plus1

Inspiration

Dating is a multibillion-dollar industry, yet it’s riddled with flaws—endless swiping, ghosting, shallow interactions, and decision fatigue. Despite generating billions in revenue, many users still struggle to form meaningful connections. Current dating apps focus too much on appearances rather than shared experiences, leaving many frustrated with the process.

What it does

plus1 redefines the world of dating apps by changing its superficial nature. Instead of swiping on people, users swipe on first-date ideas—local activities that match their interests. Our AI-powered matchmaking system then connects them with someone who shares their enthusiasm for the same experience. By prioritizing compatibility in interests and experiences, rather than just looks, P1US fosters more authentic and engaging connections.

How we built it

We used Figma to design all of the screens and React to build the frontend. Firebase handled real-time data storage (the swipes from the users) and was also used to retrieve necessary data as context to the LLM. Our AI-based matchmaking algorithm is based on an LLM (Gemini API) and we built an agent that serves as a "matchmaker" taking in a user's swipes as preliminary context.

Challenges we ran into

Our API integration gave us a lot of trouble and we had to figure out how to add the additional context from the user's swipes.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Building a full stack app in < 24 hours with limited experience using Gemini.

What we learned

We learned a lot about software collaboration and tried our best to make full use of our workforce for different aspects of our project (design, frontend/backend, API integration, etc.)