Friend-making app ‘DanceCard’ launches in Richmond

Dance Card is Richmond’s newest friend-making app. (Photos courtesy Craig Steuber)

A newly-launched mobile app startup is looking to increase Richmonders’ in-person social circles. 

DanceCard, which soft-launched last week, is a new way for locals to make friends and explore new hobbies and events. 

The app was co-founded by Richmond native Craig Steuber, alongside minority partners Douglas Shunk and Scott McCoy. 

Steuber describes DanceCard as an app meant to “help people build real-world connections,” with users creating profiles and creating events that could be anything from a book club meeting to a doubles tennis game, called “happenings.” 

If a user is looking to play a pickup soccer game with a few people or get a group together for a VMFA visit, they can enter the type of activity, date and time, address and other details about the event in the app. 

When users log on to DanceCard, they can see all of the local happenings. To message other users, create a happening or RSVP to happenings, users must create a profile. 

Steuber said the app’s profiles ask for the user’s name, city and email, along with a required photo verification. DanceCard is limited to users age 18 and up. Steuber said he reviews photo verifications himself, and said users can report if they have issues with other users not looking like their photo or other concerns. 

Steuber said his goal with the app is to get more Richmonders together, in a day and age when people’s social media circles are growing and in-person circles are shrinking.

Steuber said he and McCoy came up with the idea for DanceCard over a table top war game at Midlothian game store Battlegrounds. When two players they were supposed to play with didn’t show up, the pair wondered if anyone would come over to play with them. 

When no one did, the two dreamed up a world where it could be easier for strangers to find people with shared interests. What came next was the idea for DanceCard. 

“It started out just looking for people to want to play table top war games together with, and then it turned into something else,” he said. “We saw an actual need in the community.” 

DanceCard founders from left to right: Craig Steuber, Douglas Shunk and Scott McCoy.

Steuber used his IT background as software developer at Berkshire Hathaway Energy to create the app, with McCoy working on the “big picture” concept, he said. The two enlisted Shunk to be the app’s graphic designer, working on color palettes, icons and other graphics for DanceCard. 

The marketing campaign for the app is “Can RVA Come Out to Play?,” Steuber said. It’s meant to be evocative of users’ childhoods, back when it was normal to approach another kid about playing without any inhibitions, he said. That kind of connection is something adults could use more of, he added. 

“As adults, we’ve gotten scared someone’s not going to come out and play,” Steuber said. “I want people to be able to use the app for what it’s meant for: go find people to goof off with.” 

Steuber noted that while it may seem ironic to use an app for real-world connections, he hopes it can be a stepping stone for users to get out of their comfort zone and into the real world. He said his dream is to get people to use the app to meet some friends, and then have no need for it anymore, while DanceCard would continue to add new users who can make some connections. 

“We’re so glued to our phones, you almost have to wean off of it,” he said. “I still want to have that sense of asking people to go out and play, you go play, and then you don’t need to ask anymore.” 

DanceCard is currently completely funded by Steuber. He said he’s put around $5,000 into the startup thus far. DanceCard currently has no costs associated with download, nor any in-app purchases or advertising. Users’ data is not sold or shared, Steuber said. 

DanceCard is meant to get Richmonders off social media and into the wild together.

Steuber said that while platforms like Meetup can bring together large groups of people, DanceCard can bring together smaller groups of people to do activities like doubles tennis or a four-person board game. 

DanceCard currently has 500 downloads, and 200 active users, meaning users who have made a profile. 

“They’re opening it up. People are interested…that proves the need. I went out and said, I’m making an app to go find things to do, and Richmond responded and showed up. We need people to learn it’s okay to join something again,” he said.

As DanceCard gets its feet off the ground, Steuber and the team are already looking at improvements and updates. An upcoming update will add notifications for when details of a happening change, and will create a map of locations, where users can type in their ZIP codes and see what happenings are nearest to them. 

For now, DanceCard is only for Richmond-area happenings. Though most activity listings are currently in the city of Richmond, some Midlothian and Mechanicsville events have popped up on the app.

Steuber, who will remain in his full time job while running DanceCard, said the group could look to expand beyond the Richmond area if the app is successful.

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