Let's Go CEO and co-founder Austin Bohlig likes to joke that he was inspired to create his own dating app after having little luck on others.
He has the same complaint as many others who've used dating apps like Bumble, Tinder and Hitch: It's really hard to tell how much you have in common with a person based on a few pictures and a couple sentences. Wouldn't it be easier to know you have similar interests from the get go?
Bohlig's solution was to create Let's Go, an app that allows both singles and couples to craft perfect "date experiences" by connecting them with deals at restaurants, bowling alleys, breweries and other establishments across town.
Through this approach, Let's Go hopes to connect Twin Cities singles who have common interests and help those in relationships find fun new date ideas. And of course, it's also beneficial to local places hoping to get more people in the door.
"The world doesn't need another dating app," Bohlig said. "People need a better way to connect and create new experiences together."
Here's how it works on the singles side: individuals sign up for the app, and add a picture and a short bio. They then select activities that they're interested in, as well as dates and times when they're available. The person will then be thrown into a pool of others with similar interests and availabilities.
The biggest pitfall of most dating apps is that if they are effective, users will start a relationship and leave the app. Let's Go aims to tackle this issue and keep couples on board by offering exclusive "Date Deals," discounts at breweries, theaters, bowling alleys and other places around town. Let's Go currently has partnerships with 40 businesses in the Twin Cities, Bohlig told Minne Inno.
He added that the Date Deals have been a very popular draw to the app. More than half (around 60 percent) of Let's Go's current users are couples.
Let's Go launched on the Apple App Store in April, and on Google Play in August. The app was created by New Lion, a Minneapolis-based app dev shop. Since Let's Go's debut, Bohlig said, it has been averaging around 100 downloads each week, and has been downloaded more than 3,000 times total.
Prior to starting Let's Go with co-founders Bryant Bohling, Mitch Bebus and Thomas Korf earlier this year, Bohlig was an associate at Minneapolis-based venture capital firm Loup Ventures.
Let's Go doesn't just make matches for its users. Bohlig said that he and his co-founders have used the app themselves. Bebus, the company's director of partnerships, was the very first person to match with and start dating someone he met on the app.
"For a little while there we were batting 100 percent," Bohlig joked.
Bohlig and his co-founders are actively fundraising, and hope to close a $1 million seed round in 2019. They plan to use these funds to bring the development of their app in house, and add a function to their platform that makes it easier for businesses to add their own deals to Let's Go. Right now, Bohlig and his co-founders are doing so on their own.
"We don't want to be branded as just a coupon app or just a dating app," Bohlig said. "We hope that we're creating something that allows users to build meaningful dates around common experiences."
