The founders of Sonder couldn’t bear to come across yet another dating app profile where someone boldly stated that their most controversial opinion is that they like pineapple on pizza.
“We didn’t find out that people are frustrated through calls or user interviews or anything like that,” co-founder Mehedi Hassan told TechCrunch. “We learned it through our own experience – we are like this, it can’t be this.”
This observation—that dating apps are a slot machine of misery—is as authentic as bragging to Hinge that you were Time Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2006 (we all were!). So Hassan and three friends, all in their twenties, set out to create an app that’s not bad.
With Soderthe four London-based founders — Mehedi Hassan, Helen Sun, Lenard Pratt and Hannah Kin — set out to create an app that felt less like a job application and more like Pinterest or MySpace. (They cite MySpace as an inspiration, despite being too young to have used it in its prime.)
“In the form of existing dating apps, the intention is to lower the barrier to entry and improve access, allowing introverts to easily meet a bunch of people,” co-founder Helen Sun told TechCrunch. “Those intentions were very good in the beginning, but based on the way these apps have evolved, I think it’s become a very monotonous thing and people are suffering burnout because there’s a loss of authenticity.”
Sonder profiles are completely unstructured, encouraging users to create something that resembles a mood board or digital collage. Users can log in through the app, but they can also attend quirky in-person events hosted by Sonder, such as a Speed Drawing event, Presentation Night, or aExecutive Men’s Competition” (it is one thingpromise).
Sonder can be used for both platonic and romantic hookups, which makes its in-person events feel less intimidating—you’re not entering a space where everyone is on the prowl.
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“We have repeat events because it’s nice to have regulars coming back,” Sun said. “It’s kind of mimicking run clubs, where you have this repeated opportunity to meet people, but there’s no pressure in the sense that you have to make it work the first time you see someone.”
Running clubs have become something of a phenomenon for people to meet up close — the motivation “Maximum Productivity” is that even if you don’t make a new connection, at least you get a workout. But not everyone enjoys running, and not everyone feels more in love when they have visible sweat stains.
“I hate running,” Hassan says. “Not everyone is going to be interested in book clubs… Helen is interested in book clubs, but you couldn’t pay me to go to a book club.”
Sonder isn’t the first startup to notice that people might want to meet in person. Even Tinder, the most “dating app” of all dating apps, is rolling out personal experiences. But consumers are willing to try something new. For dating apps, startups can really benefit from their lack of brand recognition — going to an IRL Tinder event sounds about as appealing as going to the DMV, while trying something new is a little more appealing.
“I think what we’re trying to bring back is that magic of bringing people together and meeting someone for the first time,” Sun said. “It should be distinct, rather than like going through job applications on LinkedIn.”
Established dating apps are also introducing cool new features, like Bumble’s AI-powered dating assistant or a Tinder-tested tool that analyzes photos from your camera roll to get to know you better.
Sonder is no slouch with AI. Hassan’s day job is product engineering at Granola, a London-based AI note-taking app that recently raised $125 million at a $1.5 billion valuation. But he understands that Sonder’s users — about 6,500 in London acquired without paid marketing — tend to be less enthusiastic about overly intrusive uses of AI in their lives.
However, Sonder still uses AI. It’s just less flashy about it than mainstream apps. The app suggests matches for users by running an LLM to analyze user profile screenshots, figuring out who the user might want to meet. But Hassan says he refuses to introduce any AI profiling tools.
“I think at that point, it loses the human touch,” he said. “So even though we’re probably losing hundreds of users and there’s a lot of friction to create the profile, we want to make sure it’s a real person putting their own effort into creating that profile, because I think that also acts as an indicator of how much effort you’re really interested in putting into your connections.”
Sonder has yet to raise funding, and its founders work on the app part-time alongside their day jobs. But Hassan hopes Soder can secure funding and turn it into a full-time gig while remaining in London.
“Our lives are very tiring for us, to be honest. We work nine to five and then go host this event at the end of the day,” he said. “But the next day, when I actually watch the videos, it’s really cool to see people smiling so much and having genuine conversations.”
