RICHMOND, Va. — After flirting with a launch in Richmond, a national dating app has gotten serious about the idea.
The League, an online service that connects singles – with an emphasis on those who are career-focused – will launch in Richmond today with 500 users signed on.
“It is such a booming place right now,” The League spokeswoman Meredith Davis said of the Richmond market. “We weren’t even planning on launching in Richmond until January 2019.”
Richmond is among six other cities in which the League is going live today – Cincinnati, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Milwaukee, Vancouver and Montreal.
The company, founded in 2014 in San Francisco by Amanda Bradford, uses word-of-mouth promotion and a waitlist to find its target markets.
Once a waitlist has reached a large enough mass, market research is conducted to examine age demographics (The League primarily is in the 25 to 35 range), proximity to universities, companies that employ users and how many singles there are in an area.
“Large- and medium sized cities have a large cohort of business and career professionals,” Davis said. “They all struggle with apps to find a serious relationship where it’s a game of hot or not. We’re looking for more substance in relationships.”
Davis said the company sped up its launch in Richmond because of higher-than-expected interest. She said more than 3,000 people have downloaded the app and, with the exception of the “founding class” of 500 users, will remain on the waitlist as the company rolls out more accepted singles on a weekly basis.
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