#a small child and a socially awkward founder nice | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

anvilsims · 1 year

Text

Anyone willing to help make a challenge?

So for a while I’ve been working on a multi-gen challenge based on Nintendo games. I think I’ve got most of the generations down but some are still giving me trouble.

Some don’t have a full set of rules, some don’t have an aspiration or enough traits to theme the generation.

I’ll share what I’ve got under the read more and if anyone has suggestions that would great!

Generation Animal Crossing:

Traits: Loves Outdoors/Outgoing/Cheerful

Aspiration: Curator

You have moved into a new town with nothing but the clothes on your back. Well at least Mr. Nook was nice enough to give you a new home even with the work you'll have to do to pay him off. But how hard can that be?

Move into an empty lot and build a small house.

Have the Curator Aspiration

Neither the founder nor spouse will hold a job, they will make money via at home activities like painting, fishing, etc.

Have a room to display collections

At the end of every sim week, use cheats or mods to remove half of your household funds (to pay off your debt to Mr. Nook) until your sim reaches the adult stage.

Generation Splatoon:

Traits: Creative/Dance Machine/Party Animal

Aspiration: Famous Celebrity

Despite your humble beginnings, you always dreamed big. You constantly looked through fashion and celebrity magazines in between creative endeavors and knew that you would join that world one way or another.

Move to San Myshuno or Del Sol Valley once you become a Young Adult

Reach the top of the Style Influencer career (Trendsetter branch)

Host a party once every sim week

Complete the Famous Celebrity Aspiration

Max out painting and singing skills

Generation Zelda:

Traits: Good/Adventurous/Socially Awkward

Aspiration: Jungle Explorer

Everyone expected you to become a spoiled brat but thankfully you turned out to be a good if not kinda quiet kid who loved adventure. Unfortunately as you were quick to discover not every sim liked a Goody-Two-Shoe.

Make a friend as a child or teen, become BFFs with them, and stay that way for as long as either sim lives (friend can be a future spouse)

As a child or teen become enemies with one sim and stay enemies for as long as either sim lives. Win at least five fights with them. (Optional: Become enemies with an evil sim)

Max out the Archaeology skill and one instrument skill

Complete the Ancient Omiscan Artifacts Collection

Complete the Jungle Explorer Aspiration

Generation Earthbound:

Your parents encouraged you to always see the adventure in life.

Traits: Childish/Goofball/Active

Aspiration:

As a child, make three friends

Complete one childhood aspiration

When reaching the teen stage, become a spellcaster

Generation Pokemon:

Traits: Dog (or Cat) Lover/Green Fiend

Aspiration: Friend of the Animals

Ever since you were little, you were obsessed with animals. Your friends blame your childhood obsession with Voidcritters (even if some of them weren't really animals). When you grew up, you knew you were going to do all you could to help animals in need.

Complete the Friend of the Animals aspiration

Complete the Voidcritters Collection

Adopt at least eight pets over your lifetime including at least one stray.

Open a Vet Clinc (pokemon center) and get it to five stars

Max out Veterinary and pet training skills

Complete the Country Caretaker Aspiration

Complete Voidcritters Collection

Adopt a fox or raccoon

Have at least one of each farm animal (chickens, cow, and llamas)

Win first place in each animal fair in Henford-On-Bagley

Generation Mario:

Heir 1 Traits: Family Oriented/Bro/Loyal

Heir 2 Traits: Squeamish/Clumsy/Bro

Heir 1 Aspiration:

Heir 2 Aspiration:

You and your sibling were as thick as thieves growing up and neither of you really liked the idea of one of you moving away so they stuck around. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have their own adventures.

Chose two siblings to serve as Double Heirs, they do not need to be twins

Both heirs take a part time job as Manual Laborers until one of them gets married then the married one joins the Doctor career

The other heir maxes out the Medium skill and becomes a Paranormal Investigator

Both heirs max out Handiness skill

One heir unlocks Sylvan Glade and the other unlocks Forgotten Grotto

Generation Kirby:

Traits: Foodie (or Glutton)/

Aspiration: Renaissance Sim

You grew up in a bit of a crowded house but you didn’t mind, you loved your family and you especially loved the big meals that would be cooked for everyone. No matter how many other interests you developed, your love of food was always a constant.

