I built Yopals (https://yopals.com) because I was frustrated with existing pen pal/language exchange platforms.
The backstory: InterPals has been around since 1998 and was great for connecting with people worldwide. But over the years it's become cluttered with ads, the UI feels dated, and the signal-to-noise ratio has gotten worse.
What Yopals does: -Connect with native speakers of languages you're learning -Find people interested in your culture/language -Make genuine international friendships -Clean, focused interface without the cruft
My current dilemma: I have a working platform but zero users. Classic chicken-and-egg problem. If someone signs up today, they see an empty site and leave. But I can't fill it without users.
I'm planning a coordinated launch with a beta group so everyone joins simultaneously, but I'd love to hear how others have tackled this.
The site is live now if anyone wants to check it out and give feedback.
Fair warning: you might be the only person there right now, which is exactly the problem I'm trying to solve!