how 1handshake works
1handshake works in four steps: meet a member, take a selfie together, scan the one-time QR code and make your card. After that you see the people your connections know and ask to meet them through a friend you share.
four steps to get in
meet a member
There is no sign-up form and no waitlist. Someone who is already a member invites you — in person, face to face. Don't know one? Come to an event from the calendar.
selfie + qr
You take a selfie together. It turns into a QR code with the selfie in the middle; the code works once and lives for 10 minutes.
make your card
You scan the code with your phone's camera, sign in with Google and tell about yourself by voice or text. AI drafts your card; you edit it and join.
ask for intros
You see people one handshake away. Ask to meet someone and the request goes through the friends you share — they can back it with 🔥.
The invite is the heart of 1handshake. Because every new member arrives through a real meeting, every line in the graph stands for two people who have actually seen each other. Bots and fake profiles have no way in.
If the 10 minutes run out, the member simply makes a new code with the same selfie. When two people who are already members meet, they scan each other's code and get a handshake 🤝 at once.
meet anyone through a friend
You can't message a stranger on 1handshake. To meet someone one handshake away, you send an intro request, and it travels through the people you both know. They see it and can back it with 🔥. The person you want to meet sees your request, the friends in between and their fire — and decides.
max wants to meet you
anna kim — product designer
Designs tools for founders. Runs a monthly design crit.
Design crit for your onboarding
a card that works for you
Your card lives at 1handshake.com/@handle: your name and role as the title, your city, a markdown bio and your social links. The same card is published as llms.txt, so search engines and AI assistants can read who you are. Your offers sit on the card too — orders, projects, products and services — and members can tell you they're interested.
inside the app
connect
The connect tab shows people one handshake away — the connections of your connections — and the people you checked in with at events. People with open offers come first. You can connect or skip; nothing happens until you decide.
feed and wall
Incoming intro requests sit at the top of your feed, sorted by fire. Below are events from your circle: who joined, who met whom. Every profile has a wall, and the joint selfie from your invite is its first post.
graph
Your network on one screen: you in the center, your handshakes around you, and people one handshake away on the outer ring. Filter it by city and by sphere — only the ones present in your own graph.
visibility
“Open to hiring” lets members see your profile and send you requests. “Open to network” lets them see your connections; it works only together with “open to hiring”. Both are on by default, and your public card is always indexed while your account exists.
questions
Can I join without knowing a member?
Not without meeting one. There is no sign-up form and no waitlist. The easiest way in is an event from the calendar at 1handshake.com/events: members host them and come to them, and a selfie with any member gets you in.
What is a card and llms.txt?
Your card is your page at 1handshake.com/@handle: name and role, city, a short markdown bio and links to your socials — like a link-in-bio page. The same card is available at /@handle/llms.txt, a plain-text version that AI assistants read.
What is an intro and a fire 🔥?
An intro is a request to meet someone through the people you both know. Those mutual friends see the request and can back it with 🔥, so the person you want to meet sees who vouches for you. Requests with more fire come first.
What are “open to hiring” and “open to network”?
Two switches in your profile. “Open to hiring” lets members see your profile and send you requests. “Open to network” lets members see your connections; it works only together with “open to hiring”. Both are on by default.
already a member?
Sign in with Google. Not a member yet? Meet one — that's the only way in.