Shahzad Younas - How Faith And Culture Impacts Finding Love

39:11Yeah. And you're trying to find an answer to something that you never have experience in, because if you did have experience, you wouldn't be searching for it. And in a very interesting way, it's just a question of, can you just be very honest and vulnerable and say, look, you know, I'm confused about this and I don't understand that. And like I tell my best friend, can you ask him on the first day if he's actually interested in kids at all? So that you don't have to wait eight and a half months. Exactly, before that. And she would always say, oh, but then I would scare him away. And I say, that's exactly the point.

39:43You'll scare the wrong kind of people away. Exactly, yeah, yeah. And the right one will have an answer. Yeah, yeah. Can I ask you another question? So I don't want to talk about your app. I don't know the stats of your app. And I maybe should not mention the name of the other app. But one of the top apps out there advertised at a point in time and said, every 11 minutes, someone finds a match on our app. Yeah. Okay. And of course, the mathematician within me was like, oh, that's interesting. Okay. Every 11 minutes basically means those many people every year. And then I went and looked at how many subscribers they have.

40:19And I divided how many people per year find a match and how many don't. and it turns out that 99 % of those on the app don't find a match every year. I was like, that's a very clever tagline for advertising. Every 11 minutes, I think they should say every 11 minutes, 99 % of our subscribers don't find a match. That's the way to say it now. How effective is a dating app and what should people expect? Yeah, it's a very good question. I mean, like I said, so we, what are we? We're, you know, 9 million members globally. you know not to go too into it you know x hundred thousand of them on the app every single day so far that we know half a million people around the world have actually found their partner told us they found their partner left the app haven't come back so they're the kind of top level numbers now would that be successful in nine years i don't know it's a bit of a weird one i would like to think if i look at like the activity that goes on in the app because anyone can say i've got 9 million members, how many are active?

41:20And like you said, have an active profile, are talking to people, are applying to messages, et cetera. And that number becomes smaller. But if you look at the active people, if I look at it now in terms of the rate at which people are deactivating, telling us they found a partner, it feels quite a healthy rate to me. I think the key, and this is how I've looked at it, right? And it's definitely accelerated as you would, as we grow, as the pool gets bigger, you'd hope the matching gets better in terms of people finding no one and more people getting married, right? Great. And so we've seen that.

41:48interesting mathematics though oh yeah yeah yeah because it should go the opposite way it should in theory yeah yeah but yeah so so so we we've seen some of that now if i look at it for me it's a tangible impact you know you know i speak to a lot of religious figures and people in the muslim community etc and everyone's talked about like i said this crisis you know the two the crisis the muslim community is helping young people get married and helping people stay married they're the two problems we have in the community now everywhere i go if i go to an event i usually ask people put your hand up if you know someone who who met and got married on us or you know either yourself or you know someone nearly always half the room which is pretty everywhere i go and that's not just here if i go abroad which is amazing it blows my mind honestly i've and we're still at a time where people will pretend and not tell people they met on the app you know so uh it's crazy you know so that's the honestly meeting on mose is much more cool than my aunt i would have thought so yeah all the contrived stories people come up with it always makes me laugh but i'm like you found the app didn't you um so i the number of people who i know and they're like shazky not tell anyone i'm like fine you know it is what it is we have people who send us their wedding photos and all that and just say this is just for your team can you not publish it because we don't people to know fine so i know that the real number is probably higher but for me that's impact you know if i look at it definitely you know and and and remember before our app and this is one of the reasons i set it up everybody would you know i was young i was when i set the app up I was 20, well, technically 27 or something like that, 27, 28.

43:17And I remember I was a banker, right? And in the London professional circles. God forgives all sins. I hope so. Because this is, Muzzies might take it out of it, hopefully. I love old bankers, but it is a very interesting job. Yeah, it was soul destroying, I'll tell you that. That's a whole other podcast. But yeah, trust me. And yeah, so for me, I remember at the time, you know, And people laughed at me, including Muslim friends of mine, because they thought, this guy's quit his job to do this silly app. And remember, apps were not a thing at all. But I remember just everyone I heard from was, it's so hard to find someone.

