Kayak Founder Debuts New App Lola Dating
Contributed by: kellyseal on Monday, November 20 2023 @ 09:15 am
Last modified on Monday, November 20 2023 @ 09:29 am
Peter English, who founded popular travel site Kayak.com, has turned to a new venture. He and his partner Rachel Cohen are launching an app called Lola Dating.
According to a feature in The Boston Globe, Lola is designed to get people to meet IRL. The app offers users a calendar up front, and invites them to look for openings over the next four days (the sooner they can schedule a date, the better it seems). Lola users can mark the times and dates they are free, and the app takes it from there, matching them only with people available on the same night. The app will only be available for residents of Boston at launch.
According to its founders, meeting in real life quickly is key. They met after connecting on Bumble and instead of messaging back and forth, scheduled to meet in person right away. They were both convinced that endless messaging without getting to know each other in real life was a real problem among dating app users.
“Ever since we met,” Cohen told The Boston Globe[*1] , “we have been talking about dating apps and what the issues have been. There’s a lot of chatting and ghosting frustrations. People have these long chats, and they never end up going out. I think after COVID ... people are going back to wanting camaraderie, conversation, and having meals with each other.”
There are times when people must cancel plans, and Lola Dating’s founders say they have taken this into consideration. Flaky behavior becomes a problem when it happens too often, so if canceling becomes routine for a member, they are kicked off the service.
A more questionable element of the app is the review feature, where users can anonymously share why a person wasn’t a match. Based on previous apps that featured reviews of people and their behavior, it leaves open the possibility for someone to get smeared by a date gone wrong.
Cohen defended the feature this way to The Boston Globe: “Maybe you talked about your ex too much. Maybe you were rude to the waitstaff, didn’t offer to pay, or wore too much fragrance.” She added that it is to provide feedback so that users can take action for “things that can actually change.”
The app is a new venture under English’s Boston Venture Studio. It’s not officially launching until December, but is available in the app store, and people can also sign up on the app’s website. Pricing isn’t yet available, but it will be tiered, similar to popular apps like Tinder and Bumble.
In fact, the company has founders of Hinge, The League, and Tinder as part of its advisory committee. The goal for Lola Dating now is to get at least 5,000 people on the waiting list for its launch in Boston.