What makes Zojul different
How we help people forge meaningful friendships
Previously I talked about the “why” of Zojul. Now here’s the “how”.
When I ask people how they go about meeting new people, they mention either dating services/apps, or events focussed on interests or activities. Which means that unless you’re looking for romance and prepared to stomach the dating hamster-wheel (I wasn’t), the focus moves away from who you meet, to what you do.
The thing is, if you join a tennis club, a language, pottery or dance class, or a walking society, sure, you’ll meet some new people. And perhaps you might have more in common with them than the average person. But will you get on well with a good proportion of them? The odds aren’t that high. In practice, getting to know enough people to find the ones you really click with still takes a lot of time and effort, especially when the activity isn’t conducive to getting to know them easily.
We don’t believe it needs to be that way.
Zojul’s mission is to help people forge new and meaningful friendships. So who you meet is always our top priority. It’s our raison d’être. But we combine it with events and activities that are suited to really getting to know people. Which means how you meet is optimized for making new friends too.
We invite you to fun, activity-based events, with just the people we think you’ll get on with. So it’s as simple as “Get invited. Meet. Click.”
How we match you
For such a personal service, as you might have guessed, our approach centres on smart matching. Emphasis here on the word smart. Ben and I, the founders of Zojul, have a great deal of research and industry experience creating truly smart technologies.
So here’s what Zojul doesn’t do:
Dumb matching
- We don’t match you with people who are similar
They say that opposites attract. But that isn’t the full story. The fact is that in some areas, it does help to be similar to your friends, but in others, it’s far more beneficial to be complementary. So why would you want to meet people who are just the same as you? Variety is the spice of life, after all.
2. We don’t ask you what you look for in a friend
Even if you have an idea of some important characteristics, it’s very difficult for people to get completely right, and it’s surprisingly easy to ignore some things that turn out to be pretty important. The good news is that with Zojul, you don’t need to have a clue. We do that for you.
Here’s what we actually do:
Get to know you
We ask you questions about yourself that cut to the core of who you are. What drives you, and what inspires you. What makes you laugh, and cry. What infuriates you, and what you find, well, just “Meh”. We use these to build up a full picture of you, from your communication style to your motivations, your values to your sense of humour. Much more than a standard personality test. And it’s all between you and us.
Now we know that not everyone likes spending time answering questions, but we hope you’ll find ours interesting, thought provoking and fun. In any case, time invested telling us about you will earn itself back with a much better experience on Zojul!
Get to know who you like
After each event we ask another question — who you’d like to see again. Again, this is confidential between you and us. Not only does this allow us to invite you to future events with a core of people whose company you enjoy, but it also allows us to do something rather clever, and unique. By combining the data about our users with the data about who you like, we’re able to learn what kind of people you will enjoy meeting.
This is critical for helping us understand what kind of people you’d like to meet more of, and what kind of people those similar to you might also like to meet. So the more feedback we get, from you and everyone else, the better your experience will be.
Essentially, we take the guesswork out of where to meet the right people.
How the rest works
Here’s what happens once you’ve signed up and answered a few of our personality questions:
Get invited. Meet. Click.
We’ll email you invitations to fun, informal social events along with those of our members we think you’ll get on with. If you get an invitation to an event that you like the sound of, just say you’ll attend, then go!
Since Zojul is simply a platform for connecting people, all the events we invite you to are run by our members. They’re not expected to be the greatest events ever — in fact, the more casual the better. That way the focus stays on who you meet, not what you do. The only goal of each event is to create a context for forging meaningful friendships.
At the event you’ll meet, chat together and do whatever else the event involves — all sorts of things, from after-work drinks and pizza to park cycle rides, and everything in between. Then afterwards we’ll ask you who you’d like to meet again. Be sure to tell us, so we can make it happen!
Host your own events
Our members make Zojul the great community it is by hosting. It’s not what they organize but why they do it that makes all the difference — at the root of it all is forging new friendships.
We suggest simple activities that have worked well at previous events, and provide some general guidelines to make sure things go smoothly, so there’s really not much to do. And there are benefits to hosting an event — you have a far greater control over your experience, from choosing what you do and when, to being at the centre of things when they happen. So be at the heart of creating great connections, and host!
To sign up to Zojul and start getting invited to our events and meeting great people, click here. And if you’ve already signed up, click here to answer our questions!
