Need A Stanford MBA To Do A Dating App?

DATING APPS, SHE SAYS, HAVE ‘THIS REPUTATION FOR A ONE NIGHT STAND OR A HOOKUP’

But she saw problems with Tinder. There was the sleaze factor. There were millions of users, making it hard to sort out who might be compatible. Also, dating apps had a stigma, “this reputation for a one night stand, or a hookup,” she says. Furthermore, getting on such an app made a user’s search for love – or whatever – public. Many successful people didn’t want their personal and professional brands potentially tainted by association with a dating app.

“There was this kind of mismatch: the more successful you were, the less likely you were to be on a dating app,” Bradford says.

The light switch was thrown. Instead of creating another app for the masses who clutter massively popular dating app Tinder with offensive comments and tasteless photos, she would create an alternative to be populated by “a high caliber community” who are smart, well-educated and successful.

PRIVACY SETTINGS PREVENT BECOMING THE TALK OF THE WATER COOLER

With The League, most new membership will come via referrals, and the app will use an algorithm to evaluate applicants’ educational and professional qualifications. The app will have privacy settings to regulate who sees a member’s profile, barring, for example, colleagues. “You don’t have to worry about being the talk of the water cooler at work,” Bradford says.

While many people, no doubt, have wished for a better dating app or thought about creating one, Bradford’s position at Stanford put her in a position to do something about it. “The Stanford ecosystem is very, very supportive,” she says. “I’ve never been to a more entrepreneurial place. Half my classes were on entrepreneurship, and launching a company, and how to start a company – it’s in the water there. I went to a ton of people for advice, from faculty, to speakers on campus, to alums, to people on campus who had done startups.”

She applied successfully to get into the Stanford Venture Studio, a facility in which graduate students from all disciplines can test out and develop business ideas, taking part in group sessions, getting advice from successful entrepreneurs and alumni, and taking part in practice pitch exercises and skills workshops.

INDEPENDENT STUDY PROGRAM HELPED HER DEVELOP THE IDEA

Bradford refined her idea by pitching it to BASES, the Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students. And she sought constant feedback from her girlfriends, who were members of her target market of smart, up-and-coming young people. Her GSB friends, she says, were “very instrumental in shaping the product and feature set.”

During a GSB independent study course, Bradford built the app’s wireframes, essentially blueprints for pages. She created the technical specifications. But when she outsourced prototype development to India, she ran into difficulties, as she found no effective way to create the prototype without working side by side with other developers.

Ultimately, she joined forces with Derrick Staten, who received a BA in International Relations from Stanford, but has expertise in mobile operating systems and experience in the venture capital arena.

Now, the two are putting the final touches on the app, and continue to gather would-be members onto a waiting list. They hope to launch within weeks, first in San Francisco, eventually in up to 10 major U.S. cities.

Will it be worth her big investment in a Stanford MBA? Who knows? But she’s already getting plenty of publicity. Sex, after all, sells. And sex among elites may just sell better.

What Kinds of Startups Come Out of Stanford? Not Many Dating App Firms

Industry	Percent
Finance	17%
Media & Entertainment	13%
Human Resources	11%
Retail	9%
Healthcare	8%
Consumer Products	5%
Education	5%
Energy/Cleantech	5%
Software	5%
Consulting	3%
E-Commerce	3%
Real Estate	3%
Hospitality/Tourism	2%
Manufacturing	2%
Marketing	2%
Non-Profit	2%
Other	2%
Total	100%