If you haven't had enough luck to find "the one" on Tinder, maybe it's because there are so many users on the app that it becomes difficult to filter the good matches from the bad.
The League is hoping to solve that problem. This new dating app targets only the most successful and ambitious users and keeps the rest out.
Though many have labeled The League as the "Tinder for elitists" (its name does imply finding someone that is in your "league," after all), founder Amanda Bradford prefers to phrase it as curating members, according to a recent interview with Business Insider.
"The best universities curate students. Employers curate their employees. Work and school are the top places where 20-somethings meet each other. So it makes sense for a dating community," Bradford told Business Insider.
To join this club, you have to be deemed cool enough by Bradford and her team based on their own special algorithm, which includes scanning social media sites like LinkedIn and Facebook to make sure applicants are in the right age group and are "career-oriented." Right now, most users are female, in their late 20s and have advanced degrees. The League has matched up 20,000 people so far, creating 19 couples.
Once you're in, you get one "ticket" that you can give to a friend to join without having to go through this evaluation process. Everyone else gets put on a wait list.
The League really is trying to take on Tinder in a big way. It just raised $2.1 million from several angel investors, including five of Bradford's former professors at Stanford, where she received her MBA. The League was first launched in San Francisco, and Bradford would like to see it go live in New York next.
Of course, it's always refreshing to see a woman lead a tech company, especially an online dating app, an arena which can sometimes be unpleasant for female users, to say the least. However, The League isn't the first app to try to combat the creepiness of online dating for women. Wyldfire is a dating app where women invite men to join. Coffee Meets Bagel is another dating app founded by three sisters that tries to make matches based on mutual Facebook friends.
As BuzzFeed points out, The League has received a lot of criticism for not being too different from all of the dating apps already out there. However, Bradford believes that what differentiates The League from other dating apps is that it's "a little more grown up and tasteful, for young professionals who want to go out for a coffee or a drink and aren't just about hooking up," she told Business Insider.
Though The League is still in its early stages, it doesn't sound like it has been super-successful at actually making matches so far. However, with a more refined user base, it does seem like you could have a better online dating experience than on most dating apps. If you get in, that is.
Image: Guian Bolisay / Flickr
