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
A trusted connector layer 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. Real meetings, public signals, and agent intent become an index; connectors turn the strongest signal into a useful introduction.
The first market is the SF AI founder ecosystem: a small, high-density network where each real meeting can reveal the next person worth meeting. Founders find cofounders. VCs discover early-stage companies. Builders find the startups worth joining.
Not a cold-outreach machine. Not a profile directory. A connector network where the asset is a reciprocated edge: mutual consent, real co-presence, timestamp, and direction.
04 — The three loops
Each reciprocated edge makes the network more valuable.
Media loop: A real conversation, public signal, or profile becomes legible to people and agents.
Network loop: Connectors notice which signals should travel and which people have a reason to meet.
Introduction loop: Both sides consent, context travels with the intro, and the edge becomes part of the trusted record.