43:51And online wasn't a thing as such. It was horrible websites that no one really used. And that was it. That was literally it. And you're relying on parents. And you're relying on a family network. And what's strange is, not just here in the West, but even in Muslim countries, the family network, the extended family network, and that whole, call it a range process, is nowhere near as strong as it used to be. Absolutely. You know, we have parents coming to us saying, can you help us find someone for our kids? We don't know anyone. Parents did not see that coming. So we're telling them, just get your kids to sign up, you know, like the, you know, the phrase of, you know, see where the puck is going.

44:22No doubt young Muslims will want to be empowered to find a partner on their own. But the key for us, and this is the way we try and position ourselves, I think the right way that makes me comfortable as well, is you can still do that in a way that's respectful of your faith, of your family, of your tradition. So you find someone on the app, great. Get families involved. That's the best recipe for success for both sides. Get family involved. Get them involved in the process. Don't just do this whole thing alone. It is one thing I think which Muslims should be happy about and cherish is when two people get together, it is about the families getting together.

44:54It is all of that and it's important because that's the unit hopefully, hopefully if they don't interfere, keeps the couple together, supports the couple in the hard times. And I think hopefully helps, like you said, that percentage of arranged marriages stay together you know much higher than people who go for love marriages and all this kind of stuff so I think that's the thing I think one thing for Muslims who are looking for a partner if you're sensible attraction is still important both looks personality all that super crucial of course it is you know there's a saying or a Hadith a story in the Prophet's Day peace be upon him where somebody was getting married to someone and he asked her have you looked at her face literally have you seen her look at her face he was telling her you know he would say I have modesty look at her this is the woman you're going to marry right So looks are important, and there's nothing wrong with that.

45:40It's how we're built, how we're wired. But that's important. Personality is important. But Islamic, if you're looking for the want, you're looking at, like you said, when are you looking to have kids? What's your outlook on life? What are your values? It's the base questions. When you have an alignment on that, that's the glue that keeps you together. The looks and stuff, it fades so damn quick. It really does. That's the heart of why a couple either works or doesn't work. Because hopefully your values are aligned. you respect each other's either difference or similarity of opinion great there you go solid relationship right there uh and a mutual sense of respect so yeah it's interesting i i i've been i find you know going from banking to this whole field this field is so messy so much it's the i did not realize how i was very naive to it i was naive to muslim problems when it comes to relationships and the messiness of it all but just when two people get together the myriad of things that can happen good and bad and that you know initially you know it knocks you back when you hear bad stories of things happening of course it does you know because you're like oh man what have i done i've built this app that i don't know help people just mess around or whatever but then i always remind myself and always the good stuff that happens and that's the bit i you don't ignore the bad stuff but that's the bit i focus on the good stuff in a world where artificial intelligence is now upon us what what do you think how do you think dating will look like with ai so here's the bit i so many people have asked me this and obviously when i was coming on here i thought about this as well and i'm cynical i'm always a cynic with ai um i do think ai has some role here's what i don't like about it especially in call it the dating sphere if you ask anyone what's the problem with dating they'll say oh it's people are inauthentic they have photos that are very filtered they have they give an impression of themselves which isn't you mean everyone doesn't have perfect skin what but this is it right so everyone has this this they portray this image of themselves in my and people and i've seen mainstream dating apps that we're gonna have ai and there were apps that have been built literally we're gonna have ai to help you start the opening conversation all that and in my head i'm like my god this cannot be good this is now i don't know how to have this conversation with someone i'm gonna have ai help me when you get married or if we're together there's no ai there it's down to youtube so what that like why would you start with this premise of a yet another falsehood or another impression being made which isn't accurate you know one thing you know we have on our app you know where you obviously you submit your photos we ask you a bunch of questions we let you write a bio right and um i'm amazed that a lot of people men and women really they they give a lot of attention to the bio why yeah probably tells you more about a person than all the other bits put together tells you how they write like so what's an element of education it gives or let's say their English or French or whatever their language how they describe themselves in free form in a free form way right it gives you so many clues about them their personality just in that bio right that imagine if you had AI writing it or whatever I just feel it detracts from the the sincerity of a person so and we've navigated this into internally you know we did a bit of a hackathon internally a couple of weeks back and one of the things was well given we're asking you all these questions we could use AI chat GPT to write your bio for you.

