Catfish, the less super-fish-ial dating app

Catfish, the less super-fish-ial dating app!
The swiping in action
Your profile

Inspiration

Dating apps are the same old concept, beat to death in a million ways. Whether it's one gender getting to text first, or you having a limited number of "roses" a day, the principle remains the same. Your photos are placed front and centre for others to judge. You cannot have a profile without a photo, and you can't see a profile without seeing their photo first. There really is no better way to breed a more superficial "match", even if I were trying!

Yet, people don't choose to go on dating apps for superficial matches. They choose to swipe time and time again for the possibility of a deep connection — be it friendship, or more. This begs the question: how do we eliminate the superficial nature of dating, without the discomfort that comes with unknown information? How would you create a tool for bonding that doesn't require plastering your face on every inch of your profile?

Catfish is our answer.

What it does

Catfish is a pet-centered dating app. Yes, pet-centered. No, the pets are not the ones being paired up. It's you, and some other animal lover out in the world. The only images we allow on our platform are about your pets or your ideal future pet. In a dating world that's all about looks, we're choosing to take a step back and connect over the things we care about the most. I'm sure that for many of you out there, your furry friends definitely fall into this category!

You write a profile for your pet, and show your personality in a light-hearted and humorous way. Let your match know all about how you train your dog to win agility competitions, or just about how you can't resist giving your little buddy some scraps from the table! We believe that you can tell a lot about someone's personality by the way they talk about something that they really care about — this is the space to wax poetic about your animal companion.

After you match with someone else, you can take it away! Whether its organising animal playdates, or moving the conversation to yourselves, the possibilities are endless. Get Catfished, in the best way.

How we built it

This is an iOS app, built on React Native. We hosted the code locally with xcode (which takes an inordinate time to install).

Challenges we ran into

We... did not know React Native or React or basically any kind of web/app development before this hackathon. As you can imagine, we did not get much sleep. Our demo was basically hacked together to be able to fully show you what our vision is for Catfish.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're exceedingly proud of being able to submit a demo and show the fruits of our hard work, all while repping our little fluffy pals!

What we learned

How to read React Native code (oh god)
How to write React Native code (ish)
How to ask for help when we need it (thanks Yath)
How to persevere (through suffering)
The power of Google (and also its limits ;-;)
The spirit of hackathons (making something happen!)

What's next for Catfish, the less super-fish-ial dating app

Even when we really really wanted to quit, we knew Catfish had to be unleashed into the world. Call it an utter meme, or social critique, or a wonderful business idea, I know we plan to keep learning more and more React Native until we can make it happen! But for now, time to close 40 tabs and sleep (at least till the demo).