The end of the endless swipe
Dating apps broke
human connection.
We're not fixing the swipe. We're rebuilding the room people actually meet in. Walk with us through what went wrong — and what finally works.
- $400K
- pre-seed raise
- 18 mo
- to break-even
- $5.4M
- year 3 revenue
Five stages. Real screens.
This is Fuze as it exists — availability instead of swiping, a setter who builds the room, and a date designed to actually flow.
Atmosphere first
You open Fuze the way you walk into a five-star resort.
Blue water, open horizon, nothing shouting at you. The mood shifts before you've tapped anything — a virtual oasis instead of a cold grid. Atmosphere isn't decoration here; it's what makes people stay, relax, and actually talk.
A profile that takes a minute, not an afternoon.
We ask for just enough to give someone that first honest read on you. Nobody makes a decision on 70% of what other apps demand — so we cut it.
- Enough signal for a real first impression
- No interrogation, no homework, no filler fields
- You're set up and seeking the same evening
Swiping out. Time-seeking and time-setting in.
You see when someone is actually free — and they see when you are. Real availability replaces the guessing game, so ghosting and dead-end chats fall off a cliff.
- Set an evening, or seek someone who already has
- Intent is visible before a single message is sent
- Fewer ghosts, fewer conversations that go nowhere
Seeker, setter — or both at once.
Flexibility is the whole point. Switch roles any time, or run both. And the setter builds the date itself: they choose the live background and the genre of the rotating questions. In every relationship there's a setter — Fuze gives that instinct somewhere to go.
- Toggle seeker ⇄ setter, or be both simultaneously
- The setter picks the live backdrop for the date
- The setter picks the question genre that drives the conversation
Seek as many times, and as many people, as you want.
Nothing stalls on one thread. Keep multiple evenings in play so a single no never ends the night — and choose your lane: text first, or go straight to the virtual date.
- Multiple seeks, multiple people, always something live
- Rejection stops being a dead end
- Texting or the date — both are always an option
A live backdrop and a question every 20 seconds.
The date is the product. A moving background sets the scene, and rotating prompts land every 20 seconds so the conversation keeps flowing instead of stalling into silence.
- Live, moving backdrop chosen by the setter
- Rotating questions every 20 seconds keep the brain moving
- No awkward gaps — the room does the heavy lifting
Every other app skipped the room.
Nothing above is exotic. It's what dating apps should have built years ago — and didn't, because the swipe pays better than the date.
Overcomplicated profiles
Height, religion, star sign, six photos, three prompts. Homework designed to profile you, not connect you — and nobody reads most of it anyway.
Endless swiping
A grid built never to end. It measures your thumb, not your evening, and it says nothing about whether either of you is actually free tonight.
Meaningless text chats
Weeks of small talk that fizzle into a ghost. No shared time, no plan, no atmosphere — just a thread that quietly dies.
Numbers that don't convert
Matches pile up and almost none of them become a real conversation, let alone a date. The funnel leaks at every stage by design.
of matches ever become a real meeting
The swipe funnel leaks almost everything it collects.
Pew Research Center, 2023
of users report dating app burnout
Emotional, mental, or physical exhaustion from the apps.
Forbes Health, 2024
call their overall experience negative
Nearly half walk away feeling worse, not better.
Pew Research Center
usage on top apps, year over year
The biggest platforms are shrinking as people quit.
Industry usage data, 2023–2024
Bottom line: the incumbents monetize the search. Fuze monetizes the date — so every part of the product is built to get two people into the same room tonight.
The oasis
Fuze puts people back in the room.
The date is the product.
Fuze replaces the swipe with something radically simple: set an evening, and meet a real person face-to-face tonight. No months of texting. No dopamine slot machine. Just conversation — the thing every other app quietly removed.
- 01
Works with human psychology
Scarcity of time creates real intent. A set evening turns "maybe someday" into "tonight," the way people actually fall for each other.
- 02
Flexible by design
You control your availability, your vibe, and your pace. The system bends around real life instead of demanding constant attention.
- 03
Quality over volume
Fewer, better conversations beat infinite matches. Response rates and confirmed dates — not swipe counts — are the metric that matters.
A generation is lonely. We built the way back.
Fuze is a subscription video-dating platform built to fix a $6B market that refuses to do its one job: get people on actual dates. We replace infinite swiping with committed, time-bound video dates inside a calm virtual oasis.
Total pre-seed raise
To break-even · profitable Year 2
Year 3 revenue projection
Every major dating app is built on the same broken loop.
Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge treat the date as a downstream outcome — something that happens after you leave the platform. Fuze makes the date the platform. Three root failures, three direct fixes:
Structure
Every interaction carries a committed time slot. No browsing in perpetuity.
Time affiliation
Real availability drives real dates. People connect around intent, not idle scrolling.
Safety
The date happens in-app — safe, structured, and accountable from the first hello.
Tiered pricing, benchmarked against Hinge.
Free
$0
- Dates
- 3 / mo
- Gold passes
- 1 / mo
- Extras
- Basic matching
Weekly
$9.99
- Dates
- Unlimited
- Gold passes
- 1 / wk
- Extras
- See who liked you
Monthly
$24.99
- Dates
- Unlimited
- Gold passes
- 10 / wk
- Extras
- Priority + receipts
Annual
$149.99
- Dates
- Unlimited
- Gold passes
- Unlimited
- Extras
- All features + boost
Modeled on Hinge conversion — with real-date upside.
5K users · 25% paying
25K users · 30% paying
75K users · 35% paying
Zero
Direct competition
$6B+
117M US singles
18 mo
To break-even
High
Retention · real dates
Sized to build, acquire, and prove the thesis before Series A.
- Influencer marketing$200–220K · 51–57%
- Growth reserve$70–80K · 14–17%
- App development$50–70K · 15–17%
- Year 1 operations$35–40K · 10–11%
The marketing allocation is not a rounding error — it is the strategy. Our target demographic lives on short-form video, and influencer-led growth is the most efficient path to the first 5,000 paying users.
Dominic Bayless
UC Irvine · Class of 2026
The founder
Dominic Bayless
UC Irvine · Class of 2026
Three years of primary research.
Starting at 19, thousands of interviews documenting the post-COVID isolation crisis — reconnaissance for the product.
First to restructure dating.
No other app has eliminated swiping for scheduled video dates. Fuze is a new architecture for how strangers meet.
Mission-driven by design.
The Surgeon General's loneliness advisory isn't a hook — it is the founding document.
Four reasons, plainly.
First-mover, zero direct competition
No app has built scheduled video dating as the core product. The category is Fuze's to define or lose.
Retention built into the model
Users who go on real dates don't churn — they tell their friends. The product is its own distribution.
Conservative, benchmarked conversion
Revenue is modeled against Hinge's 20–25% conversion. Upside comes from delivering what Hinge doesn't: actual dates.
Structural market tailwinds
117M US singles, a Surgeon General advisory, and a generation burning out on swipe culture. The wind is at our back.
Let's talk
Reach Dominic directly.
Everything you need to evaluate Fuze is on this page. For the full model, references, or a live walkthrough, get in touch — no gatekeeping, no deck request required.
dominicbayless@oasisoutlookflames.com