Sounds like a bad idea. Paying someone to spend time with you - if you are lonely, you need real friends and not someone that will hang out with you for money. That is depressing. Its like after an hour, "bro, that is $50, bye". You shouldn't call this "meet new friends", just "hire people to do jobs". Sorry, this is very depressing.
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This is a tricky one. The concept is interesting, but the use of the terms "friend" might be the hangup for me (in the marketing material). This is like volunteering + money. While I'm sure charities want volunteers badly, paying them no longer makes them volunteers. Friends who are paid, aren't friends. I do like the 'local guide' aspect or an 'extra set of hands', but labeling people as friends just doesn't work for me. That said, I have a board game that is just gathering dust, but I guess I will need to wait a group of people who actually want to play.
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@walterareid I agree, hiring a local guide sounds better than hiring a friend. They could show you the cool spots that only locals know about, and it wouldn't be weird to have a drink with them at their favorite watering hole.
Interesting idea - the social tour guide angle is cool. What stops people from using it for things like prostitution? (Or do you guys care about that use case?)
Hey Product Hunters, I'm Clay ( founder of Ameego )!
Ameego enables users to hang out with new friends whenever they want, wherever they are. Users don't have to worry about how late it is or what their friends are up to.
Need a wingman for the night? A local guide? You've got one at the touch of a button.
Currently, Ameegos are paid directly by their guests after bookings complete. The wage is negotiated between the Ameego and their guest before meeting.
In the near future, we plan to pay our Ameegos a base hourly wage that's higher than the national minimum. Friendly people will be able to make more being themselves on our platform than they would serving coffee at the local cafe.
The Washington Post recently wrote an awesome write up on us which you can check out here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/n...
Although we're currently focusing most of our efforts in NYC and SF, we currently have Ameegos signed up and ready to rent in 10 of the top cities in the United States.
Would love to answer any questions you may have -- we're pumped about coming out of beta and starting to spread the word!
Thanks,
Clay
@jpknegtel awesome, thanks Jonathon! We're planning to expand worldwide in a few months -- I'll personally let you know when we do.
It'd be great to have you on board!
yikes 😬. The idea of paying someone to hang out with me, it's a bit depressing. I'd be wondering if the person actually likes me or if he would rather be somewhere else. On the other hand, i wouldn't know how to charge someone for my company, and would feel the need to "entertain" the other person (not sexy time, but something). Maybe if it was merit based, like couchsurfing, i'd be more inclined to try it out. Just a thought.
How about looking at a consultancy angle to this. Like on-demand consultancy, coaching, advisers or some other reason people will pay to hang out with other peeps. Some one hanging out with you for cash isn't a "Friend".
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Hate this sh#t
Interesting. Takes kind of a cynical view of what a friendship is, but let's be honest, many friendships exist for optical or functional purposes- networking, wingmen, lonely people straight up glomming onto each other for comfort. Why not streamline and monetize the process?
I think you have a marketing problem; however. Don't use the word "friends", as it's an emotional term. Coupling that with the concept of "renting" provokes mild outrage, as you're threatening the sacred institution of friendship. Don't commodify something as meaningful as friendship like some sort of meat market where people can be bought like escorts.
It's cool how you mentioned a couple clear use cases- wingmen, tour guides. Totally see the value there. Have you considered a different way of framing it?
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True story. When I was 14 I created a school project for a business concept called "Rent-A-Friend" for when you wanted to create the illusion of coolness or popularity, or go somewhere and "be recognized", or go on vacation and be one of the locals instead of a tourist. Wrote a basic "pick your friend" program on my Commodore 128. I got told it wasn't a good business idea, I always knew it was. That was back in 1985, so looks like I was just 31 years ahead of my time
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