48:53And they proved it, and it does. And it writes a good bio. And I like it in principle. Of someone else. Of someone else, right? I like it in principle. But I'm like, so I'm just imagining a girl matches with this guy because she's like, oh, that's a really great bio. I mean, look, it's so thoughtful, blah, blah, blah, blah. They speak to the guy and the guy can't string two sentences together. It's a waste of time, you know? It's like you've got them through the initial bit of the funnel and it's a disaster at the other end. I think the heart of it is, and this is the key, and this is what we're trying to solve.

49:18and if AI can help on this, amazing. And I think it can to some degree. I always look at dating apps or art apps from a female's perspective because I genuinely think, and this is just what I've learned in time, solve it for women, men will put up with nearly anything. And that's the cold truth. It's true. It's the cold truth. Women are, like I said, women are a lot more serious. They have a lot more intent. They know what they're looking for, for the most part. I'm generalizing, but this is what I've observed. Men are nowhere near, they don't have such high conviction on a lot of those things.

49:46And like you said, men are very visual they're put up with a lot of different things i think it's because what's at stake is much higher for a woman of course no question no question yeah so i always think how do i solve for women and one of the things literally i've got a catch-up with the team and i put it in for i think it's next week or the week after uh a whole day brainstorming and i said if we were to imagine an app that solved this problem for women of how do i and the common thing i always say from women how do i spot a serious guy right that's the like if you ask a Muslim woman, non-Muslim woman, on any dating app, that's the question I'll ask.

50:19How do I spot if he's serious or not? If I can solve that one question as much as I possibly can, and the flip side for us as a company, really putting the customer first, if I, as a company, did not care about revenue, did not care about retention, did not care about any of these things, if I wanted to solve the actual problem, what would we do? Because I actually think you would build a very different product. I agree. I think in the age of AI, you could simply say, like literally, the app, you wouldn't need to sign up you just give us your social media profiles and then yeah every now and then we may send you a question or two and ask you to answer them in a voice message or in a in a you know in a little essay and that's it eventually we can simply say hey we think this person is a good match for you do you want to go meet them it's almost like two very good friends yeah you know i think there's an element of that but here's the other bit i find and this is where i could be interesting in learning about you right because this is the bit and what i mean by that is the way you use an app, the way you might like on a particular profile, the way you might talk to different people, et cetera, et cetera.

51:20I think AI could get quite smart at figuring out truly what you're interested in. You might say what you're interested in, your filters, but what you actually interact with is quite different or can be different. So truly understanding that. Secondly, understanding the kinds of people or the kinds of conversations that you seem to like and trying to match it with people who match along those lines as well. So it would get a good element or an idea of how, I would say, within reason how serious you are and how you how you interact. I mean there is a lot that you get to know from the way we behave online.

51:49Of course. Pretentious as it is I mean recently a few months ago I was approached by a gorgeous young Instagram influencer you know I don't have time to look at Instagram and so on. Anyway we chatted a couple of times and then you know we decided to meet and it was I think the epic an epic first date really in many ways but then eventually you realize that maybe there is a mismatch you know i'm not that much of a gen z myself you know instagram influencers in general have to behave regardless of where they are in life as a gen z nothing wrong with gen z is listening but you know instagram is very pretentious in many ways and it could have been very simple if if an ai highlighted to me by the way we don't think this is a good match because right but but it is it is it's happening i think what is also happening which sadly is going to in my view, be very real, is that the way a man or a woman, a potential partner, is perceived is going to be reshaped negatively by AI.

52:55Because, you know, just like if you imagine face filters being so prominent now, it's not only that you're being fooled by the ones that are more attractive than they are in reality you're also sort of like oh but if every if everyone in the world is so attractive because of the filters then why is this genuine one so unattractive in comparison even though the genuine one is probably the the most attractive of all of them but i also think that this now is chat gpt and the likes you know language models in general hacking the human operating system of language i think that would become the next filter where the machines would write and flirt and create friends better than humans basically so and that's a depressing it's quite like it really is like anyone you know who talks about all like you know we've looked at a thing now of you know like icebreakers how do we help you start the conversation and it's always a tough one because i'm like and some people need help you know i i can appreciate that some people need i'm like i i'm lost for how to start this thing great writing it almost for you and giving an impression and I think it's misleading.