Complete the Renaissance Sim aspiration

Max out the Cooking and Gourmet Cooking skills

Generation Metroid:

Traits: Loner/Unflirty/Noncommittal

Aspiration: Strangerville Mystery

While your family wasn’t much to complain about, you preferred spending time alone whether it was exercise or stargazing. As soon as you were able to, you moved out into your own place in a quiet out of the way town called Strangerville. However it seems your wish for a normal quiet life wasn’t meant to be.

Max out body and wellness skills

Reach the top of the Astronaut (Space Ranger branch) career then quit after three shifts.

Have an alien child (feel free to cheat/mod to get an abduction or to get a female sim alien pregnant)

Solve the Strangerville Mystery and defeat Mother Plant

Never marry

Generation Pikmin:

Traits: Hot headed/Geek/Genius

Aspiration: Nerd Brain

Despite your alien heritage, you adored the world you grew up in but that isn’t to say you had no interest in the stars. You enjoyed helping out at the school greenhouse along with watching for comets and UFOs on weekends. It didn’t take long before you started to wonder if there was a way to combine your love for both worlds.

Join Scouts as a kid

Master gardening and rocket science skills

Visit Sixam and befriend three aliens

Complete the Geode and Space rock collections

Find all three alien plants on Sixam and plant them in your garden (Do NOT buy them in Henford-On-Bagley)

Generation Fire Emblem:

Traits: Bookworm/Proper/Ambitious

Aspiration: Leader of the Pack Aspiration

Growing up, you admired stories of brave knights and kind heroes. When you eventually outgrew the fairy-tales, you set your sights on the world of politics. You knew that together with your closest friends, you could make a positive difference in the world.

If a sim dies, you cannot plead with the Grim Reaper nor can you resurrect them in any way

Max out Charisma and research & debate skills

Reach the top of the Political Career (Politician branch)

Form a club (forming an army) and eventually build up to recruiting eight members

Marry a member of your club (and if they aren’t already, have them join the military career)

Complete the Leader of the Pack Aspiration

#sims 4 #the sims 4 #Sims 4 challenge #Sims 4 challenge help

0 notes

bookandcranny · 2 years

Text

dream journal. dreamt abt a kids show set on an island. main character was a teen girl (originally was twin siblings but the boy character got scrapped at some point lol) who had moved to a mysterious island with her family a couple years prior in a nebulous near-future scifi/fantasy type setting. she ends up making friends with a grumpy goth boy her age who had black hair with natural paler streaks running through it. the boy is a member of a large, eccentric family of many siblings all with variations on the same unusual hair pattern.

the family is descended from the island towns founders and every sibling has a unique talent or otherwise holds a sort of special presence in town. they also have a very poorly developed sense of personal boundaries or normal social behavior and are quick to sorta spiritually adopt mc into their already overstuffed family. there is an ongoing mystery regarding the siblings' aunt, a mad scientist type who was discovered in her secret subterranean lab with her head missing but her body still alive. the inciting incident of the series involves mc accidentally discovering her body which is running around headless and wild while her soon to be friend is trying to get it under control and back to the lab.

the characters were introduced pretty rapidly but the impressions i got of the characters i did see/remember are like this. mc is considered plain and unremarkable. despite having lived here for a couple years now her presence is so often forgotten shes still regarded as "the new girl" by many. no real friends outside the family following their introduction, lives with her grandpa, possibly having moved here after some rough circumstances. grumpy friend is hot headed and reckless, acts like hes more annoyed with his family than he rly is, basically is just a teen middle child trying to come into his own identity and find some space for himself outside his family. one of the sisters is a couple years older, class president at their school, insufferable perfectionist type. theres another sister whos very socially awkward and shy and one who is beauty pageant champ but is also actually very chill and not vain at all rly. lot of sisters in general i think.

parents are nice, mom is very immediately friendly and generally mom-like, gives good advice but sometimes with a little snark. also they have an extremely hyperactive corgi (i think? might be another type of small dog but it had corgi vibes) who likes to be carried like a baby.

#dreams

0 notes

pinktatertots99 · 4 years

Photo

similar to the last fankids i made a batch for my uh...universes i’ve been making. these kiddos are from an alternate. i’ll make the post in a bit but lets intriduce these kiddos first, including a returning face.

