Mixtt believes that social networks don’t do everything they should. Instead of focusing on just one person, Mixtt thinks that the best way for people to use social networks is to socialize outside the online world and do so in groups.
The startup presented today during the Collaboration session of TechCrunch50. You can watch a video of the presentation here.
Mixtt lets you sign up with your friends and give your group a name. Once complete, you can start adding events to your group calendar and find other groups in your area that you want to meet up with. To do that, you can use the company’s search function, which will let you search for groups based on city, age, and sex. In the beginning, though, Mixtt will only work in San Francisco, but will be rolled out to Los Angeles and New York City soon thereafter.
Mixtt has five main points that it believes will bring people to its service: it has social calendars to see what people are up to, it lets you meet new people without awkward dates, it can help you “hit it off” with a group of people, wingmen are there to bail you out, and it takes socializing offline to real places.
Expert Panelists
Kevin Rose:
“Why not build this as a Facebook application? ”
Answer: The company is building a companion Facebook app.
Don Dodge:
“I like it. Online dating is a huge business and it’s a big market. Your challenge is that it should be a widget on other social sites and building a social site is incredibly difficult because getting people to adopt is difficult. Location is critically important and hyper-local identification is extremely important. Third, you must have a cell phone interface and relying on a Web browser won’t cut it.”
Mark Cuban:
“How do you protect against the sleazy factor and how do you protect yourself from the creeps? The company said that it has a “report inappropriate content button” and can block. You have to come up with a way to pre-select so people have an idea of what they’re getting into before they go. Match.com turns into a group, which isn’t a bad thing, but is a challenge.”
Roelof:
“Presentation was very well done and good job of explaining product. My biggest concern is the coordination problem and how does a group create awkwardness. For what it’s worth, this has been done before in Southern California, and for some reason it didn’t work, so you should go find out what that company did wrong.”
Site looks clunky. Terrible UI not very appealing. The only reason this one didn’t get killed by the panel is because they are cute girls.
Total dead pool.
That such a mundane, small comment. Mixtt fills a need and actually the UI is simple and efficient.
I apologize for being so critical. I guess a bit sensitive of the girl thing.
What would be a Facebook app becomes an entire company.
Nice approach and funny as we share most letters in our names. By http://www.mixin.com we are also a social agenda but we took another approach for our first version. We are first focusing on the existing community of a user. We let people share, discuss and decide activities with their friends. What is key for us is to create opportunities for people to meet in real life. In mixin people can share plans, wishes, make propositions or just say when they might be available. Enter whatever you find interesting in your agenda.
It’s a bit like twitter but focusing on the future, focusing on what could or will happen. What is key for mixin, is to let people easily share information, so for example if you already use twitter, you can directly push activities to your mixin agenda from twitter. Just tweet “who’s up for a drink tonight?” and mixin will place it at the right place in your agenda. The same works by IM, SMS, Email or you can just import your gCal (or another ics) if you prefer. On the other side, you can share your agenda in various formats too. What is important for us to is to let you friends get the information and be able to discuss or join directly. Among other things, we are also working on a Facebook application so that it should be easier to share your agenda with your Fb buddies too.
Hey Nicolas, Mixin sounds interesting. I will definitely check it out.
Definitely heading to the deadpool. How the hell did this pass the approval process?
Actually, MixTT is kinda like HangStop – http://www.hangstop.com – where people can meet new people to hang out with, whether in a group or not.
Haters (anotherDater/John) –
This is definitely not the most innovative piece of technology, but that’s not the point. They are trying to fill a legitimate gap in online services as opposed to many other startups with some sweet technology, yet not very practical for the common folk.
And yes, their technology has been built before, but the success of this company will be based on their ability to execute marketing to make it popular, keep it authentic/safe/etc, and ultimately create an experience that is fun for people.
I don’t know what the criteria was for acceptance into tc50, but I certainly appreciate that they brought in Mixtt (along with many others) that have the potential to impact my offline life.
Just another social networking site, like several thousands out there. Product differentiation is not unique. There are dozens of reasons this will head to the dead pool.
First of all, that was a TERRIBLE presentation, it had no passion whatsoever from the girls, who seemed not only nervous, but they just did not know what they were talking about. They gave no overview of WHY this idea could work, and the state of the online dating/social networking industry. It is a very good idea, but has major challenges to conquer before this concept will succeed.
Secondly, they should come up with their own idea as there already is a site based in SoCal called http://www.teamdating.com, which has received amazing media since they launched, but, have not been able to gain millions and millions of members yet. I spoke to their Founder last month to try and understand why, and Brady, you hit the nail on the head. He said good luck trying to raise any VC, that won’t happen, and unless you have several million dollars worth of marketing behind this, it will not scale simply by word of mouth. The TeamDating guy figured this out, and so he said he just sold a TV show based on the site concept that will be coming out on a major cable network soon, with a pretty populat star attached and some huge production company. If that happens, it will be time for the Mixtt girls to steal someone else’s idea, as that will crush them.
SuzieQ:
Did you WATCH the presentation? I was AT TechCrunch50 and can tell you that everyone there was a-buzz about how great their presentation was. It’s obvious that you have a connection to TeamDating and ulterior motives in writing your negative post.
No one I know has heard of TeamDating, and the branding is so lame that the second I mention it I get critical looks. MIXTT has an innovative, smooth UI and additional events-based and calendar functionality that TeamDating does not.
You and your TeamDating friends need to accept the fact that “group dating” is not such a brilliant idea that anyone had to “steal it”. It’s pretty intuitive, and whoever succeeds in this space will depend on execution. But seriously, get over yourself and your “proprietary” idea.
My compliments and best wishes to the women running Mixtt.
I’ve seen teamdating.com and compadate.com that came long before this and thought they were cool and original ideas but the heavy lifting involved to gather steam for social events etc plus the cat herding mentality is just impossible on the web. It’s obvious the quotes up here must be the founders going at it. It is a clear rip off of existing sites..this is absolutely clear and if you don’t think the VCs know it then your kidding yourselves. I’m sure those other companies did their rounds as well. Regardless you can’t force concepts regarding social aspects on the web. It pushes back eventually. It’s a trail that’s been blazed long before you. That’s why bars exist…..to get people out away from their computers to meet other friends with their friends…you’ll find this out on your own. Be original….think harder. Match and others work b/c they are 1 on 1. That’s how the web works. 1 computer/ 1 user
Best of luck on other things…remember people recognize other peoples work so don’t legitimize the obvious with irritant heckling.
Also – calling people “haters” for their comments clearly shows that the respondents are MIXTT as well. You should absorb the realty and then go from there.
Wow, this is all quite entertaining. Haters (i.e. competitors), keep on hating. Meanwhile, we’ll be working.
Eve Peters
Founder & CEO
MIXTT, Inc.
Wow!! This site is almost IDENTICAL to another site that just came out a few months ago called Ignighter (http://www.ignighter.com) from Techstars, from the concept to the pitch. As far as execution/site design/features/users (according to Quantcast) go, Ignighter is far ahead of Mixtt. But the market is young and wide open. Good luck Eve.
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