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As Valentine\u2019s Day approaches at Stanford, some students may be gearing up for first dates \u2014 not with people they met on Tinder or Hinge, but with matches from a service called Date Drop<\/a>, designed by Stanford graduate student Henry Weng. Date Drop pairs students with potential dates once per week based on their responses to a questionnaire.<\/p>\n A Stanford whiz kid is trying to disrupt an established industry from his Palo Alto dorm? Stop me<\/a> if you\u2019ve heard this<\/a> one before<\/a>! But young adults are deeply disillusioned<\/a> with the frustrating, demoralizing state of online dating<\/a>. Why not try something different?<\/p>\n Over 5,000 students at Stanford have given Date Drop a try since its launch in the fall. It has also rolled out at 10 more schools, including MIT, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania, and Weng says he wants to roll out Date Drop more broadly in some cities this summer.<\/p>\n \u201cOur matches convert to actual dates at about 10x the rate of Tinder,\u201d Weng told TechCrunch. \u201cInstead of swiping, we get to know each person deeply and send them one compatible match per week.\u201d<\/p>\n At first, Weng didn\u2019t intend to turn Date Drop into the foundation of a startup. Then, a close friend of his met their partner via Date Drop. \u201cThat was when I got the sense that this was less of a project,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Now, Weng thinks of Date Drop as just the first service from his startup, The Relationship Company<\/a>, which is a public benefit corporation \u2014 a type of company legally required to consider social impact alongside profits.<\/p>\n \u201cThis started as something I just wanted to exist on campus, and it became a company because people kept on asking for it in their schools and I needed resources to do that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBoston, MA<\/span> Already, Weng has raised \u201ca few million\u201d from some angel investors, including Zynga founder and early Facebook backer Mark Pincus, who has taught business courses at Stanford (including to Weng). Andy Chen, a former partner at Coatue, and Elad Gil, an early backer of Airbnb, Stripe, and Pinterest, also invested in The Relationship Company.<\/p>\n \u201cThe long-term vision at The Relationship Company is about facilitating all meaningful relationships: friendships, professional connections, community, events,\u201d Weng said.<\/p>\n It\u2019s par for the course to use algorithms to predict if users of a dating service may be compatible with one another \u2014 that\u2019s how dating apps work. But Weng says his model is more geared toward forging long-term connections, with 95% of Date Drop users saying they\u2019re interested in relationships.<\/p>\n Weng explains that there are two core elements at play. First, the questionnaire needs to be thorough enough to capture a real picture of who someone is. \u201cWe do that through the questions, open-ended responses, a voice conversation, and other data that the users provide,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The next challenge is compatibility prediction. \u201cBecause we help people plan dates, we have data on which matches actually work out. So we have a model trained on real-world outcomes,\u201d he said. \u201cOnce you have those two components, the actual matching is standard stuff from matching theory literature.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJune 23, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n