What brands can learn from building products alongside online communities.
Before Yeet had a finished dating app, it had a Discord server.
The dating startup launched its “Founder Club” before the product was fully defined and invited young users to talk about what annoyed them most about online dating. The team didn’t try to promote their own ideas or brand. They showed up to listen.
“We really built the app alongside (our Discord) community and received lots of feedback” said Penny Chen, Yeet co-founder and marketing lead.
The responses helped Yeet shape a dating app built around a problem its audience kept raising over and over: swipe fatigue.
Yeet took that frustration and used it as an indicator for their next move. With the social community’s input, developers created an app that uses an AI agent to connect two people for a live conversation with zero swiping.
It’s a cool concept.
But the more important idea for brands isn’t the dating app’s technology. It’s how Yeet used a community of about 1,600 Discord members as an ongoing research group, focus group and product feedback loop.
Here’s why other organizations should pay attention.
Start with a problem you want to tackle
Yeet initially recruited users to its Discord server through short-form videos on TikTok and Instagram. Rather than emphasizing product features, the company talked about dating problems Gen Zers recognized.
“We put out the pain points people could resonate with,” Chen said.
The Discord server then gave those people a bigger reason to participate. Its message was: “Let’s flip the dating script together.”
People weren’t joining a branded community to hear from Yeet. They were joining because they also wanted dating apps to work differently. When their contributions showed up in Yeet’s modifications, they received a badge in the forum to show it.
Community building should begin with a problem, issue or challenge audiences care enough about to discuss even when your brand isn’t the center of the conversation.
Give people room to tell you what you don’t want to hear
Yeet created different Discord channels where members could talk about dating, share their lives, participate in surveys and raise questions about how Yeet was navigating them.
Then the company tried not to dominate the room.
“We just really sat in there as the listeners,” Chen said.
Listening influenced product decisions. For example, users raised concerns about how much control AI should have in dating. Yeet responded by limiting its AI agent’s role.
“It’s just there now to help them start and keep the conversation flowing,” Chen said.
Yeet also found that 84% of surveyed community members preferred real-time connections over “blind swiping,” according to Chen. This was an insight that became central to the product experience, and one they wouldn’t have without input from its Discord, Chen said.
For organizations experimenting with communities, it’s critical to remember: Don’t ask for feedback only after decisions have been made. Bring people in early enough that their concerns, ideas or questions can still change what you build.
Talk like a member of the community
Yeet also made a deliberate choice about who from their team would interact with people on Discord.
The company put Gen Z employees into the community because they understand how members naturally speak, date and discuss. Chen said they certainly didn’t want to behave like traditional moderators or formal brand representatives.
“The (moderators) just act more like their friends,” she said. “Or like college students interacting with each other.”
When it’s possible, don’t manufacture someone else’s voice, she said. For a gaming company, this could be putting actual gamers into Discord. A college could rely on current students to engage prospective students, or a financial brand might turn to younger employees who can talk to Gen Z talks about money. The point is the same. Don’t teach someone to imitate a community if you already have people inside your organization who belong there.
“It’s more genuine that way,” Chen said. “People are willing to tell us more.”
Yeet plans to keep its Discord community relatively small, around 1,000 to 2,000 people, while exploring Reddit next. But Chen said the company doesn’t plan to enter subreddits and immediately start promoting itself.
“We’re trying to join the conversation first and then build some kind of reputation, build some curiosity for people to join Yeet or try out this new experience,” she said. “And then build out our brand.”
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