Ever since Craigslist began changing the face of classified ads, we do most of our little transactions online – selling a sofa, maybe, or advertising your English lessons. Yet the physical posters with ‘tear-off’ tabs are still a common sight in cities like Berlin or London.
And so it’s not a surprise that someone has taken the idea of these flyers and digitized it. In addition, Likemind, which is launching its iOS app on Monday, is also jumping aboard the people discovery wagon. The platform allows you to make new friends by connecting you with people who have things in common. Users can create posters with six tear-off tabs outlining what they want to talk about – be it a specific thing, such as ‘who wants to go see a band tonight?’, or a more general topic.
Each tab represents one conversation with the flyer’s author, limiting the number of people who can reply at any one time to six in order to keep the conversations manageable.
Once all of the tabs have been taken, the flyer is ‘paused’ and its creator can respond to one or more of the six people who got in contact. They can also repost the old flyer if they don’t fancy the look of any of the responders.
The team behind Likemind, which is based in Berlin, felt there was a gap in existing ‘people discovery’ platforms which focused mainly on dating or friends you already have. That won’t, of course, prevent people from using it for, shall we say, romantic purposes, but co-founder and CEO Jens-Philipp Klein was not fazed.
He said: “Likemind is about meeting new people, making connections and having new experiences, based on common interests and activities. Some people obviously use the platform for dating purposes, but we also have many users who find that it’s a great way to widen their social circles and try new cultural pursuits or sports, for example.”
As for the flyer, they remain popular in the physical world because they are open to everyone, and that is exactly what Likemind wants to tap into. Jens added: “The purpose of the flyer design is to make the platform as open, equal and fun for people as possible. Allowing each user to receive only six replies at a time helps to limit unwanted levels of attention around popular flyers and also distributes activity evenly across the community.”
The Likemind app is being launched on iOS with an Android to follow later this year. Users sign up by connecting it to Facebook to authenticate their identity. It sets up a basic profile including photo, first name and age, but won’t publicly post anything without permission.
And the privacy aspect is definitely an important one within the people discovery space. There have been plenty of new entrants in the past year or two and, likewise, plenty of angst over how much data users share and whether they can really be successful.
To counter that, Likemind – which is for adults aged 18 and over only – includes in-app messaging and photo sharing so you don’t have to give out phone numbers or email addresses if you don’t want to. Users can also block someone from getting back in contact with them.
It runs on a freemium model with finding and posting flyers and starting conversations free, and other features such as better interest matching options, flyer targeting or image sharing being bought through Likemind Points which can in turn be bought or earned by inviting friends to join the platform.
The company was founded in Berlin in 2012 and is funded by serial angel investor Christophe Maire (Zoobe, Loopcam, Toast), JMES Investments and other private investors.