I like it! It's an interesting and under-explored direction. However, I would suggest you take your idea in its current form as only a starting point, and continue working on it. If you could also collaborate with someone who can offer a woman's perspective on this, I think that would improve things.

I am saying that because I am a dude, and, to be honest, just based on this post, I suspect you are as well. My experience of being happily married and also a father of a young lady has taught me that a woman's perspective on these matters is very different from ours, and it's something that I previously had no idea about.

It's especially important because, as everyone knows, whether any such initiative *succeeds or fails* is determined by whether it can attract women. You get them, and the men *will* flock wherever the women are.

Specifically:

*Prioritize the lowest-friction way for women to avoid certain men* In this context, it's very important for women to have a *low-social-friction* way to *minimize* being *around* certain men. The reasons could range from objectively problematic things like unwelcome and inappropriate advances to more "subjective" (or "unfair") things that women often won't be willing to express—like someone with perceived poor hygiene or just "giving *off* the wrong vibes."

And the hard part is that while in theory you can do something about the objective stuff (banning people based on the *post-event* survey), the subjective, *unspoken stuff* is much harder to tackle.

One underappreciated property of every *common* way to *socialize* with strangers or "meet people" is the ability for women to "walk away" with the lowest possible friction. For example, the concept of a "date" *where* you meet in a public, neutral, anonymous place largely originates from that.

With that in mind, the perspective of being "trapped" and "cooped up" in an escape room for *an hour* with men *they don't know* looks very different.

*Lean into an activity with friends where you expand your offline social network*

This activity would do well by leaning *into* the aspects of traditional ways to meet people that the matching apps are bad at. *Think about* the advantages of the classic practice of being invited to a party and going there with your friends.

For socially mature people (exactly the kind everyone seeks), and in particular for women, an activity you can go to *with your* group of friends, rather than alone, is much more attractive and natural.

And there are significant social advantages to meeting a person at a *friend's* party.

First of all, the person meets the minimal social bar of being *sociable enough* to have at least one friendship that led them to be invited to a party by a friend *or* acquaintance. (*And* if you think that's not much, *you'd be surprised*.)

Another reason is that when you meet a person through your social network (friend-of-a-friend), you get to learn *what* they are really like. This is huge: without it, all a guy who is a serial abuser needs to do is to act charming and nice for an hour or two during the date.

*Plausible deniability. Don't repeat the mistakes of speed-dating.* I would think about changing at least the official *value proposition* of the idea from "meet potential dates" to something more neutral, a sort of fun and exciting activity where "meeting *new people*" is only mentioned in passing. For whatever complex social reason, it seems that there is this socially important thing, in particular for women, that even when meeting potential new dates is the ultimate intention for many participants, the *appearance has to be kept* that it's not the *main* reason people are participating.

Look at the concept of *nightlife* and nightclubs, *for example*.

Why do *girls* go out and hit the nightclubs? To dance and to have a great time with their girlfriends, of course! Because the best way to spend time with friends *over* deafeningly loud music, in a dark ugly warehouse, is to dress up, commute *downtown* (taxi *fare* both ways), wait in a line, and spend a fortune on the cheapest booze.

On the other hand, while objectively "speed dating" is a great proposition, it *hasn't been* popular at all.

Here are some directions *you could explore* iterating on the idea:

1. I would change the setting from the escape room with 4-6 people to some sort of *outside quest-style* game (*geocaching-style*, clues, and so on) where larger groups of people participate (10-20), and the players have the opportunity *to* team up with others if they wish. Maybe it could be two or *multiple* teams so *the* whole vibe moves from "meeting dates" to a *"sports" or competition* vibe.

2. Invite-only, members with good standing get 5 invites *to* share with their friends and all that. Compose teams so that you get to meet *friends-of-friends* rather than total strangers.

3. I would switch from the "meet dates" rhetoric to just an activity you can do with friends, and, *hey*, you meet people.

4. I would change the anonymous post-game matching mechanic from being matched up for "dating" to being matched up to participate together at the next game, or being matched up in the same team.

user:	dborzov
created:	September 27, 2018
karma:	23