What Happened To Squad App Adam Liebman

Q&A with Squad founder Adam Liebman about groups meeting groups to go out in person, designing for social context of friendship, and how social is developing (#5)

Q: How would you describe yourself and what you're doing?

Adam: This is my third startup, but first time as Founder and CEO. It's been a great ride so far, and I'm really proud of the V1 product that our team built. Squad uses technology to connect people in fun and comfortable way. It's not Tinder, where the interactions are one-on-one, it's not Grouper, where you might not know who you're meeting beforehand, it's just your squad, and another squad, getting a chance to meet that you all might not have otherwise had.

Q: What stories of your experience at startups/companies before come to mind in what you're doing with Squad?

Adam: I think at both of the previous companies I worked at (Yext, and then SinglePlatform), it was clear that the most important ingredient in the recipie for success was the people. Especially when things are in such an early stage, the people you surround yourself with are so integral to whether or not the company has a shot to figure things out. When Wiley hired me, Kenny Herman, and Pete Chen, I felt so confident that no matter what happened, the four of us were smart enough to figure out a solution, no matter what the problem. I feel the same way about the team we've built at Squad, and that's why I think we've been able to build something that's been so well-received right out of the gate.

Q: What are the user problems you are seeking to solve with Squad? From this article about Squad, the focus appears to be on when a group of people are going out and want to find another group to join, whether based on interests or other topics.

Adam: We spend a lot of time at Squad thinking about what people do already, and how we can create a user experience that leverages technology to make whatever goal they want to achieve even easier than before. Whether that's meeting new best friends, new boyfriends or girlfriends…some people have even tried to use Squad to organize groups around a common interest, like watching the Mets try and win the World Series!

Most of what's out there such as Tinder, Bumble, Happn, Hinge… they're all focused on one-to-one communication, that's likely romantic in nature. That creates a user problem where they need to decide: do I go out with my friends, or do I go meet someone new on a date? That's a tough choice, and we think the solution is to add your friends to the equation, and remove some of the explicit romance.

Q: In this article, you said: "The third chapter is to connect with people explicitly for friendships and platonic relationships." What do you think a product would need to do to enable one to one people to find friends such as based on interests? Are there any things people have done so far that you think have worked well for that?

Adam: I don't know that the problem lies in identifying interests to connect people as much as it relies on changing the public perception of using technology to make friends. It took a long time for people to accept that meeting romantic partners online or on apps like Tinder and Bumble was a perfectly acceptable thing to do, and I think it's going to take a little while before people are comfortable saying that they use technology to meet other friends in real life. As Rachel Bertsche says in this Washington Post article, "If you say you're looking for new friends, what people hear is: 'I have no friends.'" That's where Squad comes in, sitting right in the middle of friendship and romance.

Q: What is something about people and being social one to one or in a group that you strongly believe to be true? Reason for asking is because presumably people making social products have a strong understanding about people that is so great that it enables building a product that meets people's needs, even if people don't understand that about themselves. For example, messaging apps I think show that close friends really enjoy communicating in a variety of ways at a rapidly increasing rate because people want to share their experience and keep in close contact with friends.

Adam: I believe that we're all more comfortable in a group setting when meeting new people. Even the most gregarious of us enjoy having our friends around to help give us confidence when meeting others.

Q: How did you decide to build Squad and what were some alternative design approaches you considered?

Adam: We spent a lot of time thinking about what the carousel should look like. It's so difficult to represent a group of anywhere from 2 to 6 people in an aesthetically pleasing way, and I think Amy Kim, our Head of Design, did an absolutely spectacular job with V1. It's simple, it's clean, and doesn't try to do too much.

Q: What do you think about video in apps for people meeting people in the future, such as for expressing more about a person than a photo? Or maybe people don't want to use this kind of feature yet? Perhaps virtual reality in the future may help with that?

Adam: In my opinion, video chatting and dating apps are only a stone's throw away. There's a startup I'm a huge fan of, called Overture.me, and it makes these amazing 30 second videos that let individuals tell their story. I can't even begin to describe how much more effective that is than simple pictures to evaluate someone on every level. What if Tinder let you record a 10 second opener video instead of just having photos? What if men on Bumble could send women they were interested in a voice memo along with a right swipe? It's only a matter of time.

Q: What did you like about the feedback that you received on Product Hunt?

Adam: I thought it was great to see Michael Waxman, the Founder of Grouper, get into the discussion on Product Hunt. We've obviously spent a lot of looking at Grouper and the approach they've decided to take, the same way we've looked at Whitney Wolfe at Bumble, and Sean Rad at Tinder. As a matter of fact, I don't think that Squad could have launched without them paving the way. They all helped break down the barriers of people using technology to connect, and Squad is a continued extension of that. The feedback on Product Hunt made me feel like we weren't coming out of left field with our idea, and even though it's early, our initial users are telling us the same things.

Q: What do you think is massive upside scenario of Squad as a service for many people and as a business?

Adam: I think at it's core, Squad is about connecting you with people who you may not have otherwise connected with. Groups allow the comfort of your friends to do that, while also preventing the conversation from immediately taking a romantic angle. I can see how people could use Squad at events like Coachella and EDC, conferences like Dreamforce, and even sporting events, all with the aim to connect you and your friends with other groups who will fit right in. There's something magical about expanding your social circle to include more people who you genuinely enjoy spending time with, and that's what I think we can do with Squad.

Q: What product design challenges came up in making Squad? And how did you approach different approaches including doing user research for usability?

Adam: Initially, we were trying to do too much with the carousel screen. As a first time Founder, building their very first product, I implored Amy to put every detail on the swipe screen. We quickly learned that it made for a confusing user experience, and scaled back to try and make it much more intuitive as to what you were supposed to do. It was a constant battle on what features to put in, and what to let our users tell us they wanted, but in the end, I think Amy, Gabe, Josh, and Ramdane built something that at it's core, connects squads together in a fun and easy way.

Q: Aside from Squad, what startup do you think has massive opportunity to grow from today? Why?

Adam: I LOVE what Bumble is doing. I think they really took a great approach by putting women first, and I think Whitney Wolfe has done an outstanding job capturing the voice of the people who she's building for. It'd be easy to write them off as a Tinder clone, but it's really so much more than that, and I think it shows in their conversation rate. By clearly defining what steps each party has to take to create a meaningful connection, they've been able to drive outstanding engagement, and create a user experience different from the rest of the apps in the one-on-one space right now.

Squad : Twitter

Adam Liebman: Twitter

What Happened To Squad App Adam Liebman

Source: https://medium.com/design-questions-answers/q-a-with-squad-founder-adam-liebman-about-groups-meeting-groups-to-go-out-in-person-designing-for-cf913e8ff316

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