54:05And so I'm very conscious of this. I don't want to do that where, you know, we make, because you're right, it's almost like a filter for looks. So you've got a photo filter, which is a visual impression, which is different. Now it's a personality filter, you know? Oh, what a nice, pleasant, thoughtful guy I'm getting to know. Okay, really? No, he's narcissistic and quite selfish. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There you go, right? So it's a whole new set of problems. And this is why I think sometimes, and you see it, you know, people want to plug AI or any new technology into everything, right? blockchain shove it in everything you know whether whether it's a need for it or not and i think the same with ai right because wherever there's vc interest and there's a high quite now gets you invested of course you know you just throw it into a shove ai and i've got investors saying to me oh what do you think about ai with your app i like just because six months if people are still talking about ai in the way they are now they might still be but you you'll talk about something else you know and is that how fleeting this is right so i always worry about these things always let the hype die down and then see where's the actual value yeah you know and i'm still somebody had a blockchain for dating i remember i remember and i was thinking what on earth like what is this like your your relationship history uh out there on a ledger for everyone i have no idea on an open like come on guys like do we need it you know so it always it makes me laugh sometimes but there you go it is definitely an interesting time because i think the core problem at its very very deep end is not resolved at all and more throwing more technology at it is not going to change anything it is true however that we are in an age where yeah i mean i am very much into an intellectual you know very intelligent woman and i have to admit the more refined conversations are becoming using ai the more humanity becomes like ah it doesn't seem that she read 2.1 trillion gigabytes of data so yeah yeah yeah of course yeah maybe not yeah which is which is how how we are beautifully human and it's quite uh eye-opening for me i do think i mean this is like uh you know this is when you step back from the the the relentless i don't want to say rise the relentless road technologies impact it's having on our lives right you know and dating apps is just one part if you look at the whole relationship spectrum right it's only growing in its impact on our lives.

56:23Yet, you know, all the stats show, as it does show, people feel more alone, more depressed, more whatever than ever, right? Why? You know, our nature, our human nature, the way we're built is to be with people, is to interact with people, is to be around with social creatures, right? It's to be around people. And I don't care what people say, the danger of all these online platforms, what they do is they lock you into this online world where you're not spending time with people, which actually, one, no doubt, helps your mental health and your well-being and one doesn't you know for a long it's like everything in moderation and all of these other things in technology and none of them are built with moderation in mind at all you know they're they're built with addictive qualities in mind etc etc right they're businesses of course they are that's the way they're built that's a big for me that's something that we need to consciously think about and that's why for us is how do we actually get people to meet some of the things that we have and we're literally thinking about is do we have intentionally a cut off on conversations so we don't want you just chatting endlessly on the app because it serves no one.

57:21Get to a phone call, get to a video call, meet up, you know, like have something productive at the end of this. For me, similar thing with the whole remote working thing. You know, I remember, you know, we've gone on the whole journey of remote working and now, you know, we were five days in the office, then obviously COVID, remote working and now we're hybrid. For me, hybrid was so important because I could see, especially for young people and young members of our team, being alone, you know, let's say in london right you're in a flat and a lot of people they don't have a study in a bedroom the bedroom is a study right you wake up you're working in the same room you don't leave that room you don't talk to anyone everything's on a google meets whatever this is not good you know it literally is long term not good and it's for me it was the you know the human element which i was which i thought for everyone's well-being it's so important we have to meet up you know we're done with this fully remote setup we're not going to do that and we don't so we're hybrid now and you know we've been pushing more and more towards the hybrid model why for me it's the human connection so important creativity all of that but actually just for your own health and so if i look at it if you if you're a brutal business person you would say technically probably they're more productive when they're working remotely right because they're at home that's all they're doing etc great great for business i'm getting stuff done for their well-being and i think for creativity no it's way worse you know long term bad and that's why for me i'm we've gone hybrid so that's just one example i think where technology great but let's not go too far and you have to frame it in a context where people live you know in the west at least in big cities weirdly lonely lives very lonely lives and it's it's a this is an epidemic no question yeah in terms of the effects of all of that is there any way a dating app would sort of also collect the uh failure data i mean one thing i i wanted to write i wrote the notes of what was a book called good boys win the idea that obviously in the dating and romance world if you're a bad boy you're more likely to succeed yeah yeah and that maybe there is a way to show a good man who has good elements to appear on the app or or at work or in the sports club or whatever in a way that makes them more successful and more seen so that they get chances and accordingly women get good men and so on and so forth.

