Hate trump, Justin Bieber is the worst ever singer, dislike rock n roll, selfie is a waste of time; don’t like to watch baseball or football? Science says that emotional attachment on things you dislike is stronger as compared to bonding caused by what you like the most.

  An app that connects people based on hating things may seem a joke but in fact it really does exist in the world. Studies have shown that bonding based over the things you hate can be more powerful than that over what you like. Based on this concept a new dating app called Hater can help one find better matches by focusing on those things people mutually dislike.

 

The founder and CEO of Hater is Brendan Alper. He was a former Goldman Sachs employee but left the banking job to pursue his passion, which was writing comedy. Alper says that the idea for the app sprang up a year and a half ago, but at that time he did not consider it as real product.

 

The CEO says that the app was originally supposed to be a part of an online comedy sketch he had planned to publish.  In his own words, “It was in the idea phase. I told some people about it at the start, most of the people were those with whom I was writing and creating comedy with.” And everyone had the same reaction which was; “that makes so much sense. It’s really funny but why doesn’t that exist?” he further says that, “it really got my gears turning.”

 

Alper adds to his explanation about the app that, he had always wanted to start his own company…. it was a viral idea but it needed a product that could back it up.

 

Unlike other photo-driven apps like Tinder and Bumble which are dating apps trying to suss out more information about its users’ personalities as a means of differentiating itself from hot-or-not.

 

Other examples of apps that are made especially for Dating are OK Cupid which features regular questions and answers for its users used for matching purposes. Q&As will also be given prominence in Hater. Another example of such application that has shifted its attention to emphasize on people’s stories is Hinge. It has also featured Q&As from users about their past experiences, favorite things, hobbies and other things of interest.

 

On the contrary Hater does not showcase stream of people’s photos rather it starts off with a series of topics to weigh in on. Currently there are 3,000 topics available in the app and more are being added continuously. Users swipe the topics to like or dislike them depending on how strongly they feel about the subject. Some of the topics are truly personality defining like whether the user is a fan of a particular singer or activity while others are not very particular.

 

Some examples of the questions are: how do you answer if you hate HBO’s “Girls?” Sure, we generally hate it now but the first season was not as terrible, right? Does hating that you have to pay extra for guacamole make you sound cheap? Isn’t there a single reality TV show that you like to watch? And who in the right mind would say they like airplane seats?

 

The above items show that some of the items are too broad, whereas others require more nuanced responses. This means that the app may not find that specific person who hates everything you hate and likes all those things that you love. Some of these things can be addressed gradually with time. If the app adds the feature where people can add and create their own topics category wise, then you may be able to find your true soul mate. A true Hater!

 

According to Alper these kind of changes are being modeled. The app intends to filter out the inappropriate and offensive user content or abuse if someone goes that far and on the other hand Alper sees the app as a platform to leverage the ideas of the people in near future.

 

He wants to expand the app beyond dating

 

We are looking to present a platform that more of a social and less about meeting and flirting with people you don’t even know, this will make us grow more organically. While using dating apps everyone’s got the one purpose on their mind and this creates lot of burden on the app managers. It’s not like that in the real world, all we want is to be a place where everyone can come, interact and have some quality time, not just single people looking for partners. Alper expects the transition to social to be expected after the next 4-6 months.

 

Bur right now the focus is on finding proper matches. People can easily go through the pictures of others by swiping and one further tap will reveal their hates. You can easily send a text to your match and can also play a game like Cards Against Humanity. You can easily edit you profile which consists pictures that are transferred from Facebook, other editable slots consist of age and match preferences. A non-Facebook sign in option is also in the future plans.

 

Due to the viral buzz created by it, the app has experienced a huge number of sigh ups from all over the world since its launching in December. Currently Hater has 310,000 users and 30,000 users use it every day with a retention rate of 25-30 percent of one day.

 

Up till now it’s quite difficult to assess how will the app perform when the wears off.

 

Meanwhile Alper is looking forward to the challenge that’s why he planned the expansion of the app to be more social more on the foot prints of Facebook and its ads. He is also partnering with Cosmo to publish the stats developed from the app. Some brands are also having negotiations with Alper to integrate in the future, so we may see their own items in the app’s list which can be easily analyzed by the brands as if their product is bad or good.

 

The app is going to use push notifications to catch the attraction of lapsed users to make a forceful representation on more timely questions. This feature was tested in New York and Los Angeles after the Oscars.

 

The quick rise of Hater has enabled it to be featured by Apple and App store. Hater has also attracted interest from investors and is expected to do exceptionally well when the social feature is added. The team is conducting meetings with VCs outside of Brooklyn and also with the locals.

 

The number of full-time staff of Hater is four which also includes Stefan Wirth a Berlin-based CTO. For now it is only available for iOS users.