A Verified Friendship App Built For Real Life #139

Lonely in a new city even though you’re “connected” all day? We felt that tension hard, so we sat down with Gabor Catas, CEO of Friending Inc., to talk about a different kind of social app: one that’s built to get you off your phone and back into real life. Gabor shares why he helped shape the Friending App after years of moving between countries and states, and why loneliness is more common than most people admit, especially after COVID and the shift to remote work.

We dig into what makes Friending stand out in the crowded world of friendship apps and dating-style platforms. First, verified identity: the app uses Persona with ID and selfie checks to reduce fake profiles and build trust. Then, the big behavioral change: chat is limited to 10 exchanges, after which you send a friend request with a 30-day window to meet face-to-face. It’s a design choice that challenges the endless-texting loop and focuses on making friends through shared activities in your area.

We also get practical about safety and real-world meetups. Friending includes a triple-tap feature that can call the police by default, contact a friend, or alert nearby Friending users if you feel uncomfortable. You can browse people within about 50 miles using “Are You In” activity cards and tags, and Gabor paints the best-case future where you can even ping nearby players to fill out a last-minute volleyball team. Plus, there’s a fun twist: sending real coffee with a QR code message that can be text, video, or even a song.

Listen now, then subscribe, share with a friend who’s new in town, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Intro 0:00

Welcome to the Straight From the Source's Mouth podcast. Frank talk about sex and dating.

Tamara 0:06

Hello, it's Tamara here. Welcome to the show. Today's guest is Gaber Catas, the CEO of Friending Inc. and creator of the Friending App. Thanks for joining me, Gabor.

Gabor 0:18

Thank you for having me.

Tamara 0:20

All right.

Why Friending Exists

Tamara 0:21

And what um prompted you to start your app or want to start this company?

Gabor 0:29

Basically, I have a friend who had started it before I did. He's been um I guess the original founder. And um when we met up about two years ago and we were talking about this, I enjoyed the idea and wanted to participate. So that's when the um friending app took its final form or today's form. And that's how I ended up being in there because I felt that given my lifestyle and I moved around, I was one of those people of the 60 million who says that they feel lonely. So that is my interest in the app or in doing such an app.

Tamara 1:06

Okay. And it's to help hopefully alleviate some loneliness and what what is the app intended to do?

Verified Profiles To Stop Fakes

Gabor 1:14

Yes, basically the app is called friending. It's on iOS only at the moment, and there are many friend type or dating type apps out there. So I just want to um say two things that I think really sets this apart. One key factor is that everybody in the release version towards the end of the year or January will get actually um, I guess, checked out in the sense with the third-party app called Persona. So there will be a driver's license request and a selfie to make sure that you are say you are who you say you are. So as a result, there are not going to be any fake profiles on the friending platform because a huge percentage, maybe 20 to 30 percent of the um other users on some platforms are actually fake.

Tamara 2:08

Yeah, they're definitely that's very common, unfortunately. Yes, that's one of the benefits of yours. And then what how does it how is it going to work?

Meet In Person With Safety Tools

Gabor 2:18

Yes, basically, now that we've established that there are no fake um users on the app, the other cute other core difference is that the app encourages you to meet face-to-face. Generally speaking, all these friending types apps just really just continue chatting online. In friending, the chat is limited to 10 exchanges, at which time you have to uh put in what is called a friend request. And that means that you have 30 days to meet the person in person, I guess. Otherwise the friend requests will expire, but you can also resubmit it. But the core difference is we encourage you to meet people in person, do activities in person, and have fun in person. And because you're meeting in person, the other key factor is safety. And we're trying to do the best we can to make sure it's a safe environment. So if you tap on the screen three times, one of three things will happen depending on how you set it up. The police are called, that's the default. You can set it up so a friend is called, or you can set it up so anybody who has friending um is alerted via push notification and comes and helps you in an uncomfortable situation. We know where you are because of your phone. And also to become friends, your phones need to be next to each other. So that's how we know that you have met in the 30 days allotted.

Tamara 3:53

Yeah, because I know you said that most people just end up texting on the dating apps or the those friend apps. So is it similar to is it based on common interests, or how does what are how do you decide which

Interests Cards And Local Discovery

Tamara 4:06

how to meet?

Gabor 4:06

Yes, basically we have cards. The way we term them is called are you in cards, meaning are you into this activity? There's a slider in the app that you can set up based from your location up to 50 miles to look for friends. And basically, you would only see people who are within the vicinity that I would say reasonable to go and meet friends at. So we set it to 50 miles. If we find that that's too much or too little, we can always adjust that once users' feedback say it's not correct. So basically, there is a working hypothesis that you'll meet somebody in that 50 miles radius and you have common interests, be it sporting, social, or whatever, there are a list of tags that you can select, but if you don't find the one that you enjoy, you can always add one for your for the activity that you're doing.

