Glimpse — A dating app built on Instagram

Welcome, @elan_miller! As you know, I've been following Glimpse since before its launch. I'm very interested in how products can use existing content (in your case, IG photos) to build something compelling. I particularly like the on-boarding flow where new users reminisce through photos they've taken (see http://ryanhoover.me/post/747263...). @wp also wrote an insightful, relevant piece on Vessels for Personality here: http://williampeng.com/post/7098... Elan- you have a traditional chicken-and-egg challenge with Glimpse. How are you approaching that problem?

@elan_miller haha, yeah. I know about the ratio problem (I live in SF and work in tech). How are you measuring success of the product and features you build? Do you have a "single metric" you're optimizing for?

I agree with @squirrel541. Instagram is a heavily curated form of expression and the filters/context of the community further reinforce this. Snapchat or (the truthful) content on Secret is much more "pure" and less "branded" because people are more willing to communicate or express themselves honestly. That said, I like the direction Glimpse is heading -- using existing content to connect people together.

I have to say, this is an awesome idea - there's nothing fake about this, you're not asking users to create their profile (which tends to lead into over thinking and 'curating') but just enable a platform they use on a day-to-day already, the 'true you'. As for the metrics, messages by far is the most important form of measuring success. Reminds me of an article (that I can no longer find) that talked about back Dropbox's metrics for success. It talked about the true growth/success metrics, which was related not strictly to the about of data uploaded into DB but the number of files/items/folders being shared with other users. Just as with you, a like doesn't say much, a message = interaction and interaction = value.

@squirrel541 @rrhoover I can see your points. I guess what I had in mind was more along the lines of, if you're creating content for a Dating site, you are re-creating your profile with your self interests. Where as Instagram is a platform you already use, without a dating focus. But as you both stated, it does contain mostly curated content of the 'great' parts of your life rather than the 'full' picture. With that, I think Ryan said it best, 'using existing content to connect people together'.

Hey Gang - my name is Elan, one of the co-founders of Glimpse. Let me know if you'd like an invite code or have any questions - I'd love to hear about your experience with the app :)

To date, it's been a combination of a little things, that probably won't scale. We have some cool stuff in the pipeline to help accelerate efforts. For example, we're getting set to launch a #instacrush marketing campaign where users can invite their "secret instagram crush" to glimpse, so they can discover who they are. We're teaming up with a few design-oriented pop-up shops to really bring this idea to life offline. We're also invite-only right now to make sure the ratio stays in check :)

@rrhoover Yep! Ultimately, we're looking at message reply rates. We’ll measure success by how many people we get talking, rather than just liking :)

@GeorgeJurgens I think Glimpse is cool idea, but I gotta disagree that people don't "curate" their lives when sharing IG pics. I think the best thing about Glimpse is that it makes starting a conversation so much easier than something like Tinder which only has a few profile pics and pages you've liked on FB.

@elan_miller: I'm interested in an invite code...for scientific purposes