Kokomo man creates website to help Hoosiers find friends

Sep. 7—A party gone awry led to a website that aims to help Hoosiers find friends.

Chaun Farmer, creator of Hoosier Club, knows it can be difficult to find friends in Indiana. After drama stemming from a birthday party left him and his fiance looking for a new group of friends, he turned to his old hobby, website building.

The website, https://hoosier.club, is similar to a dating website in the sense that users match with other people based on interests listed on their profiles. Users are notified when someone tries to add them, then they're able to check out the profile and decide whether they want to be friends.

If users decided to match each other, they're able to message each other and, if they seem like they could be friends, potentially arrange a meeting.

However, Farmer notes the website isn't intended to help people find romantic partners. The website has a "100% no dating rule" and Farmer said users can potentially be banned from the site if they're misusing it.

"If you've got a bunch of people going after other people, they're not going to want to use it," Farmer said.

When Farmer first purchased the website script, he explained, it was for a dating site. He's changed most of the dating aspects, but still wants to make some tweaks. For example, he would like to change a requirement that makes people enter their height.

The website also lets users filter by distance.

"Personally, I don't want to talk to anyone farther than an hour away," Farmer said. "I can drive an hour to hangout with someone, but any more than that is kind of a hassle."

Farmer said he's already made friends using the website, which was created in May. There were more than 200 users when he last checked.

His first website was created in 2009. Farmer explained he got into the hobby when the content creator behind a popular stick figure animation YouTube account showed him how to make websites.

"I made a forum and ended up gaining like 100 members and thought it was the coolest thing ever," Farmer said. "it became an addiction. Just the fact that you can bring people together for anything."

From forums, he moved on to websites that focused on anything he found interest in. Farmer estimated he's created several hundred websites since first learning how to make one.

Now, Farmer said, he's able to put together a website in a matter of hours.

"I've cut back a lot," Farmer said. "I don't make websites hardly, shockingly."

He's running 20 websites right now, including a gaming social media site, a Virginia tattoo shop's website, a website for web developers and multiple websites for table top, card and video games he's making.

"The goal is to create, I guess, just the ultimate friend finder for Indiana," Farmer said of Hoosier Club. "I need friends and I found out a lot of other people need friends."

He added that, although there is a VIP account option, he doesn't expect to earn a profit from the website and made the website free to use. It just seemed like a fun thing to create.

James Bennett III can be reached at 765-454-8580 or james.bennett@kokomotribune.com.