________________

your name is lellek vantis. your the child of three of the founders of your world. your described as a crybaby and not good at making friends except for your moirail canope. your like watching ghilbi movies, sewing with your ‘auntie’ jade (not really sewing you just take a leftover felt and pierce the needle through it but it’s a nice destresser) or listening to lo-fi tunes with ‘uncle’ dave.

-------------------

your name is july (jewel-ee) crocker. your the future president...of the crocker company. you have a facination in making sweets just like your mama and dad-uh-you mean ‘uncle’ gam gam, least that’s what they want you to call him...for now. when your not in your first grade class’s poking your sarcastic fun at misume your either dressing up with your cousin dandy and casey, at your mama’s bakery or seromoning gam gam’s church events whilst eating goldfish crackers and 7up...don’t tell gam gam he uses it for his converting events.

=======================

your name is misume serket and you wish to become an adventurer! your lussus gave you a couple stories of the famous mindfang, along with your auntsus (aunt lussus) when she’s back from her space adventurers to encourage your determination to get out by her own stories! you can’t now, but you hope to find her in your dream bubbles, cause hey dead people are there so that means she has to be too! meanwhile your busy doing boring first grade class’s and messing with july and your weird ass friendgroup that you only know cause of meetups.

+++++++++++++++++++

your name is canope. you have a facination for the magics thanks to your auntie rox and mumsie reading your auntie’s books to you. your also a fan of all the wizard of oz movies, your not sure how some fear the second movie it seems fine to you. your the moirail of lellek and do your best as the older moirail to get her into nice situations to have some fun in!

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

your name is eonape leijon. you love to fly, which is funny cause your olive bloods aren’t known for flying unless their falling, but falling you do not want you feel the urge to fly! so your busy learning to become a mechanic with your unsus (uncle lussus) equius to help you out while your lussus is out and about on her job. your flying love goes all the way back to the troll show jayjay the jet and movie plane’s 2 which you’ll still watch from time to time. your the moirail of hosani and rather energetic in her antics.

|||||||||||||||||||||||||

your name is hosani nitram. your the school bully of earcth’s elementary and like to torment good ol lellek just to get a reaction...unless her creepy af moirail or she screams happens but thankfully she’s too dumb to remember to use it. sides your trying to show a message that you won’t give a fuck who mess’s with you, no god’s child no highbloods, you got shit to pay to those higher ups despite your pops and uncle telling you not to. but in your meantime your busy hanging with your bud playing fiduspawn in your treehouse for the coolest of low trolls and checking in on your neighborhood critters, mostly the squeakrrles.

/////////////////////

your name is dandy egbert and your one fashionable dude. your well known in your class for coming in with different outfits everyday. somedays your a cowboy, others your sporting the sombrero, or feeling spicy you put in your trollsona’s cosplay. your a fan of many genre’s but you like the specific times they were shot like the 70′s and 80′s now THOSE had some sweet cinematography. your considered an ‘old timer’ despite almost being 10 but your pop’s kinda likes it, he says it’s a better hobby then clown figurine collecting...sounds familiar. your sister also gets in on it too dressing in attire related to the theme, she’s the true MVP as kids call it these days.

==> be the male seadweller. your name is eiseel english ampora and no before you ask their not together you just have a very weird family tree where mister ampora considers himself your ‘legal lussus’ but you spend most your time with mister jake and your matesprit’s ‘legal lussus’ aradia in the outdoors traveling and getting many injuries that makes ampora’s reactions humorous. you like the outdoor’s but your more of a tech guy if anything, carrying around a small electric line so you can chat with your bud’s and play match 3 puzzle rpg games. you wish you could live with your matesprit and his totally cool other guardian sol. you also have a weird facination for neon green, but ampora through a fit once so your sticking with an almost jade green, maybe mister jake’s fashion sense was getting to ya.

==> be the female seadweller. your name is reefay peixes. your a selectively mute girl who does fanfiction commissions...least for your moirail eiseel of his gold-blood self insert falling for his matesprit’s DnD sea mage character. you hope to become an author someday as your art skills aren’t up to snuff yet. your a fan of romcom’s and magical girl series bout friendship and subtle but obvious gayness, or maybe your glass’s count as shipping goggles who knows.

‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘

your name is anneck captor megaido and no your lussus’s aren’t together either...least you think? it’s simple but complicated just like mister captor who, despite being your caretaker your busy making sure he take his medication and help himself health wise as the pressing leader of earcth’s electrical unit of the whole world. thankfully not the universe otherwise you’d have bigger issues. despite some raising a brow at how you live in a humid basement full of electric units and one king bee (hehe) sized mattress you don’t mind really. your not one to go out for long which is why your not in the outdoors 24/7 with your actual lussus guardian, despite your matesprit wishing you would but most likely so you can bandage his reckless behind up.

<------------------------->

your name is haileq strider. your usually on a husktop in your dad’s workshop when he’s busy constructing the new mechanical machinery he and miss harley work on. you don’t have a hobby other then scrolling social media’s boredly with your inability to make a friend without being awkward bout it, even worse try to confess your flushed feelings for yal-...wait she shouldn’t say it oh fuck don’t send-

`````````````

your name is yale H attahock. your from an adopted carapacious family with two doting mom’s who have a habit of scratching your ears. your the ‘mom friend’ of your semi-blood family’s group of kids but it doesn’t help they keep running around town getting into mischief while the others watch from the sky, someone has to be eyes on the ground! otherwise you like to play soccorfoot in your school’s team the ‘hot dogs’ (funny your the leader but they made that decision to name it that.) or playing joystick games with your...’cousin’ who loves to banter in your playful family-esque relationship.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

your name is jaspjoir also called JJ or ‘jasper jr’ on accident in some papers. your also from a carapacious family of your silly sweet pops’. your one for fashion thanks to your old mans and love for a good firework display and a hint of magic performances. you also like to have a good ol time teasing your cous with how lone of a wolf he is after certain events but you do have a soft spot for the kiddos he watches, especially lil ol july. you hope to play a game soon with your dear ol cousin and some of his lil friends sometime, sooner then later you hope ;3.

#homestuck #HS #home stuck #fan kids #fan kid #fan child #fan children #fan character #fan characters #fan character's #au #my art #my ocs #my oc #ocs #oc #bittersweet vers au #i made this

8 notes · View notes

keiratheraven · 4 years

Text

Side story: Introduction to The Brent Family

(This family has nothing to do with Bentley 8 Squad. And I'm gonna continue this story after this chapter by Sims 3 version because I'm no longer have Sims 2).

This is The Brent Family. They are rich, famous, smart, and beautiful. The three adult siblings: Travis, Odette, and Ronald are the grandkids of Thomas Brent, the founder of Salvatore hotels. Meanwhile, the teens and children: April, Carlos, and Jayden, are Travis's kids. They have American, Italian, German, and Spanish ancestry. All of them have a prominent position in the celebrity world. They're living together in Bridgeport.

This is Travis Santiago Brent, the oldest of adult Brent siblings. He's 35. He's a five-star celebrity. He's a romance/family sim. His traits are flirty, commitment issues, great kisser, slob, genius, and virtuoso. He's charming, slouchy, smart, nice, and musically talented. He's a good singer and guitarist. He used to be the CEO of Salvatore hotels, but he left his career to become a musician. But he's a total douchebag who woohooed with plenty of women since he was in high school. He never put any strong feelings towards them until he met Stacy Keller at Sim State University when he was a sophomore in the economics major. After two years of dating, Stacy got pregnant when they were seniors. Then, Stacy's water suddenly broke after they received their diplomas at Sim State University graduation ceremony. She gave birth to a daughter named Aphrodite. Soon after, Travis got a job as a young executive at Salvatore hotels thanks to his grandfather. Then Travis and Stacy got married at a small church in Downtown. Two years later, she gave birth to a son named Carlos. But, Travis was still unfaithful to Stacy until her death due to a car accident ten years ago. Since then, Travis made a promise to himself that he will never remarry. He rose from his grief and adopted a black son named Jayden. He kept being ambitious to his job and became the CEO of Salvatore hotels. He got a master's degree from Sims University in business major. But eventually, his passion for rock music made him left the business world to become a rock star. Now he's a vocalist in the "Bullet 47" band. Currently, He's the Pop Icon in the rock star career track, and he wants to pass the inheritance of Salvatore hotels to his three kids. He also continues his adventure as a Mr. Player who sleeps with many models, actresses, and singers.

