by earlyriser on 6/25/22, 2:00 PM with 25 comments
by earlyriser on 6/25/22, 2:00 PM
My name is Roberto and I’m the founder of Ferris, a social network that lets you plan and join real life activities with your 20 closest friends.
The idea is to give you more friend-time with an app that makes easy to plan activities:
- Spontaneous ones like a coffee on the next break
- Blurry ones like going to the movies someday/somewhere next month
- Repetitive ones like going running during the summer
- Planned ones like a concert this Friday
As an introvert, with a family, and in my 40s I have found it very difficult to have time with my friends.
Existent options have their limitations, which is normal because they are not trying to solve this problem:
- FB events or Google calendar invites feel too formal, there’s not really a way to say “I’m going for an ice cream in 10min, who wants to come?”.
- Messaging apps have a conversational flow and it’s difficult to keep the conversation centered into a topic.
- Email has too much back & forth
Ferris offers an easy way to create activities in seconds and invite your friends, with low pressure to accept. The feed is basically a list of activities where you’re welcome to join. As you can imagine, this list is short and the app is more a tool than a destination with endless scrolling.
Speaking of endless scrolling, I’m also trying to solve some of the problems exposed in The Social Dilemma, so I created something where you’re the client and not the product (freemium model).
I’m very happy to finally ship this. I have been working on it for the last 4 years… in the current form, but my original idea is from 2012. This soft launch is a big step for me. If I’m honest I’m terrified, it’s not my first time launching something, but it’s my first time creating something non-trivial as a side project.
I hope you could give it a try! Inviting your best 3 friends could help you to see the dynamic.
by PhilippGille on 6/25/22, 9:30 PM
Some questions that I didn't find answered in the FAQ or elsewhere:
- Why does the birth year go into the app settings and not the profile? And 1950 is the default?
- What's the Ferris tag in the app? Like a "secret" identifier? In the settings section maybe this coulb be explained a bit.
- In the app settings notifications are off by default. Is that intended? It's nice as it reduces distraction, but with the interactions on the app being less frequent already (one activity every now and then per friend with just 20 friends) I can imagine notifications being necessary to build traction (not the app itself, but also as a participant, when planning activities, I probably would like my friends to know without them having to actively open the app, especially for spontaneous activities).
- I can only add friends when knowing their Ferris tag. When a friend doesn't use the app yet, I have to explain what it is myself. Maybe you could add an "invite via mail/link" feature, where the friend (not on Ferris yet) sees an explanation what Ferris is, can sign up and then automatically the Ferris friends relationship is established
Good luck with the project!
by eutropia on 6/25/22, 10:35 PM
by Graffur on 6/26/22, 10:12 AM
How are you going to make money?
by ajjenkins on 7/2/22, 12:41 PM
by cryptoboid on 6/26/22, 4:39 AM
by karmanyaahm on 6/26/22, 3:05 AM
Minor bug: The android app doesn't seem to work with password manager autofill.
by mdrzn on 6/26/22, 4:49 PM
If I had 20 friends I would try it /s
One question regarding the "Free plan", is there a pricing page somewhere that I didn't find? What would a "power user" do differently then someone on a free plan?
by asdfqwertzxcv on 6/26/22, 3:07 AM
by LocalH on 6/26/22, 1:32 PM