Dennis Crowley
Building things at the intersection of the real world digital world — trying to make everyday life feel a little more fun and playful.
Founder & CEO of Hopscotch Labs. Co-founder & co-chair of Foursquare and Street FC. Founder of Kingston Stockade FC. New York City & the Hudson Valley.
Now — what I’m building
- Hopscotch Labs Co-Founder & CEO · 2024– A “Marauder’s Map for AirPods” — a spatial audio layer for the world, delivered through Bluetooth headphones.
- Foursquare Co-Founder & Co-Chair · 2009– One of the world’s leading location technology platforms.
- Street FC Co-Founder & Co-Chair Building the biggest football club on the planet.
- Kingston Stockade FC Founder & Chairman · 2016– Semi-professional soccer in New York’s Hudson Valley, playing in the 4th division of the US Soccer Pyramid.
Selected work
- 2024 Hopscotch Labs Spatial audio for Bluetooth headphones — a location layer you can hear.
- — Street FC Community football, organized through an app.
- 2016 Kingston Stockade FC Founded a semi-pro soccer club from scratch in the Hudson Valley.
- 2009 Foursquare Co-founded with Naveen Selvadurai. CEO 2009–2016, then Executive Chairman; now Co-Chair.
- 2004 PacManhattan Co-created an early “big urban game” — Pac-Man played on the streets of Manhattan.
- 2003 Dodgeball One of the first location-based mobile social services. Acquired by Google, 2005.
In the archive
Writing
- Introducing Marsbot for AirPods Medium
- Introducing Hypertrending Medium
- Teen Drama — occasional newsletter Substack
Press
- You may have forgotten Foursquare. It didn’t forget you Wired
- On Kingston Stockade FC The New York Times, 2017
- Corner Office: on open lines of communication The New York Times, 2012
- Soliloquy for Dodgeball Medium
Apps
- Swarm — check in, explore, map App Store
- Street FC App Store
Recognition
Fortune “40 Under 40” (2010, 2011) · Vanity Fair “New Establishment” (2011, 2012) · MIT Technology Review TR35 (2005) · Family Feud “Fast Money” bonus winner (2009) · Jeopardy! contestant (2020).
About
I’ve spent twenty-plus years building software that gets people out into the world — from Dodgeball (one of the first location-based mobile social services, acquired by Google in 2005) and PacManhattan (2004) to Foursquare, which I co-founded in 2009 and led as CEO through 2016. These days that same thread runs through Hopscotch Labs, Street FC, and Kingston Stockade FC.
Along the way I taught as an adjunct professor at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program — the same program where I earned my M.P.S. in 2004. Before that: a B.A. from the S.I. Newhouse School at Syracuse University, 1998.
I live between New York City and the Hudson Valley.