This is Odette Brent, the second and middle child of Brent siblings. She's 32. She's a four-star celebrity. She is a fortune sim. Her traits are genius, social butterfly, workaholic, unflirty, star quality, and grumpy. She is independent, graceful, smart, a hard worker, and talented as an actress. She likes to play the violin as well. But it's hard to make her happy because she's never satisfied with anything. Odette has a double degree in biology and drama from Academie Le Tour. Opposite her brother, Odette is an asexual person although she dated a few men in the past. She's also a feminist who dislikes Travis's behavior as a player. After having three miscarriages, Odette gave up on having kids. She also pursued her career as an actress after leaving the science career, and now she's a supporting actress in the Professional Actor career track. Travis once said to her, if she wasn't his sister, he would woohoo with her. Then Odette threw her drink to her brother mindlessly and said to him "Learn some respect because women are not an object".

This is Ronald Brent, the third and youngest of adult Brent siblings. He's 30. He's a four-star celebrity. He is a popularity sim. His traits are charismatic, friendly, natural cook, ambitious, dramatic, and schmoozer. He's nice, has a lot of friends, a great home cook, and competitive. But sometimes he's manipulative and good at complimenting others to get what he wants. Ronald has a bachelor's degree in political science from La Fiesta Tech and a master's degree in communications from Sims University. He's a gay man and pursuing a political career to become an LGBT activist. Harvey Milk is his inspiration. He is the leader of an LGBT campaign named "Limitless". He's currently dating a guy named Xavier Hanson and having a career as a Mayor in Politician Career Track. In one interview, he said that Malcolm Landgraab is his crush.

This is Aphrodite "April" Brent. She's 16 and a junior in high school. She's a popularity sim. She's a four-star celebrity. Her traits are social butterfly, diva, excitable, artistic, genius, and light sleeper. She's a popular cheerleader. She is a queen bee who always bragging about her fame and fortune, especially her family. She has a lot of friends, but secretly they hate her. April is an author and painter at once. She published a graphic novel about teen pregnancy phenomena in SimNation high schools, and she aspires to become an illustrious author. Although she's still a junior, she's already got accepted at Fine Arts Major at Sim State University and also Psychology Major at Academie Le Tour, and now she's having a dilemma about which school she will choose. April is also a teen magazine model and Miss Teen Sims Beauty Pageant winner. She's having a sibling rivalry with her brother, Carlos, who excels in school due to his academic achievement.

This is Carlos Brent. He's 14 and a freshman in high school. He's a knowledge sim. He's a four-star celebrity. His traits are genius, bookworm, loner, no sense of humor, computer whiz, and socially awkward. He's the leader of the sci-fi books club and academic decathlon club at once. He's smart, wise, shy, serious, and obsessed with technology. Unlike his sister and family, Carlos doesn't like to socialize in a crowd. He also has a social phobia. Although he's still in freshman year at high school, he's already got accepted in physics major at La Fiesta Tech and also Science & Medicine major at Sims University. He aspires to become a doctor or science teacher someday. Carlos is a famous social media influencer who has more than two million followers. He invented a lot of applications, and always making a vlog about the apps or his cover songs because he likes to sing and play the guitar just like his father.

This is Jayden Brent. He's 10 and a 5th grader. He's a three-star celebrity. His traits are: loves the outdoors, angler, and athletic. Travis adopted him when he was a baby. His birth parents died because of fire and Travis adopted him soon after Stacy's death. His hobbies are exercising or playing football, fishing, swimming, go to the beach, and camping. Being the only dark-skinned member in The Brent family doesn't make him insecure because they treat him with so much love and attention, and he feels lucky to be adopted by them. He's also a child TV actor and starring in a few kids shows.

Although Travis is a player, he's still a good father to his three kids. He hugged April when she just broke up with her boyfriend. He apologized to Carlos when he didn't come to his science competition. He gives love and nurture to his youngest son, Jayden. He's always looking after Odette and Ronald. There's no doubt that he's a douchebag, but he will do everything to look after and support his family.

(To be continued by Sims 3 version)

#sims 2 screenshots #the sims 2 #side story #sims 2 story #sims 2 storytelling #player #womanizer #family man #father #celebrity sims #family #rich #fortune #travis brent

4 notes · View notes

magzoso-tech · 4 years

Photo

New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/meet-the-b2b-videoconferencing-startup-thats-gone-crazy-for-online-dating/

