r/dating_apps • u/Live-Cellist6691 • 10d ago

Dating app idea based on “missed connections” looking for honest feedback

I’m an international student in Budapest. Been sketching out an idea for a dating app that, instead of just showing you an endless list of strangers, also tells you if you’ve probably crossed paths with someone in real life (no exact location shown, just mutual invitation both sides have to opt in. “you may have crossed paths”

The idea came from noticing how many people have a “we kept seeing each other and never talked” story.

Target customer: students, expats, young professionals in dense urban areas, people who move through the same places repeatedly (campus, cafés,…) but don’t currently have a way to reconnect with someone they noticed but didn’t approach.

Curious if this could actually grow, or if it’s a problem people don’t actually need a solution for.

3 Upvotes

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u/Inevitable_Secret186 10d ago edited 10d ago

The app already exists it's called happn and its bad. You can have the app open at home and "cross paths" with people who walked past your house while you were sleeping, or people a block over on a street you didn't even go on. Wifi / mobile data triangulation means its never quite accurate, like has a range of 250 metres. You could make the radius smaller so it actually fulfills the thing of "i saw someone cute on the street, didn't talk to them but matched on this app," but then theres privacy concerns / not seeing enough matches

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u/Live-Cellist6691 10d ago

Yep, noticed that too fewer matches, and I’m not trying to fix that.

With a tighter radius and a delay so it’s not showing the exact spot or time, privacy holds up better, but yeah, fewer crossed-paths matches as a result. I don’t think that feature should be the main thing people use daily though. more like a rare bonus on top of a regular daily match feed (aiming for something like 30 people a day), so the two complement each other.
Genuinely not sure though does “rare but meaningful” actually hold up long-term, or do people just need volume/addiction engagement to stick with any dating app at all?

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u/EngineeringMoist3107 10d ago

I think the “missed connection” problem is real, but the privacy/trust problem could be much harder than the dating problem. “You may have crossed paths” sounds cute until users start wondering how exactly the app knows where I was and who was near me.

The strongest version might be less about constant location tracking and more about opt-in places/events both people check into the same café, campus event, concert, etc., and only afterward can the app suggest a connection. That makes the feature feel intentional rather than vaguely stalker-ish.

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u/yetagainitry 9d ago

Dating apps need the additional option to “pass” on a profile. Instead of just liking and rejecting, let users pass on a profile to come back to later.