<p class="ingestion featured-caption">Getty Images; Jenny Chang-Rodriguez/BI</p><ul class="summary-list"><li>I tried Pie Social, a million-dollar app that encourages socializing through in-person meetups.</li><li>It's being tested in <a target="_blank" class href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chicago-travel-guide-hotels-activities-restaurants-and-more-2021-10">Chicago</a> right now, so I attended three events through the app.</li></ul><p><a target="_blank" class href="https://www.businessinsider.com/making-friends-as-an-adult-stranger-dinner-party-review-2023-10">Making friends</a> is apparently a million-dollar problem — and the latest app trying to solve it is Pie Social.</p><p>The Chicago-based startup was founded by <a target="_blank" class href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bonobos-founder-andy-dunn-bipolar-mental-health-burn-rate-2022-5">Andy Dunn</a>, cofounder and former CEO of the menswear brand Bonobos. As of October, Pie reported it's raised about <a target="_blank" class href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pitch-deck-irl-social-startup-pie-raises-andy-dunn-bonobos-2024-10">$24 million</a> in capital.</p><p>Its goal is clear: "Make it easy to make friends," Dunn wrote on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7242164170568146945/">LinkedIn</a> in October.</p><p>"We are building a social app to combat this problem. The job to be done is to make it easy to make friends," he wrote. "Our vision is for a world where doing things you enjoy with people you like should be as easy as calling an Uber."</p><p>Since the app is being tested in Chicago, where I live, I decided to see how effective Pie Social is in <a target="_blank" class href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-make-friends-as-adult-moving-cities-nyc-la-2023-9">finding community</a>, especially among social circles I wouldn't normally gravitate toward.</p><p>So, I downloaded the app and used it for a few days. Here's how it went.</p>