Meet the b2b videoconferencing startup that’s gone crazy for online dating

Founder Andreas Kröpfl has spent almost a decade hard-grafting in the b2b unified communications space, building a videoconferencing business with a patented single-stream system and a claim of no ‘drop-offs’ thanks to “unique low-bandwidth technology”.

His Austria-based startup’s current web-based videoconferencing system, eyeson (née Visocon), which launched in 2018, has had some nice traction since launch, as he tells it, garnering a few million customers and getting a nomination nod as a Gartner Cool Vendor last year.

Eyeson’s website touts ‘no hassle, no, lag, no downloads’ video calls. Pricing options for the target b2b users run the gamut from freelance pro to full-blown enterprise. While the business itself has pulled in a smidge less than $7M in investor funding over the years.

But when TechCrunch came across Kröpfl last December, pitching hard in startup alley at Disrupt Berlin, he was most keen to talk about something else entirely: Video dating.

That’s because last summer the team decided to branch out by building their own video dating app, reusing their core streaming tech for a consumer-focused social experiment. And after a period of internal beta testing — which hopefully wasn’t too awkward within a small (up-til-then) b2b-focused team — they launched an experimental dating app in November in India.

The app, called Ahoi, is now generating 100,000 video calls and 250,000 swipes per day, says Kröpfl.

This is where he breaks into a giggle. The traction has been crazy, he says.

In the staid world of business videoconferencing you can imagine eyeson’s team eyeing the booming growth of certain consumer-focused video products rather enviously.

Per Kröpfl, they had certainly noticed different desires among their existing users — which pushed them to experiment. “We saw that private people like the simple fun features (GIF reactions, …) and that business meetings were more focused on ‘drop-off’ [rates] and business features,” he tells us. “To improve both in one product was not working any more. So eyeson goes business plus SaaS.”

“Cloning eyeson but make it social,” is how he sums up the experiment.

Ahoi is very evidently an MVP at this stage. It also looks like a pretty brave and/or foolish (depending on your view) full-bore plunge into video dating, with nothing so sophisticated as a privacy screen to prevent any, er, unwanted blushes… (Whereas safety screening is an element we’ve recently seen elsewhere in the category — see: Blindlee.)

There’s also seemingly no way for users to specify the gender they wish to talk to.

Instead, Ahoi users state interests by selecting emoji stickers — such as a car, cat, tennis racket, games console or globetrotter. And, well, it goes without saying that even if you like cars a lot you’re unlikely to change your sexual orientation over the category.

There are no generic emoji that could be used to specify a sexual interest in men or women. But, er, there’s a horse…

Such limits may explain why Ahoi is generating so many early swipes — and rather fewer actual calls — in that the activity sums to (mostly) men looking for women to videochat with and being matched with, er, men.

And frustration, sexual or otherwise, probably isn’t the greatest service to try and sell.

Still, Kröpfl reckons they’ve landed on a winning formula that makes handy reuse of their core videoconferencing tech — letting them growth hack in a totally new category. Swipe right to video date.

“People are disappointed by perfect profiles on Tinder and the reality when meeting people,” he posits. “Wasted time. Especially women do not want to be stalked by men pretending to be someone else. We solve both by a real live conversation where only after a call both can decide to be connected or never see each other again.”

Notably, marketing around the app does talk rather fuzzily about it being a way to “find new pals”.

So while Kröpfl frames the experiment as dating, the reality of the product is more ‘open to options’. Think of it as a bit like Chatroulette — just with slightly more control (in that you have a few seconds to decide if you don’t want to talk to the next in-app match).

The very short countdown timer (you get just five seconds to opt out of a matched video chat) is very likely generating a fair number of unintended calls. Though such high velocity matching might appeal to a certain kind of speed dating addict.

Kröpfl says Ahoi has been seeing up to 20,000 new users added daily. They’re bullishly targeting 3M+ users this year, and already toying with ideas for turning video dates into a money spinner by offering stuff like premium subscriptions and/or video ads. He says the plan is to turn Ahoi into a business “step by step”.

“Everyone loves to make his profile better,” he suggests, floating monetization options down the line. Quality filtering for a fee is another possibility (“everyone is annoyed by being connected to the wrong people”).

They picked India for the test launch because it has a lot of people on the same timezone, a large active mobile user-base and cheap marketing is still “easily possible”. He also says that dating apps seemed popular there, in their experience. (Albeit, the team presumably didn’t have a great deal of relevant experience in this category — given Ahoi is an experiment.)

