Everyone knows the endorsements on LinkedIn are gamed and can often be an inaccurate reflection of someone’s business reputation. I get endorsed for the dumbest things unrelated to journalism for instance. That’s at one end of the ‘endorsement graph’ if you will. At the other end might be the quick ‘judgment’ based on first impressions you might find on Tinder. Then you have anonymous apps like Secret where all manner of trolls pile in when you just want to sound off about something. Imagine if you could get more independent social feedback which might have positive outcomes. Some of it might be platonic, others flirtatious. But it’s about harnessing those crowdsourced impressions.
Now a new startup thinks it has the model for this. GetYou lets users discover how strangers and friends might perceive them, via an iOS and Android app available now or on invite from their site from today. The company has also raised $1.1 million in seed funding from the VC RDSeed and angel investors, including Wix founder Avishai Abrahami.
Instead of getting people to post anonymous comments about you, GetYou turns it all into a game. So essentially the app works like a mobile game that uses “semi-anonymous feedback mechanisms to bridge first impression gaps.”
What does that mean? You see a member’s picture, then answer a series of questions like “How old do you think he is?” or “Do you think she is a DJ or brain surgeon?” These results are analyzed and presented, allowing you to discover people’s perceptions of your personality, occupation and age. You can then decide to ‘friend’ those people who judged you. And they in turn get a score about how intuitive/smart they were about you.
GetYou founder and CEO Dr. Orit Mossinson says “the goal here is to bridge first impression gaps.”
I can see this being an interesting minefield for those focused on their appearance. I also see it being used a lot by guys as a ‘gamified Tinder’.
The downside is you might be offended. The upside might be: breaking down stereotypes and preconceptions about you and maybe making a new ‘friend.’ And who knows where that might lead?
Quite how they move to monetize this is not clear, but assuming they get scale, the app could try out a number of different business models, not least of which would be along the lines of quasi-dating models.