Launch HN: Muzmatch (YC S17) – A place where 400M single Muslims can meet | Hacker News Reader

Launch HN: Muzmatch (YC S17) – A place where 400M single Muslims can meet

147 pointsbrod_ie116 comments

Hey HN!

Ryan and Shaz here. We’re building muzmatch (https://muzmatch.com), an app that helps single Muslims meet their partner. We refer to ourselves as a dating app largely for SEO but the reality is our users don’t tend to date, they marry!

Marriage is central to many Muslims’ upbringings and ethnic, family, and religious pressures make it a difficult search. The casual Western apps don’t cater for this market and the existing Islam-specific offerings are outdated, ineffective websites.

As a practising Muslim, Shaz experienced this problem firsthand. He quit a 10 year career in banking to write and release an MVP back in April ’15. With promising traction, he found me (Ryan) on LinkedIn in the then New Year. It was clear it could be a massive opportunity but I believed it needed to broaden its appeal (then it was as an ultra serious marriage service) and modernise its branding/marketing to position it for the new generation: this seemed like a great challenge!

We’ve tried to build a product that feels fun and light but respects our demographic’s culture and sensibilities, being halal is essential. Some unique features:

- Chaperones: In keeping with Islamic tradition, users can opt to have a “Wali” present in their conversations - Full privacy: Users can blur their photos and use a nickname to remain anonymous to friends and family - Fully verified: All manually approved, Selfie, GPS, and SMS verified users - Relevant: Profile information that matters to many in their search, like Islamic, sect, and ethnicity filters

We’re now ~2 years in with 200,000 users and are thrilled to have helped over 6,000 find their partner.

We’d love to hear your feedback and answer any questions!

My wife is a user of this app (she has used to to help her sisters look for husbands) and so far I think it's a good product. You were wise to include the wali/chaperone option because that is clearly a key feature for many sisters.

She always mentions how she's puzzled over the "Always pray / sometimes pray / never pray" options under religious practice. Can you explain your thought process in coming up with those options?

I want to say that I can see why your app would be a tremendous challenge from a product development standpoint. What you have as a user base in America are basically a mix of many different immigrant cultures that each have their own idea of Islamic traditional marriage customs - Somalian vs. Arab vs. Indopak vs. West African vs. Cham vs. vs. vs..., as well as clashes between youth & elder viewpoints, as well as a large indigenous (I use the term loosely - we're all immigrants to an extent) American Muslim population as well (something that foreigners usually are shocked to hear - Americans becoming Muslim?! What!!). Do your research well & don't give up

I ask Allah to guide you to a product that is beneficial for the Muslims - and also materially successful!

Edit: Also, my email address was used at one point as the "wali" contact but I stopped getting digest emails from the conversations inexplicably. You may need tighter QA around that pipeline

Very happy to hear that and thank you

Absolutely it's a challenge and we're aiming to be as inclusive as possible

Interesting, if you email me (ryan@muzmatch.com) I can look into this further for you

Thanks again

Thanks. I think she's taking a break from the searching for now but I'll save your email address in case it happens again.

Commenting on the wali/chaperone feature: I'm actually surprised that MuzMatch is the first network I've seen with support for unobtrusive third parties in conversations. I think there might be a general business opportunity there if they execute the limited dating application well. CCing/BCCing in a business setting is a limited communication management tool vulnerable to political distractions. Idling in chat is unproductive.

Totally

Don't get me started on email..!

Great market. You should look for some help with the copy writing. I had to read some sentences twice.

Dating apps right now feel a little like pre-Facebook social networks. There is one for every niche.

I wonder why there isn't a platform for single people where dating companies are just apps on top of the platform. Seems like bad user experience that a user needs to maintain multiple accounts.

Don't get me wrong, I think this is a great idea but I think the really big company in this space will be a platform for single people.

You mean facebook?

Facebook doesn't have open APIs and blatantly opposes non-advertising extensions

Facebook login works fairly well to grab data once.

This is a good point! Most dating apps have Facebook login and grab a bunch of information from Facebook. Maybe this platform for single people grabs data from Facebook.

I like the idea of having LinkedIn and not just adding all my work contacts on Facebook. I want to be sure that the information I share on the dating platform and Facebook don't mix too easily. Curating my Facebook data once when signing up to a dating app is fine.

Different dating apps cater to different mindsets towards dating. Some ban pictures in favor of words; while others only work if you have great pictures; then others want one to mention their annual income ranges.

