Amanda Bradford, founder, CEO and chief engineer of the selective dating app and social networking community The League, had just gotten out of a five-and-a-half-year relationship when she realized she had “never dated anyone in the wild” . Scrolling for love was increasingly popular at the time, so Bradford decided to try it herself and found that many of her apps were missing features that were important to her.
“I remember writing a support ticket to one of the dating apps, saying, ‘You should really integrate with your LinkedIn profile,’ and as I’m writing this, I’m saying, ‘Maybe I should look up who runs these apps,’” Bradford says Entrepreneur. “Then I discovered that many of them were run by people with an even lower technical background than mine.”
Image credit: Courtesy of the League. Amanda Bradford.
So in 2014, at the age of 29, Bradford decided to create and launch his own dating app: The League, which aims to unite users looking for love who have “ambition and the desire to succeed”. Where other dating apps allowed people to reveal as little information about themselves as they wanted, Bradford would make certain details, such as education and career, mandatory to help its “gated community” find long-term partners without wasting time.
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The league also offered its users only three games per day to reduce the “transactional” nature associated with many other apps, particularly those based on swiping. Bradford’s app was sold to Match Group for $29.9 million in 2022. Today it also offers monetized features, including the ability to pay to watch all matches at once, starting at $99.99 a week. That might be a nice perk to have, but users don’t need to get high-quality matches, Bradford says, because you can “trust the algorithm.”
What does this mean exactly?
As much as dating app users have control over their profiles and the parameters they set for potential matches, ultimately, it’s the invisible algorithm behind each app that determines which people will be shown to each other. And many popular apps are unavailable As it happens. A Bumble spokesperson said this The limit that its algorithm learns from user stories to produce matches; Hinge’s former vice president of design and product informed the outlet that he uses a variation of the Gale-Shapley algorithm to match compatible users.
“One of the things I didn’t like about other apps is that… they just gave you all the ones that fit your preferences.”
Luckily, Bradford, who has continued to serve as the League’s lead engineer since its sale to Match Group, was willing to shed more light on what goes on behind the scenes and share how users can better position themselves for success, in terms of high-quality matches that could lead to great first dates and long-term partnerships.
It’s important to note that, unlike many other apps, The League relies on “dual preference matching,” where a user only sees a profile if their preferences match those of the other user and vice versa. It might seem like a no-brainer, but research suggests that men are more likely than women to use dating apps, and the uneven gender ratio could cause some algorithms to be less insightful.
“One of the things I didn’t like about other apps is that, partly because they give you so many people, and they just need to be able to give you multiple profiles, they would just give you everyone that fits your preferences,” says Bradford. “So let’s say I only wanted to see men aged 35 to 40. That doesn’t mean I don’t show myself to men aged 18 to 60.”
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Dual preference matching “narrows the field significantly,” Bradford admits, but points out that they’re called “preferences” and not just “filters” because they are exactly that: a user’s desires. The League isn’t “inventing” people, so if there aren’t enough profiles that match all of someone’s preferences within a given radius, things “get a little more complicated” and the algorithm has to prioritize the person’s wishes. user.
Nowadays, users can choose which preference is most important to them in the app, Bradford says, but of course there’s still a lot that goes into pairing people up.
“In general, women are just more demanding than men. So I imagine it’s easier for a woman to get a higher score than a man on average.”
One of the most significant factors is the overall “likeability” or “desirability” of a profile. “So if three people see me and only one likes me, then I am [at] at that point a like rate of 33%,” explains Bradford. “And so if there’s one other person who likes it three out of three, the like rate is 100%. So that person will probably be shown more than the person who doesn’t like them as much, because we’ll get more matches.”
The idea is to “bring people closer to people who perform at the same level,” grouping them into so-called “cohorts” or “quintiles,” Bradford adds, even if that doesn’t necessarily mean physical attractiveness. More than anything, the overall quality of a user’s profile is critical.
So this is the first trick for people looking for better results: make your profile as good as possible. You should have high-quality photos with a mix of close-ups and full-body shots AND Completely fill in all fields.
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“In general, women are simply more demanding than men,” notes Bradford. “So I guess it’s easier for a woman to get a higher score than a man on average. I also believe this is because men spend less time on their profiles or maybe they’re not as good at advertising themselves. ‘There is never a man who has a 100% acceptance rate, while there are women who could get to that level.’ That’s why the algorithm also normalizes for gender.
Furthermore, the app rewards users who send the first message, always reply and are active every day.
“If you’re a little more open-minded, open to men who are maybe a little shorter, those people will really help you hit your score.”
Although the app does its best to take into account the user’s “explicit preferences” or what they To say want in a match – is also capturing the “shadow preferences” – or the way someone Actually behaves when presented with a profile that doesn’t check all the boxes. For example, a user might say they want someone within a one-mile radius, then proceed to like the profiles of people 15 to 20 miles away.
This leads to Bradford’s second important piece of advice for people hoping for high-quality matches: keep an open mind and consider how restrictive your settings are. She uses the example of a theoretical woman who chooses only to see men between the ages of 35 and 37 who are at least 6’2″ and live in the West Village of New York City.
“So you’re basically saying I only want a very competitive, very small portion of these men to see me,” Bradford explains. “You’re asking yourself to be rated or ranked by a high-caliber group, a high-demand group. So you’re actually doing yourself a disservice because if you’re a little more open-minded, you’re open to men who maybe are a little lower, those people will actually help you score because they might be more open to your profile.”
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And if users change their settings and see someone they’re on the fence about, Bradford encourages them to give them a “like.” Because even though the league’s mantra is “never settle,” taking this chance can pay off in a couple of ways. Not only could that pairing “overwhelm you with a really charming first date invitation,” Bradford says, but it will also boost your profile.
“People would rather have it [person] meeting all their other preferences and being in another city versus not meeting their preferences but being next door.”
And one last secret to success? Consider broadening your settings to include people from other cities – it’s an increasingly popular move.
“We’re seeing a greater openness to distance, which used to cause people to say, ‘Oh hard, no, I’m in a different city,’” Bradford says. “Now we see it’s not a big deal. People would rather have it [person] satisfy all their other preferences and be in another city rather than not satisfy their preferences but be next to them.”
According to Bradford, if you’re open to multiple cities, “you can basically double your matches,” increasing your chances of finding The One this Valentine’s Day and beyond.