Tamara 5:06

Yeah, then does it match, or are you just is it swiping, or how does that part, how do you find each other?

Gabor 5:12

Matches in the sense that it does a search. So it it it doesn't um use AI or whatever, it displays all individuals who are within that distance-wise and within the activity that you have requested. So it's up to you to select people from the list that you based on reading their bios or whatever else you make your decision on, um, is to select the person that you want to meet with.

Loneliness After COVID And Remote Work

Tamara 5:44

Other stuff it solves, or what what um or do you want to say more about loneliness and its effect on people?

Gabor 5:51

Yes, um, basically um loneliness affects about 60 million people. Unfortunately, it is not really talked about, but it is a real disease. COVID obviously didn't help with that because a lot of people who were in a work environment before are now at home, and some people were always used to working at home. Those people are probably fine, but there are people who were working in a I guess normal traditional work environment who are now at home and perhaps are not designed to work at home so they don't like it, yet they don't have a choice. So, COVID, I'm sure, added a lot of stress to a lot of people, and I'm hoping that people will get used to it and also that people will make friends and have a new social environment outside

Moving Often And Rebuilding Community

Gabor 6:44

of work.

Tamara 6:44

Okay, and you said you personally moved around a lot.

Gabor 6:48

Do you want to talk about um which countries are why you had to I was born in Hungary, which is in Central Europe, but I grew up in London, UK, up to my university years, after which I went to Canada, stayed there for five years, and spent the past 30 years, give or take, in the US, both in California, Northern California, Southern California, but I am now actually in North Carolina. So I keep moving around. The friends I make, especially pre-internet years, you know, my school years, I cannot keep in touch with them. I have no idea what happened to them. So I feel that this app will help you wherever you move. You would just need to find people with the same interest um in your neighborhood. And that is, I think it is crucial to have an app that was designed for this. Um, the best case scenario when there will be sufficient users is let's say you're at the beach playing volleyball and a team member did not show up. So you would just um basically send a push notification that anybody who is interested who had um sports volleyball beach as one of their interests and are in the neighborhood would receive that push notification and then they could come and join your team. So that's the ideal situation. Obviously, it will take time to get there.

Tamara 8:14

Yeah, okay. Are there is there anything else you want to say about that that I missed?

Sending Real Coffee With Messages

Gabor 8:18

Yes, um, basically the other interesting part is I would assume that people would meet perhaps in a coffee shop for the first time, perhaps if you're looking for a tennis partner to discuss your game and their game. And that's where I said that tapping on the screen could potentially become useful. But the other more fun part of it is that there is also a shop in the final version of the app where you can actually send coffee to people, a real coffee, I mean. And the fun part of that is that you can send it with a message. You can say thank you for the game, perhaps, thank you for the podcast. Um, that message could be a video message, a song, a text message, because really it is a QR code that is printed on the packaging. So the recipient, they don't need to register the friending app, but they do need to download it if they don't have it on their um iPhone to scan in the QR code. Using that, you will actually receive the message that whoever gifted you sent you. So it's a fun part of saying thank you for whatever activity or whatever friends you have or family who enjoy coffee and just want to send them an additional message, perhaps with the coffee.

Tamara 9:40

Okay, yeah, that sounds nice.

Download Links Feedback And Beta

Tamara 9:42

And is there um how can they how can people download this?

Gabor 9:45

Just go to yes, download is real simple. You can go to friending.com is one way of downloading it. You can search for it in the app store by typing in friending. And basically, um we would love all the feedback we can get. And one of the easiest ways to send us feedback is podcast at friending.com, and some of the team members will respond to that, all of them, and we'll see what your views are, what you think the app should do, or what we should change in it, etc. So we're really interested because the app is in beta at the moment in the iOS store. So we're looking forward to your feedback, to finding out how we can make the app even better.

Tamara 10:31

All right.

Closing Thanks And Spread The Word

Tamara 10:32

Well, if unless you don't have more, I think I'm good. I think that wraps it up unless there's something else you wanted to add.

Gabor 10:39

No, I want to thank you and thank the listeners as well. And please spread the word. Take into consideration that this is a new social media app, so it will take time for people to use it. Please bear with us. Thank you so much.

Tamara 10:53

All right. Well, thank you very much, Gabor. And if you love this episode, be sure to tell your friends about it and check out the friending app, of course. All right, thanks everyone. Thanks again, Gabor.

Gabor 11:04

Thank you for having me. Bye bye.

Tamara 11:06

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