Their dating app struggled to get new users — so they started an AI marketing company, too

Founders of the queer dating app Bindr developed an AI-powered marketing tool to overcome a common problem often faced by early-stage startups. 

Now they’ve spun that tool into a whole second venture that’s gaining traction with other dating apps. 

Known as the “cold start” problem, companies like social media platforms or dating apps that launch with no users but rely on having a network to be valuable often have trouble attracting the first patrons who will help the platform grow organically moving forward. 

Despite its struggles with cold start, Bindr has now amassed over 250,000 users since it launched two and a half years ago, thanks to AI content generation tech built by cofounder and CTO Brandon Teller. It’s been so successful that the Bindr cofounders recently spun out a new startup, aptly named ColdStart, to sell a software development kit that quickly generates marketing content adaptable to companies’ target audiences — and it’s already raised $160,000. 

“ColdStart is now the thing that can fund things like Bindr,” Teller told Technical.ly. “We could run this app that helps the [LGBTQ] community and take monetization out of it.” 

Founded in the summer of 2022, Bindr gained around 10,000 users in its first year through classic SEO strategies. However, while participating in a startup accelerator program at Penn State University, Teller and cofounder Mary Richardson got a rude wake-up call: 10,000 users is nothing in the world of dating apps. 

Popular dating apps like Tinder or Hinge, for comparison, have millions of active users. And without users, Richardson said, investors aren’t interested in giving cash to support the endeavor. 

Looking at those competitors, Teller saw that dating apps often create landing pages that specifically target certain demographics, like location or sexual orientation. For example, if someone searches for gay dating in their city, they might find a specific page created by a dating app to target that demographic. 

Building each of those landing pages can consume a lot of time and resources, Teller said, so he set out to build a tool that could generate thousands of pages targeting individuals who search for any type of queer dating in different locations across the US. After three months, Bindr had jumped to 40,000 users. 

“If you search ‘gay dating, Atlantic City, New Jersey’ or pansexual dating in any state, Bindr is going to be the first result,” Richardson said. 

Bindr’s content generation and user growth sparked interest from other dating apps that wanted to know how the early-stage startup had overcome the cold start program, Teller said. After offering free advice and doing some consulting work for a couple of months, Teller and Richardson turned ColdStart into a company.

In just a few months, ColdStart has secured over $100,000 in contracts across a dozen clients, has over 250 companies on its waitlist and won multiple awards, including first place at Montreal’s Startupfest and the business competition Inc.U. In February alone, the company, recently honored as a 2025 Pittsburgh RealLIST Startup, added over $200,000 of annual recurring revenue, according to Teller. 

What helps ColdStart stand out is not just that the startup’s AI-powered tool creates SEO-optimized content, but that it tests variations of that content to find out what works best with a company’s target audiences and takes down what doesn’t work. 

“Our pages actually learn based on user traffic if it’s performing well or not,” Teller said. “We take the pages down that aren’t doing well, so we’re not oversaturating Google with bad pages, and for that reason, we get the best ranking for our companies.” 

A way to bring more people into apps with a rotating user base 

Dating apps are facing a crisis. Dwindling user retention and sliding revenue have plagued popular dating apps in recent years, and the public perception of these platforms isn’t doing much better. 

The issue stems from a fundamental paradox: People use dating apps to find love and connection, but once they find it, they no longer need the app. This is a big problem for companies that need returning users to make a profit. 

Bindr could have faced the same paradox, but revenue from ColdStart could support the dating app instead of paying users, Teller said. 

“The truth is dating is volatile and it’s really hard to monetize,” he said. “To make money on a dating app, you have to do certain manipulation tactics that I fundamentally don’t agree with.” 

Monetizing a dating app often involves targeting the people who are most desperate for a connection, he said. Individuals who are struggling to find a connection on a dating app are also the users who are the most likely to pay for a premium subscription or extra features.  

While Bindr does currently operate with a similar model — a free app with the option to purchase a premium subscription — Teller said he and Richardson are considering offering premium Bindr features for free if ColdStart continues to be successful. 

Pittsburgh helps Bindr surge, despite political backlash

Dating apps can struggle to secure venture capital funding because of the dating app paradox, as well as other factors like difficulty expanding into new markets and the challenges of exiting dating products, according to Andrew Chen, an investor and the author of ‘The Cold Start Problem’, the book that coined the term that inspired ColdStart. 

Securing VC funding for Bindr was especially difficult with the ignorance and stigma surrounding queer dating, Teller said. Because pitching ColdStart to investors has been much more successful, though, the need to generate revenue is on the back burner for the dating app. The founders are able to focus more on Bindr’s mission, something they both said is extremely important, especially now with the current presidential administration’s anti-trans policies. 

“It’s all about inclusive, safe dating. There’s no sexual orientations, no labels,” Richardson said. “The reason it’s blowing up so big is the [current] political climate.” 

Support from the local community has also really helped the company grow, Richardson said. In Pittsburgh, being part of the LGBTQ community has felt more like a superpower than a setback. 

“I’ve never had a more accepting entrepreneurial community than Pittsburgh,” she said. “Pittsburgh is the first place that trusted us, that gave us a chance, that didn’t discriminate but actually embraced our diversity.” 

The support has translated to financial gains, too. Through participating in Innovation Work’s AlphaLab accelerator program and participating in multiple pitch competitions, the app was able to raise $250,000 in its first year and a half. 

Looking for a cofounder? Find a friend first

Coincidentally, Teller and Richardson met on a dating app. Teller had a partner at the time but was looking for friends and they hit it off, Richardson said. That friendship has been the foundation for their professional relationship over the past six years.  

“I think the reason that we do work so well together, is because we started off as friends,” Richardson said. 

Although Richardson and Teller share similar backgrounds, both hailing from central Pennsylvania and identifying as members of the LGBTQ community, they bring vastly different skills and missions to their partnership.

For Teller, building startups is his “drug of choice,” he said. He’s been building companies since he was 18 years old and started coding even earlier. 

At just 11, Teller built his first website, Coaster Source, a platform for rollercoaster enthusiasts that’s attracted thousands of users and continues to operate today. Teller’s entrepreneurial drive is fueled by a deep mission to one day cure type-one diabetes.

Richardson, on the other hand, has sales experience that she said has helped her win every pitch competition she’s entered. She’s driven by a commitment to ending conversion therapy, and she believes her efforts with Bindr and ColdStart can help make that vision a reality.

Richardson and Teller’s advice for founders looking for a business partner? Focus on character first, not skills.  

“Don’t look for the most crazy skills in a cofounder,” Richardson said. “Look for somebody that you can trust, that’s hard-working, that can learn the things they have to learn and that you can work with long term because we’ve been working together for six years now and it’s probably going to be 20 more.”