A smarter, more connected approach to online dating by Novall Khan
Novall Khan, 29, is a mobile engineer whose work includes some pretty cool apps you’ve probably used, but can’t be disclosed because of some pesky NDA’s. Novall is currently building a smarter, more connected dating app, Arrow, to launch in June. Novall first wrote for us a few weeks back, and you can read the first piece of her story here.
If you are trying to find the one or trying to help your friend find his or her one and have an iPhone, you should probably (definitely) sign up for the Arrow beta to drop June 30th. We already did. Info on how to sign up is at the end of the article. We’ll shut up now. Enjoy.
“My advice to you would be to not get into the dating industry… at all. Investors don’t want you.”
Just over a month ago and hundreds of hours into building my dating app, Arrow, this is the advice I receive from a successful founder of a dating app company that was recently acquired for a lot of money.
Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but perhaps I could use some realistic advice to balance out the steady optimism I’d been feeling. I was taking this call from my car to escape the noise of the coffee shop I was working in, and I found myself intently focused on the rain hitting the windshield.
He went on to tell me that the Match Group dominates the dating space, and there isn’t any room for small players. User retention is poor (which is intuitive — users leave the app as soon as they find a partner), and these products have low Net Promoter Scores. Dating apps are also only as successful as their pool of people, so it’s tough launching a new app.
He emphasized that even though I’m able to function as a one-woman team right now, designing and programming this app on my own, I really won’t be able to get far without investor money (the bottleneck in my case being marketing funds). He told me to ditch the idea entirely and go into SaaS.
I felt crushed by this phone call. I’d been so excited the past few weeks as I had made a lot of progress on my code and really felt like I could bootstrap this whole thing on my own, but it started to seem like it might not be possible… I might have to start pitching to investors, but even then, it’s very unlikely anyone will want to invest in my startup.
But you know what? It’s ok.
I made the decision to keep building Arrow because I believe in it, and want it to exist. The worst that can happen is a few people download it and give it a try, and abandon it because it’s not what they’re looking for. But here’s what sets Arrow apart from what’s on the market, and why I want it to exist so badly.
When I was online dating, I hated it. It was an isolating experience having to sift through profiles alone, and I never knew how I should spend my time on these sites. These apps promised fancy algorithms that would presumably guess my preferences, but they were narrowing in on surface-level things that I could care less about.
Who cares if I like to ski and he likes to ski or if I like to eat pancakes on Wednesday mornings with a biodegradable fork and so does he? Maybe I want to learn new things from my partner and have a more enriched life because they bring different perspectives and experiences to the table than my own.
This is where Arrow comes in. The people who know you best — friends and family — can help you sift through profiles and suggest matches, rather than a computer algorithm or a paid matchmaker. It’s more like real life, where dating is a social experience; friends introduce you to their friends, set you up on blind dates, and offer their support.
Dating and relationships are nothing to play down, either. They’re more important than we think. This 75-year longitudinal study at Harvard revealed that the key to living a happy and successful life is in the strength of your closest relationships. People who report having strong, close relationships report being happier and tend to live longer than people who report being lonelier.
This extends beyond physical health, too. People in stable, supportive marriages have lower rates of cognitive impairment and perform better on memory tests later in life than those who are aren’t. So finding a partner who is a good match for you is important.
I have two important goals for Arrow. Helping people find quality matches through friends, and addressing safety. I often felt uneasy meeting a stranger for the first time, and it turns out I’m not alone. The Pew Research Center reports that 53% of women on dating apps agree that online dating is more dangerous than other ways of meeting people (38% of men agree with this statement, too).
Arrow addresses these concerns by letting users share their location with friends when out on a first date. Users can choose to share the profile of the person they’re meeting up with, too. I’m super excited about this feature. I think it’ll be a game-changer and improve the experience that people have with dating.
If I can help even a few people date smarter with Arrow then the doubts, lack of investor interest, and overwhelming competition won’t matter. Arrow is a smarter, more connected approach to online dating and my hope is that people find their perfect match through the app, whether investors are on board or not.
