I’ve always been obsessed with the idea of the internet actually bringing people together— not just online, but in real life. The odds of crossing paths with someone you’d really get along with, starting a conversation, and forming a real friendship? Extremely low. Ditto was my attempt to change that.
In 2018, after working as one of Tinder’s first backend engineers, I started building Ditto: a way to make friends around your interests. You could post something like “who wants to surf tomorrow” or “anyone down for soccer this weekend,” and others nearby could hop into a chat and join. That was it. No profiles, no pressure—just interest-based hangs, facilitated through casual group chats.
When we got the product right in 2021, it spread like wildfire through Santa Barbara. It genuinely reshaped the city’s social fabric. People made new friend groups, formed relationships, met their future spouses. Even today, most of my closest friends are people I met through Ditto.
We raised $1.85M from some of the most legendary names in tech—Kevin O’Connor (DoubleClick, ISS, Surfline), Sam Yagen (OkCupid, Match Group), Phil Schwartz (CMO, Tinder), Ellie Seidman (CEO, Tinder), Dan Gould (Myspace, Tinder), Tom Staggs (Disney, Spotify), and many more. I did 100% of the fundraising myself, and those backers became lifelong mentors and friends.
But scaling a social network is delicate. Growth led to context collapse—people started seeing others on the app they didn’t vibe with, and trust eroded. Most users didn’t want to be the ones proposing hangs, and the ephemeral nature of events made it hard to seed new areas. We learned how fragile culture can be, and how quickly people go cold if the vibe shifts even slightly.
Ditto succeeded wildly in its moment—and failed in ways that taught me everything about building social platforms. I plan to return to this space one day, with a fresh approach, and everything I’ve learned.
I built Ditto with my brother, who led product as a brilliant front-end engineer. He was by my side for years before we had funding, and I couldn’t have done it without him.
Building something social?
If you're working on a product that brings people together—or want to avoid the common pitfalls of social networks—I’d love to share what I’ve learned. Reach out to jam on product, growth, or strategy.