Villain Mission: Find Everybody Love

@nihilisa_ speaks the truth.

I was single for over a decade while working with some of the biggest dating apps in the world. Despite being stupidly optimistic, I slowly realized they were never actually designed to help me (or anyone) find love. I even interviewed with teams building so-called “alternatives,” but none of the visions clicked. One startup literally fired me for pointing out that unsolicited 🍆 pics were a problem.

Then my dad died. In the middle of that grief and loneliness, I came up with the concept for Goblins: a place where people meet new friends (or go on dates) in their favorite video games while voice chatting.

So, with only $25k I pulled together a scrappy team and built the first version of Goblins. We're not yet mobile-friendly and growth is slow because we hand-review profiles but we're already responsible for at least five couples* and hundreds of friendships. So it's working!

We recently raised a little money and hired a developer to build Goblins V2, which will be mobile-friendly and include AI-assisted profile reviews. Translation: the waitlist won’t be around much longer. 🎉

Going up against Bumble and the Match Group (fuck you guys!) isn't easy but my background means I know exactly what it'll take. And never underestimate a girl with a grudge :)

Dating apps are designed to fail their users (otherwise they'd success themselves out of business) and social media has become highlight reels of our idealized selves. So Goblins is designed to bring back the magic of the early internet days. Think AOL Instant Messenger x MySpace x powerful search, but built for today. If you’ve ever felt lonely, Goblins will actually help you find your people. Because honestly, what in the actual fuck... why has it been so hard to just connect with other humans online?

The hardest part of any social platform is getting enough people on it for the magic to click. Luckily, I’ve done this before- I was Hinge’s first publicist and my superpower is getting people talking. This isn’t a side project for me, it’s my life’s mission. Yes, I’ll eventually need to pay myself and my team, so Goblins won’t be totally free. But here’s the promise: we’ll never commercialize loneliness, and we’ll never make people the product.

So, if you think I’m onto something, drop your questions in the comments so that I can spin up an FAQ about me, Goblins, and my unrelenting hatred of the dating/social media space.

You can also help us keep the lights on by supporting us on Patreon.

*Full disclosure: I’m one of those couples. Six months after launching Goblins, I met my boyfriend there.

P.S. We may or may not also already own a few choice domains (think: UnMatchGroup.com and RayasWaitlist.com). More on that next time…