In this Q&A, you’ll hear from Dan Ilani, CEO & founder of ATEAM, a relationships platform designed for real-life connection. Dan shares how his company reinvents the dating app, setting screen time limits, curating matches on lifestyle and mindset, and establishing 1:1 connections as a pillar of wellness.
Tell us about ATEAM.
Dan Ilani: ATEAM is a private membership platform for romantic and platonic connections, built on a simple belief: Relationships are the missing pillar of wellness.
People are intentional about how they train, recover, eat, sleep, and take care of themselves. But the way they meet is still mostly left to chance — or worse, endless swiping.
At the same time, the spaces that bring out the best in us are not built for 1:1 connection, especially the romantic variety. You can go to Pilates five days a week and not meet your husband there. You can run the same route every morning and pass right by your soulmate.
ATEAM creates a better way to meet through shared mindset, shared lifestyle, and shared activity. By creating low-pressure ways to personally connect through things they already love doing, it provides the reason for the connection to exist.
Not another doomscrolling product, ATEAM has an 11-minute daily cap and anti-ghosting features built to protect mental health, reduce app fatigue, and make dating feel more human.
The goal is simple: less scrolling, more connection.
Tell us about your users.
DI: Our members are health-conscious, socially engaged, and culturally plugged-in people who build their lives around movement, recovery, growth, and shared experiences. They move through wellness culture—run clubs, Pilates, strength training, cycling, padel—but they are not defined by one sport or one studio.
What connects them is mindset. They care about energy, follow-through, discipline, community, taste, and the people they surround themselves with. Many have used traditional dating apps and aren’t looking for more volume. They are looking for better context, a more intentional environment with better people, a better rhythm, and better odds that a connection makes sense from the start.
Dating is the core use case, but platonic connection matters too. ATEAM can help members find someone to train with, take a class with, go for a walk with, play tennis with, or try a recovery session with.
The activity creates the opening. The shared lifestyle does the rest.
How do users translate online discovery to authentic relationships?
DI: Most dating apps are built around browsing. ATEAM is built around meeting, and that difference matters.
Traditional apps often lack context. They give people profiles, prompts, and a swipe mechanism, then leave the rest to chance.
ATEAM starts with a curated group of people already connected by mindset and lifestyle. That creates immediate context, makes the first move easier, and makes the first plan feel more natural.
But, modern dating isn’t just broken because of apps but also the patterns around them: endless drinks, endless dinners, endless texting. Too much ambiguity. Too little momentum.
ATEAM pushes people toward real life. A workout with someone new is active, low-pressure, and useful. If there’s chemistry, great. If not, you still moved your body and met someone interesting.
We call that Reinvent the Date. And we’re partnering with the best clubs in New York City to make that real.
Why enter the connection economy?
DI: We entered the category because we believe most of the connection economy treats connection like a mass-market commodity: more swipes, more matches, more volume, and less meaning.
Naturally positive, the wellness world already surfaces the right patterns. Spaces like studios, run clubs, gyms, and recovery spaces bring people together every day, but they’re not built to solve human connection — nor should they.
But we can. We didn’t see a platform for high-performing, intentional, wellness-minded people that show up, so that’s why we built it. We’re here to help position relationships as an extension of health and well-being for a community that’s already doing that work.
What’s next?
DI: Right now, we’re focused on New York City.
Our goal is to become the dating app and connection platform for the city’s health and wellness culture. That means growing membership, deepening studio and brand partnerships, expanding our Date Night Series, and creating more ways for members to meet through the way they already live.
Our founding members, investors, and committee members are helping shape the culture from the beginning. Ultimately, we want ATEAM to help people in the wellness world shift from discovery to real life.
If you’re interested in having your company featured in our Q&A series, send an email to team@fitt.co.
