A new dating app, Sonder, has a deliberately annoying sign-up process (and it’s working)

Sonder’s founders couldn’t bear to encounter one more dating app profile in which someone boldly declared that their most controversial opinion is that they like pineapple on pizza. “We didn’t learn that people are frustrated through user calls or interviews or any of that,” co-founder Mehedi Hassan told TechCrunch. “We learned that through our own experience – we’re just like, this can’t be it.” This observation – that dating apps are a slot machine of misery – is about as unoriginal as bragging on Hinge that you were Time Magazine’s 2006 Person of the Year ( we all were !). So Hassan and three friends, all in their mid-twenties, set out to create an app that doesn’t suck. With Sonder , the four London-based founders — Mehedi Hassan, Helen Sun, Lenard Pratt, and Hannah Kin — sought to create an app that felt less like a job application and more like Pinterest or MySpace. (They mention MySpace as an inspiration, despite being too young to have used it at its peak.) “With the format of existing dating apps, the intention is lowering the barrier to entry and improving access, allowing for introverts to meet a bunch of people easily,” co-founder Helen Sun told TechCrunch. “Those intentions were really good at the beginning, but based on the way those apps have evolved, I think it’s become a very monotonous thing, and people are suffering from burnout because there’s a loss of authenticity.” Sonder profiles are completely unstructured, encouraging users to build something that looks like a mood board or a digital collage. People can connect over the app, but they can also attend quirky in-person events that Sonder organizes, like a “Speed Drawing” event, “Presentation Night,” or a “ Performative Male Contest ” (it’s a thing , I promise). Sonder can be used for both platonic and romantic connections, which makes its in-person events feel less intimidating — you’re not entering a space where everyone is on the prowl. Techcrunch event Disrupt 2026: The tech ecosystem, all ...