills "asl? bye"), and a rank ladder where good conversation is the only currency — you can't buy or pose your way up.
Honest status: the hardest problem isn't features, it's liquidity — getting people into the room at the same time. Working on it with push timing and a daily "warm window". If you've solved cold-start for a social product, I'd genuinely like to hear how.
3 Comments
The liquidity problem is probably more fundamental than the matching itself.
Curious whether the current bottleneck is getting enough people online at once, or getting the right mix of people online at once.