Nobody enjoys waiting in line. I'm reminded of how dreadful the whole experience can be after being herded like a form of cattle for two hours through a queue for a nightclub on what was quite chilly for late May.
I would not soon repeat the experience. Fortunately, there is a startup for that: something called Line.
Based in San Francisco, LineLeap is a startup that grants fee-paying privilege to skip queue in the bar. By using the mobile apps of the startup, users can buy the passes to venues through which they would get the front-of-the-line passes. This has been made possible by Y Combinator.
"As college students, we noticed a common problem that many people before us have endured," says Max Schauff, the co-founder and CMO of LineLeap, in an interview with TechCrunch. "Our favorite college bars had really long lines. The problem was that bars didn't have an open and transparent way of allowing customers to skip the line on their most special nights. And they were leaving a lot of revenue on the table because of it."
Love it or hate it, VCs appear to like where LineLeap is taking it. Y Combinator led the company in a $10 million round last month, with participation from Alex Pall from The Chainsmokers among others. The round brought LineLeap's total raise to $25 million, valuing the startup at an eye-popping $100 million.
Driving from college town to college town
Schauff crossed paths with LineLeap's second co-founder, Patrick Skelly, while working at EnvoyNow, an on-demand food delivery startup targeted to college-age users. Through mutual friends, Schauff and Skelly connected Nick Becker, who became LineLeap's third co-founder.
While still undergrads – Schauff at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Becker and Skelly at the University of Michigan – the three began hammering out LineLeap's business plan and building the website together.
We launched on a negative-five-degree February night in Madison, Wisconsin, Schauff said. "After night one resulting in success, we used that excitement and spent the next few years, mostly during our summer breaks, loading into the car and driving from college town to college town, trying to expand.".
LineLeap wasn't the only line-skipping app out there at the time-and the trio knew it. So, to set their platform apart, the three co-founders decided to go after college bars as their first big customer segment.
At first, the co-founders slept in beat-up motels and in their cars. They traveled about the country, selling to venues, sneaking into YMCAs for a quick shower here and there if they could. After a few years of grinding, the trio felt they had proved out the business model and applied to Y Combinator.
They got accepted into the Summer 2019 cohort.
Fast forward to 2024. LineLeap weathered the COVID slowdown, opened its first office in NYC, and has expanded the team to 40 people excluding part-time ambassadors. The app has hit 1 million users; 400 college bar partners with clear growth and this year is positioned to process over $30 million in payments.
"One of our biggest challenges — getting in front of venue owners and getting them signed on — has also proven to be one of our largest differentiators," Schauff said. "It's hard to sign these venues, and we've cracked the code through relationships in the industry and a proven track record over the last seven years."
Inequity and privacy concerns
Today, LineLeap does much more than sell line-skipping passes. Using Venmo, PayPal, Apple Pay, or an attached credit card, buyers can purchase concert tickets, pay cover, pre-order drinks, and reserve VIP table/bottle service. They also get notified — via push notifications and email — of special events and promos, while venue owners get access to dashboards showing transaction reports and analytics.
Events range from nights of DJs to football watch parties to stand-up comedy.
There's a social element, too. Users can add their contacts to LineLeap to see where they've "checked in," if they're also on the app. And LineLeap rewards points for completing tasks such as snapping a photo at the venue — points that can be redeemed for passes.
LineLeap generates revenue through the payment of Ticketmaster-style convenience fees for some passes; the company also charges venues extra for "newly derived revenue," which includes revenue venues aren't generating previously-for example, skip-the-line pass sales.
Venues create a whole new new revenue stream but get the ability to directly communicate and market to their best customers with the LineLeap platform," said Schauff. "For venues, LineLeap is cost-free and completely risk-free so they can sign up and go live with us at a moment's notice with no downside."
I am not entirely sure I would agree that there is no downside.
LineLeap is the latest example of technology that's allowing the rich to skip waiting. CNN's Nathaniel Meyersohn described it as a "thoroughly booming industry of advantages" -- advantages paid for in part by a worse experience for the less well-off patrons, and also raising questions about the quality and equity of service.
That might blow back in the faces of some venue holders. As one reviewer of LineLeap's app on the Google Play Store writes: "Yeah, if a bar ever makes you pay to make a reservation … find a new bar. "
Schauff tried to reassure me that there is nothing to worry about.
He said that in this industry, there's a new wave of operators and an overall change in mindset to adopt technology and data solutions, which LineLeap has been at the forefront of. "Venue operators now seek more data-backed solutions for marketing as well as better technologies to help them increase their bottom line," he added.
Sounds like this could also be a bit of a privacy issue, too.
I asked Schauff about the data retention policy by LineLeap, including how long the company retains its users' data and if a user could delete data themselves at any time. Schauff declined to provide any great detail on that point and pointed me to a page on the LineLeap website that sets forth terms of use.
The terms, disturbingly, do not identify a specific retention time period for the data, and state that LineLeap "may be unable to completely delete or de-identify" user information for "technical" or "other operational reasons."
Schauff emailed me to follow up after this article was published: "The data we collect is retained as long as necessary to run our services both the products and general marketing.". We do erase data as instructed by customers. We will delete marketing data, but should retain data on sales that businesses are supposed to maintain records on. We share the data with venues that customers transact with for their own records too. We don't sell data to third-parties.
For now, it goes toward expanding LineLeap to more venues in the nightlife and entertainment industry, clubs included; new in-app features; and even a full-blown customer relationship management platform for bars.
"Plenty of others have tried to start line-skipping companies for bars and clubs, but none have successfully expanded into multiple markets and lasted more than a couple of years," said Schauff. "We pride ourselves in being the company that will be our venues' partner for years to come."