The archive · Consumer Apps · Product decision · 2024–2026
Pie, Andy Dunn's IRL app, pivots from events to 'Reddit for real life' at ~300K users
Andy Dunn's Pie grew to ~300K users on events, then pivoted to permanent IRL communities — 5x time-on-app after showing people, not events.
Pie
What the business is
A US social app that helps people form and run in-real-life communities — run clubs, art markets, watch parties — with events, permanent group pages called Community Homes, and AI-assisted friend matching.
Starting capital：$11.5M Series A (early 2025); backers include Forerunner, Lightspeed, Accel and angels such as Twitter co-founder Ev Williams
How it started
After moving from New York to Chicago and realizing how hard it was to build a social life, Dunn — who sold Bonobos to Walmart in 2017 — founded Pie in Chicago to attack the loneliness epidemic. The first iteration was a heavy personality quiz; by late 2024 the app had pivoted toward events and was expanding from Chicago to San Francisco.
What happened
Pie raised an $11.5M Series A in early 2025, paying organizers to host events and acqui-hiring the two founders behind Sparked Connections, an AI quiz that sorts attendees into groups of six likely to get along. In December 2025 it reordered the activity feed to show which friends were attending an event rather than listing events, lifting average time on app from 2 to 10 minutes. On August 25, 2026 it launched Community Homes — permanent group pages with feeds, admin and membership controls — and brought on Zoomies run-club founder Nadya Okamoto as co-founder and CMO.
How it ended up
Still running and expanding nationally: about 300,000 users as of late August 2026, with the strongest traction in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles.
Background
Pie is a US social app founded in Chicago by Andy Dunn, who previously built and sold the menswear brand Bonobos. Its mission is to turn digital tools into real-world connections: run clubs, art markets, watch parties and other IRL groups use the app to organize, with AI-assisted matching helping strangers become friends at events.
The product evolved through three bets. It launched as a 150-question AI personality quiz, became an events app that pays organizers to host gatherings, and — after a December 2025 feed change that showed which friends were attending instead of listing events — pivoted to communities. Average time on app grew from 2 to 10 minutes after that change. In August 2026 it launched Community Homes, permanent group pages meant to replace group texts and Facebook Groups.
By late August 2026 the app had grown to about 300,000 users, backed by Forerunner, Lightspeed, Accel and angels including Twitter co-founder Ev Williams, with $11.5M raised in a Series A announced in March 2025. Dunn describes the target as 'Reddit for IRL' — an ecosystem where belonging to a community makes events happen naturally, rather than events being the product.
What has to be true
- Dunn's personal loneliness after moving to Chicago gave him a visceral founder problem to solve.
- The December 2025 feed change — showing people instead of events — lifted time on app from 2 to 10 minutes, validating that community beats a calendar.
- Paying organizers to host gives the marketplace a supply side that pure event listings never had.
- Younger users increasingly want digital tools that lead to offline meetings, the opposite of feed-maximizing social media.
- Community Homes attacks group texts and Facebook Groups, everyday tools with no retention loop of their own.
What can be applied
A social product's metric can mislead: Pie's 5x time-on-app jump came from showing people instead of events — when the feed stops being the product and the meetup is, retention follows.
Aftermath
As of September 2026, Pie is available nationwide with roughly 300,000 users and the strongest communities in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. It just shipped Community Homes — group feeds, admin and membership controls, shareable homepages and event-planning tools — and plans group chats plus casual 'who wants to hang out' posts. Nadya Okamoto, founder of the New York run club Zoomies, joined as co-founder and CMO. The app still faces competition from Facebook Groups, group texting, and dating apps pushing into IRL events.
Sources
- Andy Dunn's startup Pie becomes less of an events app and more of a social network
- Andy Dunn's new app Pie uses AI to help you make friends
- 社交应用Pie推出社区主页功能，从活动工具转型社交网络
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