Sonder’s founders couldn’t bear to encounter one more dating app profile in which someone boldly declared that their most controversial opinion is that they like pineapple on pizza.
“We didn’t learn that people are frustrated through user calls or interviews or any of that,” co-founder Mehedi Hassan told TechCrunch. “We learned that through our own experience — we’re just like, this can’t be it.”
This observation — that dating apps are a slot machine of misery — is about as unoriginal as bragging on Hinge that you were Time Magazine’s 2006 Person of the Year (we all were!). So Hassan and three friends, all in their mid-twenties, set out to create an app that doesn’t suck.
With Sonder, the four London-based founders — Hassan, Helen Sun, Lenard Pratt, and Hannah Kin — sought to create an app that felt less like a job application and more like Pinterest or MySpace. (They mention MySpace as an inspiration, despite being too young to have used it at its peak.)
Sonder profiles are completely unstructured, encouraging users to build something that looks like a mood board or a digital collage. People can connect over the app, but they can also attend quirky in-person events that Sonder organizes, like a “Speed Drawing” event, “Presentation Night,” or a “Performative Male Contest” (it’s a thing, I promise).
“With the format of existing dating apps, the intention is lowering the barrier to entry and improving access, allowing for introverts to meet a bunch of people easily,” co-founder Helen Sun told TechCrunch. “Those intentions were really good at the beginning, but based on the way those apps have evolved, I think it’s become a very monotonous thing, and people are suffering from burnout because there’s a loss of authenticity.”
Sonder can be used for both platonic and romantic connections, 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 recurring events, because it’s nice when regular people come back,” Sun said. “It’s emulating run clubs in some way, where you have this reoccurring opportunity to meet people, but there is no pressure in that sense that you have to make it work the first time that you see someone.”
Running clubs have become something of a phenomenon for people to meet in person — the incentive for “productivity-maxxers” is that even if you don’t make a new connection, you at least get a workout in. But not everyone likes running, nor does everyone feel their flirtiest when they have visible sweat stains.
“I hate running,” Hassan chimes in. “Not everyone’s going to be interested in run clubs … Helen is interested in book clubs, but you could not pay me to go to a book club.”
Sonder is not 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 in-person experiences. But consumers are eager to try something new. For dating apps, early-stage startups can actually 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 feels a bit more inviting.
“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 special, rather than feel like swiping through job applications on LinkedIn.”
Established dating apps are also introducing flashy new features, like Bumble’s AI-powered dating assistant, or a tool Tinder is testing that analyzes photos from your camera roll to get to know you better.
Sonder is not squeamish about AI. Hassan’s day job is in 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 with no paid marketing — tend to be less enthusiastic about the overly intrusive uses of AI in their dating lives.
Sonder still uses AI, though. It’s just less flashy about it than mainstream apps. The app suggests matches for users by running an LLM to analyze screenshots of user profiles, figuring out who the user might want to meet. But Hassan says he refuses to introduce any AI profile-generation tools.
“I think at that point, it loses the human touch of it,” he said. “So even though we’re probably losing out on hundreds of users, and there’s a lot of friction setting up the profile, we want to make sure it’s an actual person putting their own effort in to make that profile, because I think that also acts as an indicator of how much effort you’re actually interested in putting into your connections.”
Sonder has not yet raised funding, and its founders work on the app part-time, alongside their day jobs. But Hassan hopes Sonder can secure funding and turn into a full-time gig while remaining London-based.
“Our life is very tiring for us, to be honest. We work nine to five, then go to host this event at the end of the day,” he said. “But the next day, when I actually go through the videos, it’s actually really nice to see people smiling so much and having genuine conversations.”
