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Define, discover, and deepen relationships—your way.
About Us
We believe that everyone—of every orientation and lifestyle—deserves meaningful connections, in whatever way that might look like for them. And now that relationship norms are no longer the norm, we wanted to know how we'd be able to redefine what a meaningful relationship is. Most importantly, we wondered how to find people who'd want what we want too.
We brought together a team of psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, designers, therapists, coaches, and relationship experts to help us answer those questions. The result is CanWe, a compass for intentional dating in the digital age.
CanWe helps you cut out the frustration of aimless scrolling, swiping, and ambiguous dates—saving you time in the process. We're also big believers in possibilites, and want to help you explore them. Someone might not fit your romantic ideals, but they could make a great bandmate, business partner, work wife, or friend. People exist in multitudes and relationships do too.
Join us in envisioning a world where anyone, anywhere, can connect to whatever kind of relationship they're looking for—quickly, privately, and on their own terms.
How Does CanWe Build Better Relationships, Faster?
CanWe is a unique “home” for all your wants and desires that helps you be honest with yourself, and your new “friend”. By giving you intelligent prompts, we paint a more complete picture of who you are, and what you’re looking for that other dating apps just skip over. Check out below what CanWe is going to ask you.
“What do I want?” Privately fill out surveys for each relationship type you’re actively looking for. Invite your current date to do the same before you meet in-person and securely pair your devices.
“What relationship types are honestly available for us?” New romantic relationship types seem to debut each month! Dating is no longer limited to “Long-Term Love” and “Hookups”, so it’s past time for a better tool to discover what relationship types you and your date ought to explore; from Something Forever to Something Platonic, and everything in between. 2020 Side Note: Can you trust your date in a pandemic? CanWe helps you both articulate your Something Pandemic expectations. Pair your devices from +6ft away to unveil what navigating a pandemic truly means for each of you.
“What’s next?” Now, with all your expectations and big questions out in the open, the two of you can move forward together, in parallel, on an honest path that perhaps neither of you expected… To check out our “relationship compass”for yourself download it from the App Store or Google Play Store.
Our People
We’re a team of philosophers, designers and scientists, brought together by a nerdy fascination for
relationships and the belief that we can help real people enjoy more meaningful connections.
Russ Haywood
Co-Founder & CEO
A writer of two science fiction novels, Russ is a large scale systems innovator and a builder
of vastly coherent imaginary worlds. Russ has BAs in Philosophy and Political Theory from the
University of Minnesota, and an MBA from Hamline University.
Russ is fascinated by the idea of what the right relationship with a given person would look like, whether romantic, social, or otherwise. This stems from the time he shared a blanket at a concert with a group of people, which would come to include his future wife—though it took two years before they crossed paths again and began dating. How much time would they have saved if they’d been guided to have the right conversations, about the right topics, rather than just engage in small talk?
Nic Ehalt
Co-Founder & COO
Before CanWe, Nic spent most of his career in operations and information technology roles
with large, global companies. Before leaving the corporate world, Nic spent two years as
the Business Development Lead for the Global Diversity & Inclusion Department in Cargill.
Outside of work, Nic enjoys spending time traveling the world with his husband, meeting new
people, exploring new places, and learning about new cultures. Closer to home, Nic enjoys
the outdoors, biking, kayaking, and playing with his dog Flint.
We know we're onto something special
CanWe cuts through a lot of the crap, which is great.
maemae
Our intentions do align in many places, and [CanWe] was a really great tool to help me figure all this out even if I wasn't able to bring this up on my own.
cjb2000
It made me feel a lot safer and less anxious…
AnaLisa
