Garrett Love, a 2013 graduate of Abington Senior High School and a current resident of Cheltenham Township, launched an app this summer that he hopes will bring more people together.

Since his exit from the college lifestyle six years ago, the software engineer noticed a lag in his and others’ social lives and decided to use his skills to do something about it.

“Getting more out of social interactions is a problem that I’ve had, and still have, frankly,” he said. “The more I share the idea, the more I find that people want more from their social lives. We’re in this age of technology, and so many people want to change something.”

Love wondered if technology could help people design and build their social lives in ways that they envisioned.

“That was my hypothesis. I started talking to people from there to try get some more insight. I wanted to understand what they’re looking for,” he said. “After that, I created some designs and showed them to people to gauge responses and get some feedback. When I had some tangible, I started coding.”

“I envisioned this as something for people in their 20s and 30s, but there are people who’ve signed up who are in their 50s and 60s. The desire to meet new people doesn’t seem to fade out with age,” he said.

The first version of Lyfer was soft launched in late June in the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store. Since then, the app has slowly garnered users and recently hit two big milestones: the Android version launched last weekend, and the first match between multiple users was created last week. In other words, two strangers have now connected and are able to communicate through the app.

According to Love, one of the biggest complaints about dating apps is user fatigue. He says that Lyfer’s process is more straightforward: when a user wants to meet new people, they can tap the “Find Match” button. If there are compatible users in the area, they’ll be matched on the spot.

A second feature is that matches consist of groups of up to four people, “which is more like a friend group instead of the awkward stare down between two people who have never met,” he said.

“There’s no ‘swipe left’ for this app. With a lot of dating platforms, you have to wait for the other party to respond. With Lyfer, you can connect with new people on demand whenever you want without the other party approving of you, or a third party showing you that person in the first place,” Love said. “Dating apps want to keep you using, and don’t necessarily want you to meet someone and leave the app.”

Love notes that the future may change, but for now, the effort that has gone into Lyfer has been strictly pro bono.

“I want to create value first, and then maybe I’ll monetize it later,” Love said. “The value has to come first.”

The creator has upcoming features, one of which will function as a social planner for users and has the potential to impact local economies.

“Suppose four people in a match are all connected by a common interest—karaoke, for example—the app will know about that interest and connect the users with helpful information. The app will be able to identify a karaoke spot that’s equidistant to each person. Maybe it’s an upcoming event,” he said. “I think this will help the local community by getting people to patronize more local businesses. I think that’s a win for everyone.”

New Feature 1 displays the Match Screen, but with suggested events added at the bottom.
New Feature 2 displays the completely new screen showing a venue with some photos, info, and suggested upcoming events.

To check out the Android version of Lyfer, you can click here. For the Apple version, you can click here.

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