Why is it difficult to date an Indian girl in general?
This question on Quora triggered an emotional tsunami when we shared it with our product team during a general skype chit chat session.Everybody shared their opinions about this real life problem, each one of us have faced as a typical M/26/IT/NCR guy :-).
We forgot about it and moved on with our single, dateless lives but suddenly we saw the funniest “women empowerment” jargon on TV.
Every question in the world seemed to have same answer – “Women Empowerment” and it got stuck to our product team. We thought “this so called future PM is actually quite right. If we want to save the world from many future PMs who are still singles, we have to find them a Date!
We started pondering ideas why it’s so hard for Indian girls to come out and choose a date. What are the things which stop them to express their feelings. We created this initial list
1. Strangers can be dangerous.
2. Girls are not initiators (I have hardly seen any case of a girl asking out)
3. Social pressure of “Log kya kahenge agar pata chal gaya that I am openly asking for dates”
4. Privacy. Trust. Security. What if he starts sharing my SMSes, WhatsApp chats, Facebook messages?
We knew we want to create a dating app which can give girls uttermost confidence to go out and use the power of technology to find a great date for themselves!
And here we are with Vee.
This is how Vee works
– Vee finds people around your area whom you can date! (we will suggest dates based on your mutual interests )
– Like in one click anonymously!
– Vee connects you if you are liked back!
– Chat privately and securely. Remember you get connected with only 1 at a time.
– Feel safe. Open up. All chats disappear!
– Not working out? Break-up and start again on finding a better person (your future partner would be able to see your break-up count and time spent in relationships though!)
We really want suggestions/feedback on our approach and the app of course. Download it from Google Play https://goo.gl/D7uWMx
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Updates added Sept. 30, 2014
These five months have been awesome for us as a start-up. We have done some changes to give better experience to female audience on Vee.
1. Browse Like a Ms. India or Mr. India Now 🙂
One major demand from female users was control over who can view their profiles. So we introduce this feature where users can hide their profiles anytime. Only people whom she/he will like will able to see their profiles.
2. Let US Be Anonymous
Get the feeling of app while being anonymous.
We are still learning and improving our platform so if you have any suggestion or comment please feel free to connect via anuj.tyagi@getvee.com.
I like to thank Asha, Alok and whole Rodinhood family for encouragement 🙂 .
Neharika Roy
I like the idea, but I don’t like the feature where others would be able to see my relationship history. I don’t like to talk about my past relationships on my first date. Why would I want prospective dates to know about it even before we decided to date?
Also, I think why most women are apprehensive of online dating is because we tend to think that guys on online dating sites are creeps.
Anuj Tyagi
Thanks Neharika for your encouraged words about idea,please give app a try as well.
Regarding relationship history, this is what our hypothesis is,most men are creepy on dating forum because they are there only for chatting and time-pass.
So relationship history will be an indicator of seriousness of a date seeker.If he/she is only looking for chat, their break-ups counts will be high and average time duration spend with their partner will be low (this count will increase for the person who will initiate the break-up so other person in same relationship will not be effected).
I hope this way she/he can make better choices 🙂
Kirti Prakash
Tinder does the exact same thing.how do you differentiate from it ?
Anuj Tyagi
Thanks Kriti for your comment.
Basic concept looks same but Vee doesn’t want to be an another hook-up app .Vee will try to be a real date app for India,some of the things which I like to mention
a) Vee is about focused relationships. We restrict only 1:1 connections,
b) vee promote transparency. If you break up, your future hook ups should know.
c) Vee is all about private communication considering local culture. All chats disappear. No record is maintained.
d) Vee do matching based on real human behavior and connections. Not based on your Facebook mentioned interests (which are meaningless most of the times). You would know about it when you start experiencing Vee about how do we do it 🙂
e) Vee is gamified to extreme fun. You would experience it soon :).
f) Vee is about tools to keep you connected and engaged as a couple. Chat is only the first lever. You would see multiple new innovative tools in our upcoming updates.
If you haven’t downlded the app please try it out https://goo.gl/Z2rHQh Thanks again.