The groups on Facebook are very different but it still works. You should be able to build most things on top of the platform. Flickr was the social network for photographers but most photographers post on Facebook now.

Sharing photos is easier on facebook because all of your friends are connected. Quality is worse but speed and discovery are easier.

Strangers don't belong in that model because they are not friends. Most people want to keep strangers away from your real life until they become friends so having a third party site keeps that experience away from preying eyes. Once a couple is formed they will connect over facebook and start sharing their experiences.

allowing you to connect via FB and sign up for 3rd party services is essentially that. it's questionable how much integration with FB is valuable, considering people are justifiably wary about what they want to do publicly and privately, and FB privacy settings can change and are confusing to many.

I think the product's design is pretty different though. If you want only text as well as photo-centric options, that's hard to design. Also, if you want people to spend 2 minutes reading a profile before deciding if it's someone they want to "like" or message, that use case needs to be designed very differently than a use case where a user wants to decide in 3 seconds if the other person is cute enough to "like".

You might be right though, it might consolidate in the future if people figure out really good interfaces that make it work well for many use cases.

Ehh, most photographers advertise on Facebook (for free, via postings on a page), while pushing their users to other sites to actually browse their content. Basically, they use Facebook as a glorified RSS feed for their external site.

Interesting concept, the key difference with specific niche apps is the intent of the user when signing up

We're solving for very specific requirements, aside from the benefit of shared identity I think it'd be a lot harder to keep the product free of feature creep and still appeal to all

Thanks for the kind words

How many marriages have happened through your app our of interest?

I think I remember, something like 6000, right?

Close! 6,000 couples have met here and left muzmatch with 600 now confirmed to be married

We've had 600 confirmed weddings and 6,000 couples leave after finding each other within the app

We think the former is likely higher too as many choose to keep it private

So if people leave after finding each other but don't get married wouldn't that technically be dating?

Could be engaged..?

We see dating to be non-exclusive where as these 6,000 couples are in committed relationships

So if people use your app until they agree to be in an exclusive relationship aren't they "dating" until then?

I'm not really sure how to ask this politely, but have there also been troubles like already married people using the app or something?

The HN description says: "users can opt to have a “Wali” present in their conversations "

The site says: _Women_ can include a guardian in their conversation for extra peace of mind.

Which is correct?

As long as some 'users' are also 'women' both can be correct at the same time. I don't necessarily see a conflict between the two statements! :D

The chaperone feature is coming to both genders in the next major version. Historically it was just for women as we used to refer to it as a "Wali" which Islamically is only for this sex

Can you explain, how you make money? In the play store there are some bad reviews about in-app purchases. What is your pricing and what do you price for? Thanks

We monetised through a mix of In App Purchases for products like Extra Swipes (see more profiles daily) and Instant Match (guaranteed to be seen to a soecified user) as well as a Premium subscription offering that includes some supplemental features as well as bundles of the IAPs. People don't always like the realities of the app economy but in truth we didn't monetise anything that was previously free. The free product is still as functional as ever. We modify pricing from time to time, you can see these in-app and in-stores, thanks.

This looks like a really good idea. I wonder if there is a wider opportunity beyond the Muslim-specific context for some kind of Anti-Tinder.

Out of curiosity, how does "all profiles being verified manually" scale?

Thank you

It definitely keeps us busy 24/7 but we've built some internal tools to make this as quick and efficient as possible

We're definitely nearing the point of needing a dedicated Community Manager to take over this function

Pretty cool guys. I can see from the play store comments that your users love the app. Best wishes.

Whats 'Halal, free, and fun'?

Whats you tech stack like?

A few harsh comments in play store are interesting too :p

and many downvotes are because there are in-app purchases. Seems to be quite a problem with play store. They should have an algorithm or UX flow to weed out such reviews.

I know right! We began monetising in March but our existing features remained completely free, you wouldn't think that from the reviews though

And what is the reason for not having a teaser video? I hear they improve the download rates.

Absolutely, look out for one in 3.5

Thank you!

Halal being "ok" Islamically, free as the old competition are very expensive, and fun so the process sounds noncommittal (many are put off by fearing being rushed into something they're not necessarily ready for)

It's a LEMP stack heavily utilising Memcached for performance and XMPP for real time functionality

How have you initially launched it so hat it got traction? Sending mails to your friends? at an event? posting in FB group?

If you plan to use NodeJS and ReactJS in future - please feel free to reach out (email under profile section). I am a freelance consultant and have built and launched my own products (end to end). They are not monetizing and I freelance currently.

