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Ask HN: Would you use a site for meeting programmers at Starbucks?

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HN:

I recently moved to Santa Monica and have been having a hard time meeting programmers and people in general who have similar interests.

There are a few Starbucks within walking distance and it seems that they are all over LA. (Most big cities and even suburbs this seems to be the case)

I'm thinking about building a super simple app that asks you for 3 interests (ex: programming, heavy metal, gym) , a schedule, and your zip code. The app initiates the meetup by matching your availability and links you to the nearest Starbucks to meet up. Because the app initiates the meetup, I believe it would take the friction out of fear of rejection and forcing people to take initiative.

Would you guys use something like this?

7 comments

[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 19.7 ms ] thread
mindcrime
Maybe. The idea of an app to meeting new people and helping make new friends sounds cool "on paper" so to speak. But in reality, my schedule is usually so chaotic, that I'd probably never actually wind up filling in a time that I was available. I think I just prefer browsing a list of meetings that somebody else has scheduled (or proposed) and then deciding (as late as the last minute) if I want to go or not.

In practice, doing that for Meetup.com meetups is how I "solve" this problem.

Still though, this sounds like it might have some potential. And, hey, if you get some traction for it, you have a very obvious acquirer (if they don't already have something like this) in Starbucks themselves.

lsiebert
I think it's an interesting problem space, but user initialized meetings might be a better way to go. My availability is not going to be accurate in any app that I wasn't constantly fiddling with, and I wouldn't be constantly fiddling with it.

That said, a lightweight mobile app that allowed you to set up meetings based on interests, suggested meeting places/times when you did so, allowed you to set a threshold of interested users, so the initializer isn't sitting in a starbucks by themselves, and notified you when you were near such a meeting might work for me.

swanson
Don't make me give you a schedule. Pick 10 matched people from my zip code, then have us all mark "Yes/No" to 3 times in the next week (with an "I'm too busy" option). Create smaller groups based on overlap and then email the time.

I'd personally avoid a one-on-one meeting, aim for at least 3 people.

isaacb
It would be nice if you picked local cafes instead of Starbucks. I'm a bit of a coffee nerd and Starbucks offends my taste buds and sensibilities.

Actually, it would be cool to have "Meet a Programmer" tables in coworking spaces. I think a lot of people (developers and non-developers) would benefit from that.

justinlloyd
Whenever I am at a coffee shop I take out my iPad and turn on a prepared Keynote presentation that can be read from 10+ feet away saying something like "Mobile Engineer and Big Data Hacker - Come Talk To Me!" and then a URL at the bottom of the slide. I really like the idea of having the "Meet A Progammer" table at a coworking space though I suspect the number of "Can you be my tech co-founder and work for free for a year?" requests to be a little on the high side.
jason_slack
There are several "Work Clubs" around if you are in the Bay Area. I think they have these around a lot of cities.

http://www.workclub.net/

Used to be called "Coffee and Power", IIRC and started by Philip Rosendale, IIRC.