u/alvdv

Every plan in my friend group dies in the group chat. Someone types "drinks tonight?", four people leave it on read, and nothing happens. The problem isn't that nobody wants to go - it's that nobody wants to be the one asking.

So I'm building Down. You tap what you're down for (drinks, coffee, padel, or nothing in particular) and whether that's now or later today. That's the whole interaction. No message, no asking anyone.

Your friends see it on a home screen widget, so nobody has to open an app to find out that three people are free tonight. When you and a friend are down for the same thing, you both get a nudge, and one tap hands you off to WhatsApp to sort out the details.

Two rules I think matter more than the features:

Everything expires. "Now" lasts two hours, "tonight" dies at 3am. No stale plans hanging around making the app feel dead.
Friends only. No feed, no followers, no discovery, no strangers.

Heading into TestFlight now. LMK what you think!

That might sound strange.

I've spent countless hours reviewing CVs (hundreds), conducting interviews, and making hiring decisions.

And honestly... I've never been formally trained to do any of it.

I'm certainly not an expert interviewer.

And the stakes are high.

A bad hire can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and it can mean months of lost productivity, countless hours spent interviewing, onboarding and coaching, and eventually having to start the entire hiring process all over again. For a small company, that's incredibly expensive - not just financially, but also in momentum.

There are plenty of interviews where I've walked away thinking:

Why didn't I ask a follow-up question there?
Did I actually validate the most important skills?
Did I overlook something obvious?

I suspect I'm not alone.

In many companies, hiring decisions are made by founders, managers, or team leads. They're great at what they do, but they're not necessarily trained recruiters.

That's why I started building a tool for myself.

An AI copilot that helps me prepare for interviews and spot things I might otherwise miss.

That side project has gradually grown into a tool that I use for every new hiring project.

The idea is simple.

Paste a job description (or just the job URL), upload a candidate's CV, and about a minute later you receive a complete interview briefing.

Not just a summary, but things that actually help you make a better hiring decision:

An annotated version of the CV with observations linked directly to the relevant sections.
Strengths, concerns, and missing evidence.
Things that deserve follow-up during the interview.
Tailored interview questions and follow-up questions based on the role and the candidate.

The first question people usually ask is:

"Couldn't I just do this with ChatGPT?"

To some extent, yes.

But I wanted something that goes beyond a single prompt.

Instead of only comparing a CV to a job description, it first helps you define a structured "Hiring Profile": what does someone actually need to be successful in this role?

That profile then becomes the foundation for every analysis.

It also makes it possible to compare multiple candidates based on evidence, competencies, strengths, potential risks, and missing information - not just keywords on a CV.

The goal isn't to make hiring decisions for you.

It's to help people like me - founders and managers without an HR background - go into interviews better prepared and make more informed decisions.

What do you think? Happy to hear your thoughts and experiences ;)

I'm building an app that shows what your friends are down for on your home screen

I've hired more than 60 people for my own company over the past 10 years - and I'm still not convinced I'm good at interviewing