Short version: the app is open to everyone
As of 1 August 2026, WhatToDo is out of closed testing. No invite needed anymore:
- Android: Google Play and RuStore;
- No install: web version;
- Landing page and help: dowtd.ru;
- Updates and roadmap: Telegram channel.
The rest of this post is about what the app actually does and who it helps. If you are after the engineering and product side, the deep dives are linked at the end.
The problem behind it
Friday evening. You are both tired, you both want something decent, and neither of you wants to be the one who decides. So the texting starts: "what are we doing?" — "no idea, you pick" — "movie?" — "which one?". Half an hour later you are watching a show neither of you chose.
The problem is not a shortage of ideas. Ideas are everywhere: notes, saved posts, half-open tabs with places. The problem is the decision. Talking it through turns into a negotiation where somebody gives in, and the evening is spent agreeing rather than doing.
So we took the words out of the decision.
How it works
The core is swiping. Each person goes through cards with concrete ideas and marks what appeals to them, without seeing what the other picked. When an idea appeals to both, the app shows a match.
Then comes the part that made the whole thing worth building: a match becomes a plan. If the idea is tied to a location, the app pulls suitable places nearby through Google Places and builds a route. Not "go somewhere", but a specific café seven minutes away.
If nothing matched, the session does not dead-end. Negotiation mode kicks in: the app surfaces the options that came closest to shared interest and helps you settle on one.
Solo, couple, group
We designed it for couples, but closed testing showed there are more ways people use it.
- Solo. Deciding for yourself: how to spend an evening, where to go alone, what to try in a new neighbourhood.
- Couple. The main mode: two devices, shared cards, matches in real time. One person starts a session, the other joins through an invite link — on Android it opens straight into the app.
- Group. Up to four people on the free plan, up to ten on Premium. Everyone swipes asynchronously and the app pulls the result together.
What is inside
Decks for the occasion. Evening, weekend, extreme, vacation, food and drinks, night set. Decks can be customised so you are not swiping past things that were never going to work for you.
Movie mode. A dedicated flow for the most common argument of all — what to watch. Same logic: swipes instead of arguments.
Invite links. No codes to type: send a link in any messenger, your partner taps it, you are in the same session.
Shake. When you truly have no energy to choose, shake the phone and let the app propose something.
Shared stats and streaks. How many evenings you have actually spent on a plan from the app, what you pick most, how long your streak is. Plus 13 achievements and Weekly Wrapped, a short recap of the week.
Wishlist. Liked an idea but not for tonight? Save it and come back to it.
Surprise mode. One partner puts the plan together; the other only finds out when it is time to leave.
Notifications. Push and in-app: your partner joined, you have a match, time to decide.
Two languages. English and Russian, fully localised.
Sign-in and data. Google Sign-In for authentication. The privacy policy and account deletion live on their own pages — deleting an account takes no support tickets.
What Premium adds
The core loop — swipe, match, places, invites — is free. Premium lifts the limits and adds comfort:
| Feature | Free | Premium |
|---|---|---|
| Groups | up to 4 people | up to 10 people |
| Filters | basic | extended |
| Deck size | standard | larger |
| Contacts and re-swipes | limited | unlimited |
| Palettes and animations | standard | premium |
| Surprise mode, wishlist | — | included |
Three ways to pay: Google Play, Telegram Stars (for RuStore and the web version), or a promo code.
Who it is for
- Couples tired of "you decide this time". The original and best-tested scenario.
- Groups of friends whose plans for the night quietly die in a group chat.
- People in an unfamiliar city — holiday, work trip, a recent move. The vacation deck plus nearby places answers "what do people even do here".
- Anyone deciding for themselves. Solo mode does not need a second player.
Who it is not for: if you want a relationship tracker, guided meditations or a shared calendar, this is the wrong app. We keep the focus deliberately narrow — agree on something and actually go do it.
The web version
game.3vstyle.ru is the same app in a browser. Handy when your partner is on an iPhone, when nobody wants to install anything for one evening, or when you just want to see how it feels before downloading.
The easiest way to start: open Google Play or RuStore, create a session and send the link to your partner. The first match usually lands within two or three minutes.
How we got here
WhatToDo is an in-house product of 3VStyle. We build client projects on Laravel, and for over a year we have been running our own app alongside them: hypothesis, a six-week MVP, closed testing on Google Play, a long round of fixes driven by feedback, and now a public release.
It took longer than we planned, and taught us far more. The decisions, the mistakes and the stack are covered in the build story, and the swipe and realtime internals in the architecture deep dive.
If you need something similar for your own idea — we build products like this for clients.
What comes next
A public release is not the finish line, it is where the real product work starts. Next up: iOS on the same codebase, more themed decks, and deeper group scenarios. Plans and progress go into the Telegram channel — that is also the fastest place to tell us what is missing.