Kirti Prakash
things look amazing.
I would also be keen if you could explore the web based version.
YOU know it just expands the horizon and yeah a windows based version too 😛
Anuj Tyagi
Hi Kirti,
We are only on android right now but we are working on windows app version.. so stay connected :-).
asha chaudhry
yo! anuj….!!
how’s the vee doin??!! am very curious to know and am sure others too as well!
🙂
Anuj Tyagi
Hey Asha,
Our baby is growing really fast and steady.She already knew how to walk and we are training her like Haile Gebrselassie to enjoy the long journey of starting up. We are very proud fathers/mothers of our two months old child Vee 🙂 . (Happy Father day to me)
Cheers,
AT
PS :- Download our app Vee,give your feedback and send us (loveguru@getvee.com) your mailing address to win a Vee t-shirt
PSS :- Mumbai is the love capital of India (it was my gut feeling before starting up Vee and data has proved this point).
Rishi
Interesting, but I have to admit it sounds like Tinder meets Snapchat.
You have highlighted a problem w/ India: “Strangers can be dangerous.”
and then “All chats disappear!”
My question on safety (in the context of India) – how do you ensure you don’t have creeps misusing this app? How can someone be sure they are not meeting a person they should not meet (outside the app) – can you track back a user conversation history if something untoward happens?
Anuj Tyagi
Hi Rishi,
Thanks for your comment.
Some points which will give better understanding on our take on privacy n creepiness issue :-
1. We have only fb login to get registered so we filter out profiles in initial stage itself.
2. We keep our network balanced all the time as we are building a real platform not a city of dead zombies walking 🙂 .
3.Women have power. “Creeps” get booted out and blocked if they get “boot outs” from certain number of females (this feature will be live soon).
4.We think that you can anyway never be sure you should not have met a person even in pure offline world :). We are a platform. The choices are for users to make. A permanent connection of interacting 1:1 for a period of time (chat to start with and multiple other interesting ways to interact later) is a way to take a call on whether to meet offline.
Plus multiple interesting data points that might reinforce the trust (like common friends,common places you hang out etc.) through use of innovative technology.
5. In conversation point, women have power again. They can choose to save conversation or let it disappear at their will. It is coming soon!
We do not take this call if chat need to be saved or delete. We let the women take this call and tell the platform what to do. Again we are a platform and an enabler.
6. We would have a way to understand and track how connection on the platform resulted in offline meeting and how did that go. It would come soon.
Rest is for users to see and use and make advantage of it to their interests!
Keep an eye on us. We are more interesting than Tinder or Snapchat combined 🙂
Cheers,
AT
PS : please download the app and if find it worth share your feedback on playstore 🙂
Rishi
Thanks for the reply Anuj.
First, I think this it is a great idea, but I was just highlighting some risks in the context of India. I’ve been thinking about some idea like this since ORKUT launched the “crush” feature…but somehow dating sites/apps don’t interest me that much as an entrepreneur. A personal choice! 🙂
Second, I’m very bullish on the future of messaging. My previous startup project was built on messaging and even the current one has a messaging layer.
Now back to the risks…
#1. The problem with fb is it still has a large number of fake profiles. If I were you, I would detect a potential fake profile (based on no of friends, first/last activity, no of pics etc.) and report it as an alert to the other user.
#2. The other thing I’d do it (again this is optional for users) is introduce phone number verification so that if they want to talk over phone before meeting, it at least ensures the phone number is a verified # and can be tracked back.
#3. Not sure about giving all power to women; again there could be people posing as females and playing around with the app just for fun. It’d be more valuable if any user can report other user irrespective of gender.
#4. If you think deleting messages works, that’s your call. However, without storing messages you could still store details like who talked to who, when etc. so that you have a track of activity. No need to clutter the app with this activity – just a logging mechanism to go back to if something untoward happens. Think of this as a call record without the conversation being recorded.
Good luck! 🙂
Anuj Tyagi
Updates added Sept. 30, 2014
These five months have been awesome for us as a start-up. We have done some changes to give better experience to female audience on Vee.
Sumit Soni
Looks like giving a shot.