GRAB the newest hookup App Nightstand
By Tom Olah
What if one app could help you find a date, a hookup, a new friend, a party—or simply figure out where the gays are going tonight?
Enter Nightstand, a new LGBTQ+ social and dating app created by a Chicago-based founder who thinks
gay technology should be a little more fun, a lot more social, and unapologetically ours.
Nightstand brings dating, hookups, friendships, social posts, events, ticketing and a live map
together in one place. And unlike apps that seem determined to put every interesting feature behind a
paywall, the core Nightstand experience is free and ad-free. For those who want to take things further, a $6.99 monthly subscription adds perks including international cruising, special promotions, prizes and insider deals —designed to feel more like a bargain than another subscription you forgot you had.
We sat down with Nightstand’s founder Anthony Carusone to talk about the idea behind the app, why
gay-owned technology matters, the future of LGBTQ+ nightlife and community, and why, sometimes,
you just need an app that can answer the most important question of the night: “Okay gays, where are
we going?”
Tom Olah: What inspired you tocreate Nightstand, and what did
you feel was missing?
Anthony Carusone: I felt like gay apps had become very good at helping us find one specific thing, but our lives are so much bigger than that. We hook up, date, make friends, go dancing, discover events, create things, travel and build community—so why shouldn't one gay app celebrate all of it?
I wanted to build something fun that felt like it actually belonged to us. Nightstand is my attempt to put the gay back in gay software.
TO: How would you describe Nightstand to someone who has never heard of it?
AC: Imagine if a hookup app, Instagram, Eventbrite and your gay best friend planning Saturday night
all had a baby—that's Nightstand. You can meet someone for a date, hookup or friendship, post photos
and videos, discover people and events on a live map, and even buy tickets without leaving the app. It's
meant to answer both "Who's around?" and "What are we doing tonight?" We like a little versatility
around here.
TO: Where did the name Nightstand come from?
AC: I love the name because your nightstand is this surprisingly intimate little piece of your life—it
holds the things you reach for when you're going to bed and when you're waking up. The name can be sexy and mischievous, but it can also feel familiar, personal and comforting. That's exactly what I wanted the app to be: unmistakably gay, a little provocative and still warm. Plus, let's be real, "Nightstand" looks fabulous in neon pink.
TO: What do you envision people doing with the map?
AC: The map is where Nightstand really comes alive because you're not just seeing profiles—you're
seeing the gay world happening around you. You might notice someone cute nearby, find a new
friend, discover a party across town and buy a ticket, all from the same experience. Events can live alongside people on the map, so your city starts feeling like an interactive LGBTQ+ neighborhood. I
want someone traveling to a new city to open Nightstand and immediately think, "Okay gays,
where are we going?".
TO: How have you designed Nightstand around privacy and safety?
AC: Location should be useful without making someone feel like they've surrendered control of
themselves, so giving users choices around how they participate and are discovered is incredibly important to us. We're building Nightstand with the understanding that LGBTQ+ people use these tools in very different environments around the world. Safety and privacy aren't features you finish once—they have to keep evolving alongside the community. My goal is to make discovery exciting while continuing to give people meaningful control over their experience.
TO: Why include photos, reels and social media?
AC: Because gay life shouldn't disappear the second you're not looking for a date or hookup. I
wanted people to be able to post the funny video, the thirst trap, the vacation photo, the drag
performance or whatever piece of themselves they feel like sharing. That gives Nightstand personality
and gives people reasons to connect beyond attraction alone. Sometimes the beginning of a friendship is just two gays discovering they have the exact same terrible sense of humor.
TO: What role do events and ticketing play in Nightstand?
AC: This is one of the pieces I'm most excited about because Nightstand can connect the people
throwing LGBTQ+ events directly with the people looking for them. We're starting to build that
ecosystem in Phoenix, where events can appear right alongside users on the map and tickets can be
purchased through Nightstand instead of sending everyone somewhere else. Why should a gay
promoter have to build an audience in our community and then hand the transaction off to a generic ticketing platform? I want Nightstand to help keep more of that relationship—and ultimately more of that economic activity—inside our community.
