HeyU: The Fair Dating App
Manchester, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom
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Aim
Raising funds and attracting early users to develop HeyU, a fair dating app without popularity-based ranking.
Dating shouldn't be a popularity contest.
We've all experienced the frustration of online dating.
Endless swiping. Few matches. Matches that go nowhere. The feeling that you're invisible, or wondering whether anyone is really getting the chance to see you.
We've been using dating apps for years, and we've watched friends go through the same thing.
So the three of us started asking a simple question:
What if everyone got a fair chance?
We're three friends building HeyU.
HeyU is being built by three best friends and developers, working on the app alongside our daily jobs.
There isn't a big company behind us or a large development team. It's just the three of us, putting our own time and effort into something we genuinely want to see exist.
We've experienced the problems with online dating ourselves, and that's why HeyU is personal to us.
We don't want to build another app just to give people another place to swipe endlessly.
We want to try to build a better dating experience for ourselves, our friends, and for anyone who feels the same way.
Everyone gets seen.
HeyU doesn't rank people by popularity.
Having more matches doesn't give you more visibility.
Being new doesn't give you less visibility.
Paying for a premium plan doesn't move your profile to the front.
There are no paid boosts and no attractiveness score deciding who deserves more exposure.
If you fit someone's preferences and are within their discovery range, you have a chance to appear.
We believe the person being overlooked might be exactly the person someone else was hoping to meet.
Fresh selfies, no gallery uploads.
We wanted to approach another problem differently: outdated and recycled profile photos.
On HeyU, profile photos can't be uploaded from your phone's gallery.
They're taken through the HeyU camera and have to pass our photo checks before the profile can appear in discovery.
We check things like photo quality, lighting, contrast, face presence, framing and facial landmarks.
Each photo is timestamped so you always know its age.
It doesn't mean we can guarantee that every person online is genuine. No dating app can honestly promise that.
But we believe starting with a fresh, camera-captured photo creates a better foundation for authenticity.
A match is just the beginning.
We don't want matching to be the destination.
Find someone interesting.
Match.
Start talking.
Get to know each other.
And see where it goes.
From "Hey" to "See you soon".
A match means very little if nothing happens afterward.
The part we're really interested in is what happens next.
A conversation.
Getting to know someone.
Asking questions.
Finding things you have in common.
And maybe eventually deciding you'd like to meet.
That's what we want dating to lead to.
Be known for who you are.
We also wanted HeyU to recognize something that a profile can't show:
how someone actually is with another person.
After two people have built enough conversation together, they can give each other badges based on the qualities they've experienced.
Maybe someone is a great listener.
Maybe they're kind.
Maybe they make you laugh.
Maybe they're easy to talk to.
These aren't qualities you simply claim about yourself.
They're things another person can recognize in you after actually getting to know you.
Badges don't increase visibility, change your position in discovery, or give you an advantage over anyone else.
They're simply recognition earned through real connections.
Because empty shouldn't mean finished.
We know one of the biggest challenges for a dating app is having enough people available to discover.
That's why HeyU has Smart Filter.
When you've reached the end of the available profiles, Smart Filter can gradually widen your discovery range so you have another chance to find someone.
It can expand distance and, when necessary, age preferences while keeping your gender preference unchanged.
The goal is simple:
Don't let a small pool of people become a dead end.
We're already building it.
HeyU isn't just an idea on a drawing board.
We've been building and testing this version for over a year.
Today, 27 people have registered as testers.
We've used those months to find bugs, improve the experience and test the core dating journey.
We've fixed the problems we've found so far, and we're now opening the testing process to more people because more users mean more feedback, more testing and more opportunities to discover what we can improve.
The Android version is currently in open testing.
Now we're ready for the next step.
The hardest part starts now.
Building the app is only one part of building a dating platform.
A dating app needs people.
Without enough people, there aren't enough opportunities to match, talk and meet.
That's the challenge we're facing now.
We don't need fake profiles to make HeyU look busy.
We need real people.
Your support will help us bring more people into the community, improve the product, continue building safety and authentication, develop the iOS version and keep the service running as it grows.
What your support will help us build?
-Continue Android development and build the iOS version.
-Improve photo authentication, reporting, blocking, privacy and safety tools.
-Keep HeyU running as the community grows, including cloud services, authentication, messaging and photo storage.
-Bring real people into HeyU through advertising, creators and community-focused campaigns.
-Make sure HeyU is properly prepared as we expand into more markets.
We've also prepared a detailed project budget so you can see how we plan to use the funds.
We're putting our own time into this first.
The three of us currently work on HeyU alongside our existing jobs.
None of us takes a salary from HeyU.
We're contributing our time because we believe in the idea and want to see where it can go.
Your support would allow us to put more resources into the parts we can't solve with our own time alone: development, safety, infrastructure and bringing people into the community.
This is just the beginning.
We don't think HeyU is finished.
We want to build it with the people who use it.
As the community grows, we want to listen to our users and backers, understand what they love, learn what doesn't work and keep improving the experience.
We want to build better ways to create trust, discover people, stay safe and turn an introduction into something meaningful.
Our long-term ambition is to build a global dating community where people don't feel invisible before they've even had a chance.
Everyone deserves a chance.
A chance to be seen.
A chance to find someone.
A chance to have a conversation that goes somewhere.
A chance to be known for who they are.
That's the HeyU we're trying to build.
If you believe dating can be better, we'd love to have you with us from the beginning.
Join HeyU Open Testing on Android
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 11th November 2026 at 8:52pm