The intent is also to open Ahoi up to other markets in time too, once they get more accustomed to dealing with all the traffic. Kröpfl notes they had to briefly take the app off the store last month, as they worked on adding more server capability.

“It is very early and we were not prepared for this usage,” he says, admitting they’ve been “struggling to work on early feedbacks”. “We had to make it invisible temporarily — to improve server capacity and stability.”

The contrast in pace of uptake between the stolid (but revenue-generating) world of business meeting-fuelled videoconferencing and catnip consumer dating — which is money-sucking unless or until you can hit a critical mass of usage and get the chance to try applying monetization strategies — does sound like it’s been rather irresistible to Kröpfl.

Asked what it feels like to go from one category to the other he says “crazy, surprised and thrilling”, adding: “It is somehow also frustrating when all the intense b2b work is not as closely interesting to people as Ahoi is. But amazing that it is possible thanks to an extremely focused and experienced team. I love it.”

TechCrunch’s Manish Singh agreed to brave the local video dating app waters in India to check Ahoi out for us.

He reported back not having seen any women using the app. Which we imagine might be a problem for Ahoi’s longer term prospects — at least in that market.

“I spoke with one guy, who said his friend told him about the app. He said he joined to talk to girls but so far, he is only getting matched with boys,” said Singh. “I saw several names appear on the app, but all of them were boys, too.”

He told us he was left wondering “why people are on these apps, and why they have so much free time on a weekday”.

For ‘people’ it seems safe to conclude that most of Ahoi’s early adopters are men. As the Wall Street Journal reported back in 2018, India’s women are famously cool on dating apps — in that they’re mostly not on them. (We asked Kröpfl about Ahoi’s gender breakdown but he didn’t immediately get back to us on that.)

That market quirk means those female users who are on dating apps tend to get bombarded with messages from all the lonely heart guys with not much to swipe. Which, in turn, could make a video dating app like Ahoi an unattractive prospect to female users — if there’s any risk at all of being inundated with video chats.

And even if there are enough in-app controls to prevent unwelcome inundation by default, women also might not feel like they want their profile to be seen by scores of men simply by merit of being signed up to an app — as seems inevitable if the gender balance is so skewed.

Add to that, if the local perception among single women is that men on dating apps are generally a turn-off — because they’re too eager/forward — then jumping into any unmoderated video chat is probably not the kind of safe space these women are looking for.

No matter, Kröpfl and his team are clearly having far too much fun growth hacking in an unfamiliar, high velocity consumer category to sweat the detail.

What’s driving Ahoi’s growth right now? “Performance marketing mainly,” he says, pointing also to “viral engagement by sharing and liking profiles��.

Notably, there are a lot of reviews of Ahoi on Google Play already — an unusual amount for such an early app. Many of them appear to be five star write-ups from accounts with European-sounding names and a sometimes robotic grasp of language.

“Eventhough Ahoi has been developed recently, it had high quality for user about calling, making friends and widing your knowlegde [sic],” writes one reviewer with atrocious spelling whose account is attached to the name ‘Dustin Stephens.’

“Talking with like minded people and same favor will creat a fun and interesting atmosphere. Ahoi will manage for you to call like condition above,” says another apparently happy but not entirely clear user, going by the name ‘Elisa Herring’.

There’s also a ‘Madeleine Mcghin’, whose profile uses a photo of the similarly named child who infamously disappeared during a holiday in Portugal in 2007. “My experience with this app was awesome,” this individual writes. “It gives me the option to find new people in every country.”

Another less instantly tasteless five-star reviewer, ‘Stefania Lucchini’, leaves a more surreal form of praise. “A good app and it will bring you extra income, I would say it’s a great opportunity to have AHOI and be a part of it but it’s that it will automatically ban you even if you don’t show it. Marketing. body part, there are still 5 stars for me,” she (or, well, ‘it’) writes.

Among the plethora of dubious five-star reviews a couple of one-star dunks stand out — not least because they come from accounts with names that sound like they might actually come from India. “Waste u r time,” says one of these, who uses the name Prajal Pradhan.

This pithy drop-kick has been given a full 72 thumbs-up by other Play Store users.

#Miscellaneous

0 notes

sheminecrafts · 4 years