Shuffle is an innovative modern speed dating platform that allows you to more easily make IRL connections. We sat down with Co-Founders Andy Trattner and Austin Yeo to learn more.

Tell us about yourselves. How did you meet?

We actually met playing chess, of all things. We competed against each other in the Portland high school state chess championship - Andy went to Lincoln, and Austin went to La Salle. Andy was the top-rated high school senior in Oregon, only losing one game - to Austin!

Andy: I don’t even remember the game
Austin: It was the highlight of my chess career!

From there, Andy went to MIT and worked in tech, and Austin worked in recruiting while running a chess meetup in Portland on the side. Austin’s chess meetup continued to grow, and he began putting together partnerships with local bars. He wanted to build a business around chess where you’d have an app and be able to meet and play against people at similar skill levels.

Andy: Austin called me out of the blue and started pitching his chess app idea. It seemed like a great app but a terrible business. We started brainstorming around similar use cases and landed on dating. I had an entire team of engineers from another startup, so Austin actually paid me to build a v1 of the app. It started manually with iMessage and Google sheets, and then we quickly went on to automate it. I had done projects in the past that involved bringing people together with technology, and this felt like a natural extension of that.

Why speed dating? Why is Shuffle better than other speed dating services or apps?

Other speed dating services are more old-school and often awkward, with people sitting side-by-side, able to hear each others’ conversations, and having to move down a line for each dating round. There are too many rounds, they are too short, and it’s exhausting (it feels like swiping). We wanted to remove the formality and allow the experience to be more casual. We actually don’t have an on-site host - it’s all run through your phone, and it feels like more of a scavenger hunt experience. No one else at the venue will even know it’s happening. You could even bring your friend to hang out and provide moral support, and they could just read a book in the corner without participating in the event.

Walk us through the process of attending a Shuffle event

You sign up online for a local event in your city. In order to ensure people actually show up to the event, we don’t allow refunds, and we also have a no-show fee. People have said they really like this, since it ensures people aren’t flakey.

We text people reminders before the event. We also have a code of conduct including being respectful and showing up on time. Before the event begins, you share a description of your appearance/attire, which is loaded into the system. When you arrive, you text us to check-in.

The dating always starts on time. You get a text at the start of each round with a descriptor of who to look for. You also get a text at the end of each round signifying it’s time to stop that conversation. Each round is between 8-10 minutes depending on the number of dates you have per event (you typically have 6-9 dates). There’s also a question prompt for each round so you have something to discuss. In between rounds, you have a few minutes to take notes, and we also have a longer break in the middle of the evening.

At the end of the evening, you can match or pass on each person you met. You can also report any users if they did not adhere to the code of conduct. You have about half a day to enter your match preferences, and then we will auto send you the match results. If you have any mutual matches, you’ll receive their contact information.

What’s next for Shuffle?

We’re actively expanding the number of cities we’re in. We have also been doing themed events (e.g., “have kids”), but we haven’t had people enter in any preferences yet - that’s coming. We’ll also be adding a “friend” option where you can like someone as a friend. Finally, we currently manually detect potential repeat pairings and ensure they don’t happen, and we’re working to automate that.

To learn more about Shuffle, go to their website