Add less weight
It’s odd to be writing a blog post whose only guaranteed reader is me, but as that should soon change, I’ll shout into the void and pretend I’m not talking to myself.
Hello. My name’s Samuel Agboola, and I’m the guy who decided the world needs another dating site.
If, after reading that, you’re trying to resist the urge to put a gun in your mouth keep reading. This blog will explain why a different type of dating site is a good idea, and provide advice and commentary on dating online and off.
Regarding the royal ‘we’ I’m throwing around, aside from myself we have a small programming team in New Dehli (Hello Binu), my co-founders in Long Beach and me in Los Angeles. My co-founders run a couple of other successful business’, which share nothing in common with Vooji but their skills and a giant-slaying attitude.
As I write this, we’re a few weeks from a public Beta. We completed a proof-of-concept alpha at the start of February, and are working hard on tying up loose ends. If you want to be first in line to see Vooji, click the link at the top of the page and request a Beta invite (this will be a real Beta – we’re not going to use the ‘beta’ moniker as an excuse for running a barely functioning site for years on end.)
Our aim is to make meeting people online as fast, and simple, as pulling a result from Google. Impossible, of course, but worth pursuing.
It’s easy to contact people you know online instantly, via email, IM, Twitter etc. but meeting someone new takes days, or weeks, via dating sites and social networks. On the web conversations that take minutes in person take days. When it comes to chemistry, intimacy, and romance a picture is worth a thousand words (and a video-feed delivers 30 pictures per second.)
Recently, video-based speed-dating sites have become popular, but they generally require you to jump through hoops before you actually get 1-on-1 with someone. They’re dating sites with video added, and based on the speed-dating model which is complicated and artificial (who prefers to talk to people they like for three minute sessions?) We think there’s a better solution.
When the great Lotus designer Colin Chapman was asked how to make a car faster, he replied, “Add less weight”, and that’s what we’ve done. We’ve looked at all the dating options online and removed the barriers which complicate and slow them down.
Registration barriers? Gone – why force someone to register? Payment barriers? Gone. Who pays for stuff online anymore anyway? Complicated forms and quizzes? Gone. Just record a message and go. Filling your inbox with crud? Gone. You don’t want us to email you? Ever? No problem. We’ve built an online meeting point that’s as simple, fast and anonymous as approaching someone at a party (unless you’re used to approaching people at parties with a list of the last three books you read and a thumbnail).
Subscribe to our feed if you’d like to know more. We’ve only just begun.
(Photo by Exfordy)
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