Zach Schleien, co-founder and CEO Filteroff, joins Cheddar News to discuss his app and navigating the online dating world. 

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Filteroff CEO Talks Speed Dating in the Digital Age

thanks between bells baker machado and new york, the dating scene nowadays can be pretty intimidating. There's Bumble Tinder hinge, the list goes on, however one app is taking the online dating scene and turning it on its head, filter up is an online speed dating app with the mission to facilitate authentic connections between users. So joining us now to discuss is the co founder and ceo of filter off Zach, Schlein Zach, good to have you here. So I mentioned a myriad of different dating apps that are out there, I'm sure you get this question all the time. How does a company like filter off sort of stand out in this sort of crowded sphere? Yeah, first of all, thanks so much for having me on were unlike other dating apps, we try not to compete in that sense, we really lean into community. So we have different sort of virtual speeding events and in person events in new york for different communities and by that you mean events? You mean groups of people with certain things that they have in common, What do you mean by community? Yeah, so a community, we define a community, whether it's a religious community, it could be a dog lovers event, it could be a vegan singles event, so the list goes on and on, it's just a way to bring like minded singles together. Okay, so you have mentioned in articles in the past that swiping, which we see people doing all the time, not really the most authentic form of a connection. What do you mean by that? And how does filter off sort of differentiate itself from that? Yeah, I mean especially with Tinder bringing out the swipe and now everyone has copied that. Uh, it's really for us, it's about dating people and not profiles. We want people to have meaningful connection on filter off and that's why we have a video first component. So when you go on these speed dates, there are about three minutes in length And it's really about getting to know people again and not just swiping on profile. So when somebody gets into a speed dating event, what are these sort of experience in this, what do they sort of see here in terms of potential connections? Yeah. So once they are SJP and confirm that they'll be there filter awful schedule, their dates based off their preferences. And you may have up to 10 dates that night. And when you go into your first date on the filter off at it's a speed dates times you can play different icebreaker games and once the date concludes, you'll say whether you like them or not and you move on to your next date. Once the event ends, you'll see who got matched with and then you can message or video call. I was actually gonna lead to my next question is the impetus here to talk to these people in, you know online, you know, through video chats or are you sort of trying to push people to meet in person here. For us, it's really important to start with the video chat and then it's on them if they have that feeling of connection, what users often tell us is then they'll go on a longer video date and then meet up in person. So what are some of the success stories that you've heard so far from users who have maybe found the love of their life on this? Yeah, well, it was funny, we just hosted a yacht party for a gen Z tech community and had users come up to me and they said I met my significant other on your app. We've literally created a number of marriages, some of which have been covered in some the largest publications. So it's really awesome to see. So what goes into developing and creating something like this, what was sort of the process like because we've had you on this network before and obviously things have gotten much better from the pandemic. Did you see success in the pandemic? That has led you guys to where you are now? And how did you sort of gravitate from that? Yeah, I mean pre pandemic video was just not a thing. People often thought it was weird to video chat before. A first date. The pandemic really changed the culture of online dating nowadays. If you're not willing to video chat before being up in person, it's almost like you're hiding something. So really just accelerated user behavior of video first. What have you learned about your users in terms of what they want when they're looking for somebody special in dating because look at all these other dating apps, swiping communities groups, but what do you sort of think the user really wants at the end of the day to find that perfect match. Yeah, I mean, first of all online dating is hard. Um you use typical swipe apps, you may have hundreds of matches and you've met none of them. What they love about filter off is that we actually facilitate the connection, the video first connection you see if you like one another and they just want to be able to meet a number of people that are like minded. That's why they enjoy this community or value oriented events and they just want to see if they vibe and then if they vibe they want to meet, you have raised millions of dollars so far, you know, funding for this, What's sort of the next steps, where do we kind of see this company sort of going in the future? Yeah, so we host virtual speeding events around the world. We've hosted now over 15,000 virtual speeding events were also hyper focused on new york city. We host in person events every week with some really cool brands in different communities. Well, congratulations and all the success, co founder and ceo of filter off Zach Schlein zack, thank you so much for joining us