I'm annoyed that you came in, advertised your product, took up front page space, and didn't bother to answer any of the interesting questions. I feel as if you are taking from the community and not giving back.

Sorry to hear that, I thought I chimed in on most topics! All hands on deck for demo day, having another read through now

Your hero div has some weird overlap issues in smaller screen heights http://imgur.com/a/yxyHr

Thank you for bringing this to my attention, I never foresaw such a small vertical to horizontal ratio screen!

Nice service!

Is the "Wali" a human being? If yes, how will that scale?

It'll be a verified email address that the member selects, to whom the chat transcripts are sent. [1]

> How do I include a Wali or Guardian on muzmatch?

> We want muzmatch to be a Halal and safe place for all our members to find their partner.

> Women can enter a Wali or Guardian's email address in Menu → Settings to give them extra peace of mind.

> Once their email has been confirmed they’ll receive weekly transcripts of your Chats on muzmatch.

[1]: https://muzmatch.com/faq/how-do-i-include-a-wali-or-guardian...

Thanks, I love seeing the FAQ being used! You can probably tell this is our own custom tool, we want to build more of a community around product Q&A and support in the future.

Interesting that you seem to have gained traction even though your competition has been around for 10 years or more.

Good luck!

Thank you! The older the company (typically) the harder and slower it is to innovate, we think they've completely missed to opportunities smartphone present.

How does the Wali part work? do you employ conversation reviewers? Does one dater recruit an outside person?

Who did your icon illustrations? They're great!

Thanks, I do all of our design but I can't take credit for these other than some colouring and minor alterations, they're from a generic set I bought a while back

In terms of gender, I am fluid. Does muzmatch have plans to support additional gender options? The current format only allows "Male" or "Female".

Yeah, this should be an option

Does the religion allow for this? Not sure that it does.

I don't think this is the place for a discussion on theology. Might I suggest a slightly different question: do gay and gender fluid Muslims exist? The answer is clearly yes. One need not go far to see stories of extremist groups throwing them off of buildings for being so.

So, this leads to my original question of whether the product will enable this. I'd hate (probably too strong of a word) to see a product get awesome HN coverage that actively works against ('discriminate') LGBTQX folks.

@abbasiddartha > beat me to it. I agree.

They are serving a narrow niche. I don't think you can term that discrimination.

Perhaps if You see a business opportunity you could create an app that serves the Muslim LGBTQX community?

If I create an app that delivers cup cakes and cakes to people having weddings - but only to people who have "straight" marriages, would this be a "narrow niche" and "business opportunity", or would I have the shit sued out of me?

I don't think that is a fair comparison.

A dating service serving a niche can help people pre-filter their matches. For example someone of higher education or earning might want to only find people of similar education. It would be discrimination to prevent people of lower education from purchasing from a cup cake delivery service. But not to filter them from a dating service.

As I understand it there are dating services that specialise in matching non straight couples. Is this discrimination against straight people?

You can have a dating app which uses filters and so forth to find your mate. RESTRICTING access (as opposed to a search filter) based on race, gender, etc. is pretty damn iffy. Especially when the app is owned by a company. Has this been tested in the courts yet? How is a digital "filter" (in the way that you are using the word) any different than a physical "filter" beginning at the entrance of my cake shop?

In any case, brod_ie has said "We're supportive of this and is definitely on our radar reply", so I'm sufficiently satisfied! ^.^

I think it depends on your interpretation, western Muslims however are more accepting of LGBT in general.

I think the real question is whether the app is intended for people who are currently practicing muslims or people who were brought up muslim. There's many non practicing Muslims who keep the Islamic morality like former christians and jews do.

There are many things in today's world that religion doesn't allow, all religions not just Islam. The app is not trying to enforce a religious practice only connect two people of the same faith. Just like other date sites like compatiblepartners.net, a gay Christian dating site.

We're supportive of this and is definitely on our radar

> Chaperones: In keeping with Islamic tradition, users can opt to have a “Wali” present in their conversations

Sounds like a pretty unique feature in the world of chat apps. Were there any technical difficulties in implementing that?

Great question. Not particularly as the current Chaperone system works as an email digest of conversations sent to your confirmed guardian. In the future we want to explore adding full muzmatch account functionality here so the chaperone can sign into the native apps and view conversations in a more realtime manor.

Would be interested in your relaunch 2015+ - how have it got traction? Was it rebranding? How have you got the initial traction? Sending emails to closed real world community? Postings on FB?

Link for the lazy: https://muzmatch.com

Added above. Thanks!

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