By Ellen Huet. This article originally appeared on Forbes, September 15, 2014.
Here’s the problem with dating apps in 2014: You want to be on one, but don’t want to be seen on one.
Especially if you’re someone visible, like a tech CEO, a venture capitalist, or anyone who considers himself or herself “kind of a big deal.”
That’s the pitch behind The League, a new dating app in private beta in San Francisco that aims to solve this problem — at least for people who are deemed special enough to join its rarefied ranks.
New members are mostly recruited through referrals, and an algorithm that looks at things like education and industry field determines who gets let in off the waiting list of several thousand. Unlike in other dating apps like Tinder, users in The League can also limit who sees their profile — no Facebook friends, coworkers,LinkedIn contacts or people who don’t meet your preferences.
The League was already branded “Tinder For Elitists.” But its co-founder, 29-year-old Amanda Bradford, hopes to emphasize its dedication to privacy as well as its curated membership.
The point is to be exposed to a “high-caliber community of people” while controlling who gets to swipe you, said Bradford, who was inspired to build the startup after finishing her Stanford MBA.
“I didn’t want to see or be seen by my friends, anyone I’d ever done business with,” said Bradford, whose work resume includes Google, Salesforce and Sequoia capital. “The thought of them swiping at me in a party dress and then me the next day going into the office and trying to get them to buy something felt really weird.”
For example, if a 25-year-old female user only wants to date men 35 and younger, she won’t be shown to 55-year-old men looking for a woman of any age — something other apps don’t promise, Bradford said.
“I call it ‘no voyeurism,’” she said.
For those particularly concerned about their face being seen on an app — but still interested in combing through the “Harvard hotties” that await — the app offers a paid membership.
That service, dubbed The Heavy Hitter, is aimed toward those who are “kind of a big deal,” the app says. For a tentative price of $15 per month, Heavy Hitters can survey the land without ever showing their face to someone deemed unworthy. That is, they get to pick first — and their profile is only shown to those they have already liked.
“I know a couple people who are like, ‘Every time I change my LinkedIn I get a Business Insider article written. If someone uploaded a picture of me on Tinder, it would definitely get an article written,’” Bradford said. “Those people just have higher stakes of where they put their face and what they do.”
Bradford hopes the app’s strict privacy controls will make it an option for those who have to keep up professional appearances but aren’t yet ready to hire a professional matchmaker for thousands of dollars — which many of the tech elite have done.
Bradford imagines C-level executives and “people running teams of 300 at Google or Facebook” as potential users.
“I know a lot of guys that aren’t even on dating apps because they are pretty successful, they have teams of people and they are meeting a lot of people every day at work. It’s just too risky for them to have their face seen on a dating app,” she said. “I thought this was a shame, that there was this whole demographic of people that were highly successful but felt too uncomfortable with the openness of dating apps.”
Bradford is not the first to see Tinder’s free-for-all approach to dating and pitch a more tailored version. Wyldfire, another new dating app, only allows men to join if they’ve been vouched for by a woman. Its tagline is “Ditch The Creeps.”
Even though online dating has generally become more accepted in recent years, these Tinder-with-privacy apps hinge on the claim that being seen on a dating app can tarnish a reputation.
The swipe, once an innocent gesture, is now something not just anyone should be able to do to your picture.
“I feel like some of these apps have built a one-night stand or hookup brands that women feel is detrimental to their personal brand,” Bradford said. “When you see the word next to your face, you’re like, ‘What does that say about me?’”
She thinks The League, which just raised a pre-seed round to get to a San Francisco launch, will be different because its crop is limited to people who are career-oriented and ambitious. Other dating apps don’t let you be picky, and they waste your time with people who aren’t always up to users’ standards.
Within The League’s current members, 45 percent have advanced degrees, 28 percent are director-level or higher, and 20 percent are CEOs, founders, co-founders or presidents, she said. Privacy controls are important, but so is weeding out the less-than-desirable applicants.
“If you just let everybody in, it’s another dating app,” Bradford said.