Before Manny Manzel and Conor Crighton co-founded the revolutionary new social networking app Crossed, they were buddies in college. Crighton was studying business while Manzel intended to attend law school, but one encounter changed their lives forever.

“Conor and I met through a mutual friend,” Manzel remembers. “It was the year before we both graduated college. Before that, we had always been around the same people but never really interacted with each other. We laugh at that now because it’s crazy how one introduction changed it all. Imagine what would have happened if we had known each other sooner!”

After being introduced to each other, they became friends quickly. “We started hanging out almost every day, whether it was heading to class, getting food, or even going out on a Friday night,” Manzel recalls. 

This friendship not only ended up launching a successful social networking app but also bridging two cultures.

New York City meets the Cayman Islands

Crighton is from the Cayman Islands, and Manzel comes from New York City. According to Crighton, the two cultures could not be further apart.

“New York really is the city that never sleeps,” Manzel says. “No matter what time of day or night it is — it could be 4 a.m. — New York will always have thousands of people outside. Meanwhile, the Cayman Islands are beautiful Caribbean islands where you can relax on the beach, get some sun, and just enjoy the ocean.”

“In New York, if you close your eyes, there won’t be a second when you don’t hear a noise or a car horn going off,” Manzel adds. “It doesn’t matter if you are on top of the Empire State Building. You will still hear sirens from up that high. Walking down Fifth Avenue, you’ll pass thousands of people in only five minutes.” 

Despite these differences in their backgrounds, Crighton and Manzel decided to work together to solve a common problem. Social networking apps, and especially dating apps, needed to change.

The idea for a new kind of social networking app

“We both were tired of hearing all these bad stories of people getting catfished or ending up with matches that were hundreds of miles away,” Manzel says.

They were hanging out on a rooftop parking garage on a Saturday night during their senior year of college when their idea for a new kind of app came to life.

“We decided we should build an app that helps not just college students but anyone looking to meet new people in a new way,” Crighton says. “Crossed was built to help you meet that person you walk past in a grocery store and think, ‘Wow, I wonder who they are,’ or when you’re running through campus late to class, and you see that special someone sitting down, but you don’t have the time to stop and introduce yourself. When you get out of class, they’ve already left.”

That fateful conversation lasted for hours and then continued all the next day. “We threw one idea after another at each other,” Manzel remembers. “In the following weeks, we would stay up until 4 a.m. every night drafting up designs, ideas, and key features, as well as weighing the pros and cons of different approaches.”

The secrets of Crossed’s success

Crighton and Manzel didn’t just talk, however. Upon graduation, they developed and launched Crossed, the groundbreaking social networking app that helps people connect with new friends, business associates, and potential romantic partners in their local communities.

Crossed uses trailblazing geolocation technology to introduce people to other members of the community who visit the same places that they do. It has three modes — Friendship, Business, and Dating — that enable people to make their intentions clear from the outset. This real-world approach is rapidly making Crossed the most popular social networking platform on college campuses.

Manzel and Crighton credit their success to three factors.

“We both hold each other accountable for things that need to be done on time,” Manzel explains. “If things aren’t done or one of us can’t make it, the other steps up immediately. Without this mutual accountability, we don’t believe we could’ve gotten this far.” 

“We also have the same vision and goals,” Crighton adds. “This isn’t something we just threw together and said, ‘let’s see how quick we can sell this.’ We built this app for a reason, and we want to grow it to be better and better every day. We believe Crossed has the potential to be one of the biggest apps around the country, and eventually, we want to spread it around the globe as well.”

Manzel also lists trust as one of the secrets to their success. “We both trust each other so much,” he says. “Whether it’s a good or bad idea, we hear each other out and assess what’s best for the app. If we didn’t trust each other, we wouldn’t be here today, much less growing as we are. We’re both here for the same reason: to make Crossed a national name.”

Connect more with Crossed

The idea for Crossed was born while Crighton and Manzel were in college, so perhaps it should be no surprise that they have identified college students as one of the main markets.

“We know what college students like, and we know their lifestyle,” Manzel says. “Life after college may seem stressful or scary because you might wish you had made more friends or spoken to someone you might never see again. We get it because, honestly, we felt the same way.”

However, college students aren’t the only ones who can benefit from Crossed. “We built this app to help anyone and everyone to connect more and get out there,” Crighton says.