WESTERN LOOP — a geosocial that is new app developed in Chicago is designed to produce a “mind-blowing” experience for lesbians.
Fueled by her frustration utilizing the lack of quality lesbian dating apps in the marketplace, Gold Coast resident Allison Ullrich has established the mobile software Scissr, a dating application that caters solely to lesbian women. The free application is anticipated to be around for down load this week or next.
Scissr is much like the location-based hookup that is gay Grindr, “only classier,” Ullrich said.
Ullrich informs Stephanie Lulay that she really wants to help better link the lesbian community in Chicago:
The concept for the application had been sparked by Ullrich’s very own experiences dating and living in Boston. After closing a relationship, she relocated to Chicago 1ВЅ years back to pursue employment into the business sector.
Inside her new town, 36-year-old Ullrich noticed she was not truly the only lesbian girl whom had an arduous time fulfilling other lesbian females up to now.
“we think exactly what spawned the theory had been life — reality — and conversations i have had with my buddies regarding relationships and ladies,” said Ullrich, that is the overall supervisor of Brooklyn Boulders Chicago, an inside facility that is climbing the western Loop.
Unlike straight individuals, she could not simply walk as much as any girl in a conventional club. And unlike the well-known Boystown establishments that appeal to homosexual guys in Chicago, Ullrich unearthed that there isn’t an identical community that attracted a mostly lesbian clientele.
“Females have this conundrum about fulfilling others, but no body ended up being trying to find article a remedy,” she stated.
‘Make women feel welcome’
While Ullrich had been straight back regarding the East Coast along with her friend that is longtime Adam, she reported about that dating “conundrum.” Quickly, Beck had been encouraging Ullrich to build up a software to fix the necessity she saw.
Ullrich had never ever developed a software. Within the next couple of months, Ullrich and Beck, whom finalized on to co-create the application, researched the marketplace to find out if your lesbian that is viable application existed.
“Even though I experienced this frustration, I experienced never ever really taken the full time to see if there clearly was an application that i really could utilize,” she said, including it’s maybe not something her friends talked about. “Ordinarily, being a lesbian community we’d count on Match or okay Cupid.”
Those standard heterosexual web sites yielded a tiny pool of lesbian ladies, she stated. Pink Cupid, a lesbian dating website, proved disappointing, too, Ullrich stated.
The few lesbian apps that are dating found were defunct or wasn’t marketed precisely, she stated. Other apps aimed toward lesbians, launched in Germany therefore the great britain, had been geofenced, and therefore their GPS system that is location-based perhaps not register in other locales.
By using western Loop-based Ora Interactive, Ullrich and Beck invested the the following year developing the Scissr application, designing and branding Scissr to guarantee the application would “make females feel welcome,” Ullrich stated.
How it functions
Exactly like Grindr, the Scissr software taps in to the global positioning system on the a device that is mobile figure out the consumer’s location along with other users nearby.
Scissr users will be able to content other users, suggest on them or include them for their personal “wish list. they have a “crush””
Females will also have the ability to indicate what type of conversation they have been searching for, including alternatives for those who require a hookup; love and relationship; networking; and relationship. An individual may also recognize her identity that is sexual on application as lesbian, bisexual or interested.
The application encourages females 18 and older to upload three pictures and compose a bio that is 300-character.
Version 2.0
While Scissr is releasing as being a app that is dating Ullrich’s bigger objective is always to build the software in to a community that connects Chicago’s lesbian community, ultimately making it simpler to meet up other lesbians in individual.
In Boston, Ullrich said she had been fascinated with the coexisting lesbian circles that are social the way they interacted with one another.
“we hate saying this, but it is very nearly as ‘The L Word’ portrays that it is,” Ullrich stated of this Showtime drama that depicted the everyday lives of lesbian feamales in western Hollywood.
“as soon as you understand everyone, one of many things my buddies would constantly say, there is the frustration of where can you fulfill [other lesbians] you go to hang out, to do things and enjoy things as a lesbian,” she said that you don’t know and where else can.
Determining how big the U.S. population that is lesbian hard. Four surveys that are recent on intimate orientation in America grouped all lesbian, homosexual, bisexual and transgender responders within one team. As well as within that big context, the estimates varied widely; the studies determined that 2.2 % to 4 percent of this U.S. populace identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
Making use of Census figures and also the four survey quotes, the UCLA-based Williams Institute estimates that 5.2 million to 9.5 million grownups within the United States identify as lesbian, homosexual, bisexual or transgender.
Inspite of the not enough information, Ullrich stated she had been confident that the lesbian populace in the U.S. figures into the millions, and that a sizable base of women will be thinking about using the location-based application, Ullrich stated.
“We want to link and promote those in the LGBT community through our separate or provided social interests,” she stated.