59:42But I don't think the cycle is completed anywhere. Like you go on a dating app, you find someone, you swipe, you chat a little bit, you meet, you may end up dating for a while, you may end up not dating for a while. But at the end of the day, when you go back to the app, you have zero learning. You have no idea why it didn't work and you're starting again. Is that something that's doable yeah so i do think it's doable like one thing we're talking we're talking about internally is like how can we be a bit more i don't say peer-to-peer rate peer-to-peer rated but something like that where you know the again how do i you know again back to the question let's say for me as a woman how do i find a serious man right yeah and how do i do it well there was an app that did this once where it allowed women to rate there was one and yeah And every man was crap.

1:00:31Yeah, that's one problem. The dates is not great. It's kind of interesting because way back when, I remember I built this thing where, yeah, you could weight positive and negatively. And what we found was men and women were horrible to each other. So they would give each other bad weighting. And equally, somebody in the team said this, if you're a woman, you're talking to a good guy, do you want to weight him highly to help other women? It's complicated and it's interesting at the same time. But I do think there's an element of how can a community... I do think they can identify who the good guys are and who the not so good guys are how do you do that in a way that doesn't offend anyone but that equally is visible to people because what you don't want and this is what we had in a very early version it would say all the ratings say that you as a man are not serious and that's on your profile now are you going to stick around if your profile says I'm not serious and you know I'm no one recommends me no and because people were being unfair we were like we can't have that and we got rid of it very quickly but I always wanted to come back to it because I have to solve this somehow so I do think there's an element like you said of how do you reward good behavior how do you identify it i think the learning bit is what's interesting and that's a much harder thing i don't know how well so actually i'll give you i'll give you kind of an example we're building this new feature we call it virtual speed dating so for me it's like do people just want to be on a put on an app swiping left right center i don't think so you know if i look five i'm trying to think five ten years down the line is that what people are still going to be doing i would hope not what is the future you And so we're trying different things of how to bring people together without them being judgmental, et cetera.

1:01:59Like I said, using some of the smarts that we have. One of the things we've built is virtual speed dating. So it's an event for an hour. We connect you on a five-minute phone call with a different person every five minutes. So five minutes you have a window, phone call, not video, phone. You barely get any of their profile up front. So you're having to have the conversation to find out about them. At the end of the call, you can then decide, do I like them? Would I want to chat to them? Great. and then you can chat after the event what we found which was really interesting so and in our matching we're genuinely trying to match you to good people so we've got a way of getting everyone into a waiting room we then rank everyone based on your profile their profile your filters their filters the whole thing and then try and find you an ideal match what we found was for many women who participated and again focus on the women women were liking twice as many people as they were when they were swiping so if they were swiping like one in 11 they were liking like one in five here you know so it's tangible that's a big big difference right so because you're talking to a human because you're talking to a human you're giving them a chance and you know if they if they just saw the photo and a name and maybe profession whatever they'll probably be like no no thanks they had a conversation and they'll probably like no the guy was actually right it's a nice phone call he came across well yeah let's chat and let's see where this goes great it's more authentic it's more genuine so for us such a cool idea and that so we've literally built it and we're scaling it up so we've already done a few events in the uk in the us uh we're gonna be scaling this up globally and the key for us is and we track all the metrics of an event so we're tracking how often women are hanging up very quickly so let's say we match you you're on a phone call and then and actually it's kind of even but women generally hang up more than men but for women who hang up why are they hanging up so quickly so we've literally built in there what did you not like was it was it their looks was it yeah was it personality were you just not matched because of age what was it you know and so hopefully we can start learning what they don't like you know and what are the things, and it helps us match better.

