Therealroots Avis 4

Shady company. I signed up a few months ago and paid $25. They told me the day before the event that it changed, and keep pushing potential meeting dates out several weeks, so I asked for my money back. They refused. I think it’s a wizard of oz situation where they collect $25 and no real humans are actually meeting.

The concept is solid. The execution is not ready.

I signed up for an Upper Manhattan Meet and Greet and received the venue address less than 24 hours before the nighttime event. The location was not somewhere I feel comfortable walking alone at night (they straight up sent a bunch of women to the middle of the hood at night). For a service built around women showing up solo to meet strangers, that is a significant problem. Women need enough notice to actually evaluate whether a venue is safe.

I requested a cancellation, was rescheduled without being asked, to a date that conflicted with a religious holiday. I was then told I was fully canceled. I was not. I was added to a new group chat, kept getting app notifications, and had no way to remove myself through the app. The only button available was reschedule, and the groups shown were categories I never selected.

I sent multiple follow-up emails. Each one hit a 2-3 business day auto-response. By the time anyone acknowledged the issue, the event was already starting and I was still in the chat.

The last thing: the email explaining why I was matched with my Lower Manhattan group was word for word identical to the one I received for the Upper Manhattan group. If intentional matching is your whole pitch, copy-pasting the rationale is not a good look.

Fix the venue selection process, fix cancellations, and fix the matching messaging. The foundation is there. The systems are not.

RealRoots is a nice concept, but the execution feels unpolished. When you sign up, you are enrolled in a seven-week series with a designated host. The overall experience varies significantly depending on the host, so consistency is not guaranteed.

Some events are partially covered, but you should expect to pay additional costs beyond the initial fee. Ultimately, you are paying for someone to plan weekly events for you.

The experience also depends heavily on the people in your group. You might get lucky with a great mix, or you might not.

Would I do it again? No.
Am I glad I tried it once? Moderately.

Beware: that automatically charge you a $99 annual membership fee and make it impossible to login to your account to cancel and they do not respond to customer service emails.