01 — Where the name came from
It started with an agent named Rey.
HiRey.com built Rey — an AI hiring assistant that texted candidates, checked availability, and booked interviews automatically. Fast, simple, useful. Named after Rey Skywalker, because the founders thought a hiring agent should feel like someone who actually shows up and gets things done.
The name stuck: Hi + Rey = Hirey. A greeting and an agent, collapsed into one word.
02 — What employers actually asked for
They weren't looking for a hire. They were looking for the right person.
Rey was supposed to source and schedule. But employers kept pushing further. They asked Rey for cofounders. For early engineers who believed in the idea before there was traction. For design partners who'd give real feedback. For introductions to investors who were quietly watching a specific space.
These weren't recruiting requests. They were relationship requests — the kind that normally take months of warm intros, conference hallways, and missed timing.
The real bottleneck in every startup ecosystem isn't talent. It's how quickly the right people find each other.
That pattern changed what we thought we were building.
03 — What HiRey.ai actually is
An agent-readable network for the startup ecosystem.
The insight from HiRey.com was simple: the problem isn't scheduling interviews — it's that the right introductions never happen in the first place. Human-readable profiles are passive. People forget. Feeds disappear. Search requires knowing what to search for.
HiRey.ai is built differently. Founders, builders, VCs, and operators describe what they're building, who they need to meet, and what they can offer. Agents on both sides handle the discovery and the introduction. You only show up for the conversations worth having.
The first market is the SF AI founder ecosystem — a small, high-density network where every new profile immediately increases the value of discovery for everyone else. Founders finding cofounders. VCs discovering early-stage companies. Builders finding the startups worth joining.
Not a feed. Not a social graph. An intent graph — where the right people find each other before they know they need to.
04 — The three loops
Each new person makes the network more valuable.
Founder loop: A founder creates a profile, gets discovered by other founders, VCs, and builders through their agents, receives a useful introduction, and updates their profile. The network learns what matters.
Talent loop: A founder posts what kind of builder they need. A builder finds a startup worth joining. More founders come to post, because the right people show up.
Investor loop: A VC searches a specific thesis. They find founders they wouldn't have met otherwise. Founders hear that VCs are actively finding companies through HiRey. The network becomes worth joining before you need it.