1:03:47So I do think there's an element of, you know, like I said, you have, and again, you know, like I said, if you were to build an app and you didn't care about retention, you didn't care about revenue, and this kind of stuff, you wouldn't have this model where you're like, like, pass, like, pass, because that's just convenience, that's why you have like, pass. It's the simplest way you can digest one binary bit of data at any one time, right? Now, if you instead said, you could still have that model, But when you like someone, why did you like them? When you pass on someone, why did you pass on them?

1:04:19And imagine all of that data from everyone. I wish that was true. And the problem is... In my highly organized mind. Of course. You're an engineer, I'm an engineer. Yeah, I know exactly why I would pass on someone. Exactly. And you would know. So you would categorize AI, if you will, would actually learn about you in a much better way than trying to infer. So you would have all these data points. Because equally, imagine you have a man's profile, just for argument's sake and there are a ton of women the biggest proportion of women have passed on him and said his profile doesn't come across serious or for xyz reason he doesn't come across as genuine imagine you could feed that back to him and say all right there's high reports that people are saying you don't come across serious or genuine here's ways you can improve your profile genuinely helpful right helpful all around i actually think that's a way better way of doing it now like i said if you didn't care about retention that's a reinforcement learning exactly Exactly, exactly.

1:05:10And here's the problem. Exhaustion. Imagine, I'm not interested in this guy, right? Man or woman. I don't owe him. Why do I owe him? I don't owe him anything. Why am I going to take my time to wait this guy? Knowing that women, like I said, will pass on 10 in 11 profiles, right? They're going to pass on them. Are they going to invest that time on each one of those 10? Definitely not. Definitely not. How do you solve it? And these are the hard problems, right? You solve it by telling them. If you give us feedback, we're not going to show you people like that anymore. So you could. but then you have the wheel and this is the this is why any app is is really difficult to build there's a sweet spot of so many things you could do that you have their exhaustion and then saying i can't be bothered i'm out of here and so they leave so you've lost a customer or lost someone and now you're learning nothing because you've lost someone so but but you know you know there are there are so many of those pointers like the worst female profiles i ever see are the ones that are entirely written in the negative yeah yeah yeah it's like if you're this don't talk to me If you're that Swipe left If you're this It's quite aggressive In like all the no's Yeah Very aggressive Very There's nothing inviting I'm a goddess I hate all of you And yet I am here Yeah yeah yeah And you know And you know There's a lot of male ones Same thing Don't want a woman who does This this this It's a whole checklist Of all the things They don't want in a woman And it's like I always say How is that remotely inviting To anyone Exactly It's fine saying These are the things I'm not looking for Be nice about the things That you are looking for Exactly But that is by definition very very concrete data it's like first of all you can either use it and say i'm not going to show you anyone that is like that or you can sort of feed back to him or her and say by the way you can write those in a positive sense and here is how it is and you'll get more matches that way yeah yeah right but this is the i was saying as a call it as an app developer this is the bit that you're trying to juggle is the mechanics of it because again so many things and we've come up so many crazy ideas.