TO: What did you take from Instagram, Eventbrite and Grindr —and what would you do differently?
AC: Those products each proved something powerful: people love sharing their lives, discovering
experiences and meeting people nearby. My question was, why are those experiences still living in
completely separate worlds when LGBTQ+ nightlife and social life overlap constantly? Nightstand
takes pieces of all three and turns them into one experience built specifically around our community.
We're not trying to make gay Facebook—we're trying to make something that actually feels fun to
open.
TO: Why does the community need another app?
AC: Because consolidation in gay technology should make us ask who ultimately owns the platforms our
community depends on and where the money they generate goes. Grindr is publicly traded, and Match
Group recently invested $100 million for a significant minority stake in Sniffies with an option to acquire the remaining equity; to me, that makes independent LGBTQ+ technology more important, not less. I want to prove that a gay-founded platform can grow without forgetting who it was built for. A gay dollar is powerful, and whenever possible I'd love to see more of its value circulating back through LGBTQ+
creators, promoters, businesses and causes.
TO: Why keep the basic Nightstand experience free and ad-free?
AC: I don't think opening a gay app should feel like walking through an airport terminal covered in ads or discovering that every interesting button is hiding behind another paywall. The core Nightstand
experience is free because meeting people and discovering your community should be accessible. If
we ask someone to pay us, I want them to understand exactly what they're getting for it. Software can
be a business without making every tap feel like a transaction.
TO: What makes the $6.99 subscription valuable?
AC: We intentionally set Nightstand at $6.99 a month because I want the premium experience to feel like an easy yes, not another bill you resent seeing on your statement. Subscribers get additional
experiences such as international cruising along with special deals and promotions, while the core app
remains genuinely useful without subscribing. I joke that I want Nightstand to have the Arizona Iced
Tea philosophy: build something people love and resist the instinct to squeeze every possible dollar out of them. Gay life is expensive enough —we still have outfits to buy.
TO: How has Chicago influenced Nightstand?
AC: Chicago taught me that gay community is so much more than a row of profile pictures—it's bars,
parties, friendships, neighborhoods, promoters, chosen family and those completely unplanned nights that become stories for ten years. Building Nightstand here makes me think about technology as an
extension of a real community rather than a replacement for one. Chicago has an incredible LGBTQ+ identity, and I want the app to capture that same feeling in cities around the world. The technology is global, but the magic should always feel local.
TO: What have you learned since launching?
AC: I've learned that people are hungry for something that feels fresh, but I've also learned that you
don't get to dictate how a community uses your product—the users teach you. Someone might download Nightstand expecting a hookup app and end up discovering an event, following someone's
content or making a friend instead. That's exciting because it validates the idea that LGBTQ+ connection
doesn't fit neatly into one box. The community is helping us figure out what Nightstand becomes.
TO: What's next for Nightstand?
AC: The vision gets much bigger than dating: I want Nightstand to become infrastructure that helps
LGBTQ+ people create, gather and make money doing what they love. That means expanding events and ticketing, helping promoters reach audiences, supporting community causes and eventually funding
events and partnering with or employing talented LGBTQ+ people who share this vision. As AI changes
industries and careers, I think owning technology and creating new economic opportunities within our
community becomes even more meaningful. I want Nightstand to help turn queer creativity into real
opportunity all over the world.
TO: A year from now, what would you love to say Nightstand accomplished?
AC: I would love to say that we didn't just grow an app —we helped people actually go somewhere,
meet somebody, make a friend, sell out an event, raise money for something meaningful or create an
opportunity that didn't exist before. Success to me is building a sustainable company where LGBTQ+
users, creators, promoters and businesses all participate in the value being created. I want
Nightstand to prove that our community can build and own ambitious technology while still
keeping it affordable, weird, sexy and fun. And if a few people find the love of their life—or at least
the love of their Saturday night—I'll happily take that too.
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