Jess and Lou Alderson, Founders at So Syncd: A Dating App Based on Myers-Briggs Compatability

We caught up with Jess and Lou to hear all about their new venture So Syncd, and how they’re pairing romance with psychology…

Tell us about So Syncd

Jess: So Syncd is our dating app that matches compatible personalities. Our unique algorithm pairs couples based on the 16 Myers-Briggs personality types. Our goal is to make dating more fun, meaningful and successful. We cut through the noise and connect partners on the basis of more than just a couple of photos.

Lou: We often get asked whether we pair similar or different personality types. The answer is both. We match couples who have just the right amount of similarities to ‘get’ each other and just the right amount of differences to create that spark. We’ve had over 200 couples fall in love through our app even though we only launched earlier this year, so it’s working!

So Syncd

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

Jess: After breaking up with a long-term partner who I’d moved to Australia with, I wanted to understand what went wrong. I had been studying personality types for a while at that point and my break-up coincided with a year of travelling around the world. I ended up spending most of that year learning about Myers-Briggs compatibility. It was fascinating to observe relationships of people with different cultural backgrounds and I realised that the types of personalities that are compatible holds true wherever you are in the world.

Lou: When Jess was back in London, we were having drinks in Soho and she was explaining personality type compatibility to me. I was fairly sceptical at first but, when we applied the concept to my friends and my own relationship, I was amazed at how accurate it was. Unknowingly, I had been in a long-term relationship with my perfect So Syncd personality match. That was the moment that we decided we needed to bring the idea to life.

What advice would you give to other aspiring female entrepreneurs?

Jess: Prepare to be underestimated and turn it into a positive. There is a movement towards support for underrepresented founders, but there is still a long way to go. Unfortunately, it won’t always be a level playing field but try to turn it into a positive and use it as motivation. The people who underestimate you are probably not the kind of people you want to be aligned with anyway, so it can actually work out for the best.

Lou: Don’t pursue your business idea unless you are truly passionate about it. There will inevitably be challenges along the way and you need that passion to help you get through the hard times. In retrospect, we were a little naïve at the beginning – we had no idea what was in store for us. We wouldn’t change it for the world though. The highs are absolutely amazing, but the lows can be testing. I think that having each other has made all the difference.

What can we hope to see from So Syncd in the future?

Jess: We are hugely excited to be releasing version two of our app in the new year, which we have an amazing team working on. We also have some exciting marketing plans to coincide with its launch. We have so many ideas, for us, it’s about prioritising them.

Lou: The next major project after releasing our new app will be to introduce a way of finding friends through So Syncd. We want to connect compatible personality types in all kinds of ways, not just romantically.