Pictures and text only do so much. If you really want to get to know someone you gotta hear them talk. That’s what Joshua Ogundu thought when he created Heart to Heart, a dating app that offers what Tinder, Bumble and Hinge don’t.

“You can’t really catch a person’s vibe off of a text. Can’t really catch a vibe off of just seeing their pictures,” he said.

The former product and operations lead for TikTok, Ogundu came up with the idea for the audio app early this year after listening into Clubhouse app’s “shoot your shot” rooms where individuals would have a speed dating like experience.

After a few months of fleshing out his ideas, the social media savvy entrepreneur took to Twitter to find iOS engineers to help make his idea become a reality.

His call out on Twitter gained the attention of Arihant Jain and Komal Shrivastava. The connection led to a Zoom call; Now, Heart to Heart is one step closer to becoming a reality.

The company is in stealth mode, but has raised $750,000 in pre-seed funding led by Charles Hudson at Precursor Ventures. The money will be used for product development and testing user acquisition channels.

While the launch date is unknown, Heart to Heart is expected to have closed beta available by the end of the year and will only be available for iOS users.

The app aims to provide the dating community with authenticity and not just people who put their most polished self forward.

Once the user creates a profile, they will be prompted to upload a photo and click record similarly to the iPhone record button where the person will then share a story or explain the photo in more detail. Each person’s profile will be a mix of photos and prompts accompanied by a voice recording.

Heart to Heart, like all dating apps, has the matching function. Once matched, you will be directed to the other person’s inbox where you can send voice messages to each other like iMessage. Similarly, once you’ve listened to the message, you can no longer go back and re-listen.

“Just because you can’t always go back to messages that people leave you in real life, so why have it cluttering the inbox,” Ogundu said.

In his free time, he’s caught creating satirical videos on TikTok, reading books about the working class or the ultra rich, or watching anime.

Even though Heart to Heart …….

Source: https://dot.la/heart-to-heart-audio-dating-2655401000.html