It can be hard to bring up the topic of having children with a new romantic partner. That’s why one new dating app gets it over with at the very beginning.
Dating app heybaby was designed for people who either want kids in the future or currently have kids. On Tuesday, the company announced its U.S. launch. Although heybaby is based in Austin, the app is first launching in San Francisco. It’ll be available in other cities in the future.
heybaby was founded by three dads, Diko Daghlian, Chas McFeely and Rene Van De Zande. They realized that, although a higher percentage of people are meeting their lifelong partners online, most dating apps cater toward people looking for casual hookups or to meet someone to start a relationship with. These apps don’t really address building a family together, despite the fact that that’s a very important part of having a relationship for many people.
“Despite the popularity of dating apps, talking about the desire for children or existing children from previous relationships remains a fraught topic that’s hard to bring up in the early days of dating,” co-founder McFeely said in a statement. “We saw an opportunity to remove the stress and anxiety around the topic and allow potential couples to simply focus on getting to know one another.”
The app also caters to single parents who are looking to date. Dating as a single parent can be a bit more complicated than dating without kids, but heybaby wants to remove the stigma surrounding it, and give the 13.7 million single parents in the United States the tools they need to meet that special someone.
When people sign up to use the app, it asks questions to assess the person’s current family situation and future family goals. But the app also goes a step further and asks questions to assess what type of parent that person is; asking questions about how neat they like to keep their house and so on. Based on these questions and the user’s preferences, the app will give a compatibility score when suggesting potential partners.
“We designed heybaby not to just match up potential couples, but potential parents. As much as we’re looking to create love between two people, we’re also looking to create happy and healthy families for life.” McFeely added.
The app is currently available on the iOS App Store.
