Invite-only dating app for ‘intelligent’ singles arrives in city Tuesday
There are two glaring problems with swipe-based, online dating apps like Tinder and Bumble: first, there’s no way of knowing your matches are the elite singles in your area. Second, there’s no way of knowing for certain you’re one of the elite singles in your area.
Exclusive, invite-only dating app The League aims to address both issues.
Already live in 34 U.S. cities, as well as three international hot spots (London, Paris and Toronto), The League launches in Vancouver on Tuesday.
The League, which bills itself as “a dating app catering to the intelligent, educated and ambitious,” was founded by Amanda Bradford in 2014, after the entrepreneur had an epiphany: Tinder can help you sidestep the unattractive, but it does nothing to protect you from the indigent, and under-employed.
“She realized that on Tinder it was just a swipe culture, a swipe game,” said spokeswoman Meredith Davis. “You weren’t able to get someone’s education or profession, or really any context about a person besides the photos. She believed it was important to know those things up front before going on a date.”
Already boasting a wait-list of 3,000, The League plans to launch with just 500 carefully-curated users, dubbed its “Founding Class,” proving that even among the elite, there is always another echelon.
Those first 500 will enjoy a much higher-minded online dating experience in their digital-gated community, including a human concierge, who responds to all queries within four hours.
“Every user can go into their League app and talk to their concierge, and it’s a real person,” Davis explained. Should you match with anyone you feel is “not serious,” for instance, you can take it to the concierge.
After all, The League is designed for “aspiring power couples,” according to a news release.
“There’s a lot of dating apps that anyone can download and immediately have a hookup,” Davis said.
Hookups are gauche. The League’s singles merely “connect,” jet-setting and hitting the slopes together, building lasting connections and meeting on rooftops, presumably.
You’re going on dates — The League’s singles are going on trips, which is, of course, something they can all afford to do.
“We just went on a trip to Paris with 70 of our users for an entire week. We did a trip in Vale to go skiing, and I know there are plenty of Vancouver users already asking for a Banff ski trip,” said Davis.
But The League’s supporters bristle at the notion that the app — which features a hyper-selective designed to weed out all the duds before a human review team takes a second pass at the remaining candidates, accepting some, wait-listing others, and giving the cold shoulder to the rest — is elitist.
Asked about the criticism, Davis compared The League’s choosy nature to that of a university.
“It’s not (elitist) at all, unless you want to consider every university to be elitist, which I don’t think is true,” said Davis.
“We don’t look at how much anyone makes, it’s not about the school that you go to, it’s not about the job that you have — it’s are you ambitious, are you driven?”
The League determines whether or not you’re ambitious and driven by examining your education level and employment history via your LinkedIn page.
“We authenticate with LinkedIn,” said Davis. “We’re one of the only dating apps that have the LinkedIn API.”
In other words, if you’re the sort of person who would never used LinkedIn for anything, The League is probably not for you.
But that’s fine. They probably don’t want you either.
“At the end of the day, we’re trying to build a community of people who are serious about looking for the one,” Davis said.