Singles fatigued by major players like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge are declaring themselves celibate or simply turning back to their exes. It's created chaos for the swipe-built businesses. Meanwhile, Match Group, which owns Tinder and Hinge, was sued this year over claims that it made its apps addictive, though Match Group has denied the claims.
Some see this as an opportunity. Startup founders around the world have sensed that the dating industry is ripe for disruption. In New York City, two healthcare workers who'd never started a business dove headfirst into reimagining the double date.
In Paris, a woman who worked for Microsoft leveraged decades of experience in tech to create a digital map of missed connections. On Instagram, the influencer Serena Kerrigan took matters into her own hands by letting followers shoot their shots in a mass group chat. Investors are also paying attention. Rex Woodbury, the founder of Daybreak Ventures, told Business Insider last month that internet-dating companies were "very disruptable in this moment.
When setting out to build a dating app, swiping fatigue was top of mind for Vaish Sesetty and Cyrus Belsoi, the founders of the dating app Pique. The two cofounders previously worked at Amazon Web Services and Datadog, respectively.
The Pique app gives users up to six matches a day after answering a daily multiple-choice question β and there's no swiping involved. In addition to its low-tech app, Pique hosts in-person events in New York City. The founders host speed-dating parties, where people answer a single question before the event begins, and a pop-up in McCarren Park in Brooklyn on weekends, where parkgoers can snap a picture in real time and write out a bio and passersby can inquire about the singles posted on the wall.