1:07:03They sound amazing in theory and in reality, you're like, it's very complex, yeah. And it's not, so people have said to me, oh, should I just do X, Y, Z? And I enjoy this conversation. You know, I get stopped in the street with feedback, right? It's great because, you know, thankfully, I haven't found my match yet. Can you please improve the app? Trust me, I get that as well. So people literally stop me in the street and give me, they'll give me feedback whether I want it or not. And I enjoy it because sometimes I'll present in a scenario, why don't you just do this? And I always say, all right, let's walk this through uh walk through all the things and by the end they're like okay i get it why like i get i get why it's so difficult and it is you're trying to solve something that works for men works for women uh doesn't exhaust you uh keeps you interested doesn't make the whole thing laborious and negative except there's so many things you know it's it's i always say finding a partner it's a very emotional journey for women especially it's an emotionally draining journey uh you know i always think you know and you see it you know if you look in the data women will leave the app and come back 10 times more than men do they'll literally leave take a break for a month and then come back why because they get very emotionally invested when they get to know someone rejection if that happens the whole thing it takes a toil of course it does you know there's a mental element of getting to know a different person um that comes with this territory so i do think and that's something that we're you know conscious about how do we like i said how do you uh help women in this whole scenario right in this whole dynamic of trying to find a partner and it's difficult it is a very complex problem to solve if you were to give three top tips for people who want to find someone who matches them on a dating app yeah number one i always say just be serious like you'll be amazed that alone and be honest in your in your communication that alone sets you apart from so many people somebody asked me oh for guys how should we make our profile decent and i said that it's so sad the bar is so low for men like literally all you have to do wear a photo with a shirt on you know be presentable speak just seriously or sensibly about whatever you're looking for that alone you're like you that'll boost your success rate you know tenfold things like that so i definitely say be serious i'd say have some genuine thought over what you're actually looking for like what are your your deal breakers genuine deal breakers you shouldn't have thousands of them there should really should be five that are really important that you're like hell no this is not for me stick to them because what you don't want to do is waste someone's time and then be like actually that deal you know to be honest you were really nice like you're really attractive whatever but you got a kid and not interested why waste her time you know so have those if that's a deal breaker for you be up front and stick to it um equally know the things that you are looking for um and be happy if you get most of them you know uh i think that's actually sensible one thing you find is people start off with a really long list and then the older and more single they get that list does get trimmed down and you know there's no need right And this is, maybe it's a human thing that you want it all and you realize you can't.

1:09:53But the mathematics of it is incredible. People don't understand that, you know, if you're looking for, you know, someone, for something in someone and it's available in 1 in 10. Yeah. And then you're looking for another thing that's available in 1 in 10. It's not, you're not looking at 1 in 20 now. You're looking at 1 in 100. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. To add another thing. Yeah, exactly. To the power of. And that's the thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're dead right. I still remember in the early days, we used to have in a section in the app where you could set your filters. And it used to be you had, I think, 15 different filters that you could set.

1:10:22And I remember that this lady emailed me directly, a long complaint. Oh, your app is useless, can't find anyone, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, my God. So I looked at her filters and literally… 14 of the 15. Oh, yeah, yeah. It was literally within six miles, has to have a beard, has to be a doctor or a dentist, has to be of this particular sex, has to be of this narrow age range, this particular height, et cetera. And I literally applied back going, literally, you want all of this within six miles. and they have to be on the app and they have to match with you. And I said, does none of this seem remotely unreasonable?

1:10:53I said, what's actually important to you? Is the fact that they're between these four inches of height really that important? Is that age gap, can that be bigger? Et cetera, et cetera. I mean, honestly, if I were you, I would just save the men and leave her profile as it is, honestly. You know, that's the thing. But this is like what you're navigating. And like I said, the older men and women get, then they realize, actually, some of that stuff isn't important. What's actually important? And, you know, I guess it's easier for everyone if you start having those lessons a lot earlier. You know, we're like, you know, how do you sensibly get to know people?

1:11:26Yeah, like I said, so I think being serious, having intention about it and being clear with the other person what your intention is. Again, yeah, honestly, I think that just saves everyone's time and actually garners you a lot more respect. People have a lot more respect for you. On day one, if you imagine you met someone on day one and said, by the way, this is what I'm looking for up front. Yeah, I mean, I will tell you openly when I was on dating apps. being honest whichever way being honest that in saying i want something serious or being honest in saying i'm not ready for something serious both ways got me more yeah of course and i i think if people and that what does that require it requires you actually putting some thought into it you know like thinking about it saying all right this is where i'm at okay guys this is where i'm at a lot of people don't even go into that journey they jump on want to find so i'm single i feel alone great i'm going to jump onto an app disaster yeah okay i'm single i'm alone what do i what am i actually looking for right now am i ready am i uh you know well i'm let's say i'm not muslim do i want someone to move in i'm like what kind of relationship do i want etc that's the thought process you need to have before you before you even download an app you know because i just think it saves everyone time and and i always say imagine if everyone did that i think apps you know the bad rep that apps have yeah it'll be so much more effective yeah and apps probably would That's an interesting, that's a very interesting way of stating the fact.

1:12:45There's nothing wrong with the app. There is a lot wrong with the behavior. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I do think somebody else. I mean, no, there is a little wrong. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. By the way, even though I do think some of the mechanics of the way apps work, I don't like. I have to admit, and I'm an app developer, right? And I built Moz, et cetera. And there's some bits I'm like, sometimes I'm really like, is that what we had? We needed this thing to do this? Whatever. You call it a failing of people, I don't know. But I do think there's an aspect of, like I said, the role that apps play, the way we use apps, and the role of people and the way we use it.

1:13:19So some people say to me, oh, you know, ghosting and all this kind of stuff that is, you know, endemic on apps, on dating apps particularly. And I always say this for me is a pro and a con, right? One of the beauty of online, right, of social media, of social networks, all this kind of stuff is, you know, I could find you on Twitter and send you a message, right? Never met you, don't know you, and you might actually reply. That's the power of online. So damn easily, I can reach out and make a new connection with someone. So easily. I don't owe you anything. Never met you. I'm never going to meet you, let's say.

1:13:52Great. That's the beauty of it. The reverse side is, because of all of that, because the ease of making a connection, the ease at which I can end that connection or ignore that connection. I don't owe you anything. Why should I reply? Or I might reply, but then ghost you after that. Easy come, easy go. And that's just the reality of online. Imagine now the flip side where a friend of yours is like, oh, Shaz, you really need to meet Mo. He's a close friend of mine. He'll help you with X, Y, Z. Or he might be able to help you with X, Y, Z. Great. I reach out. And now I'm under an obligation because someone's introduced us.

1:14:23I'm not going to ghost you because now there's a third party, effectively, someone who can vouch for both of us where there's reputation on the line. There's all this stuff, right? So there's a bit more work involved in getting this connection going. Great. There's going to be more work involved in ending that connection, right? And I just think that's a, people have to just, whether we like it or not, accept it, right? How can we make it better? Being a bit kinder online, right? And that's the thing. So I do think everyone blames platforms. There's a lot we can, like I said, if you be nice to each other and you encourage that, these platforms will be a much nicer place.

1:14:53And I do think there's an element of platforms bringing out the worst in people. Correct. Yeah. When you hide behind the screen. Of course. This has been fascinating. Thank you for having me. I've enjoyed this conversation. Oh my god, that's, I mean, of course, as you can see, both of us and our software background. Oh yeah, we're both geeked at all. We geeked out at it. Looking at it from a data science perspective, you know? Exactly. You know? Yeah, I don't know if we lost our audience a long time ago. Probably the batteries died. It was a lot of fun, man. Thank you so much. I love this. Yeah, this was cool.

1:15:25And you guys, I hope you enjoyed this. You know, theoretically, it's about dating and love and romance. Somewhere in all of that. Yeah, exactly. But we spoke about religion and religious backgrounds and, you know, differences between cultures and, you know, different features that you can include and not include. But I think mostly, most importantly, I wanted to have this conversation to tell you it's actually not wrong for someone to say, look, I am a Muslim or I am in that stage of my life or I am struggling with this season of my desires and basically say openly, this is what I want. And when you say this is what I want vulnerably and openly, you do lose 90 % of those who don't match you, basically.

1:16:12And that's a good thing. And I think the reality of the matter is that maybe be positive in terms of saying this is what I want, not saying this is what I do not want more often because sometimes those profiles, honestly, I sometimes go like, can I please send her a message to tell her no one will take you when you're, or him if you're a man doing this. No one will take you when you're so negative about I don't want this and I don't want that. But I think the whole idea here is there is a big game of knowing you before you go out there looking for someone who would accept or be interested in you.

1:16:50Very, very complex world, the world of dating and dating apps. But there you go. I really enjoyed this conversation. And I really got me thinking again about a lot of the things that go into that complex economic model of dating and romance. yeah whatever it is that you're doing today if you are interested to find a partner i think what i will ask you to do is to slow down a bit this week and get to know yourself get to know what you want and then go out there asking for a partner whatever you do regardless of how busy you are this week slow down a little bit because there's always a little bit of time to slow down i love you all for listening and i will see you next time