Using a funny algorithm to identify your perfect match, proving it isn’t your typical dating app.
There’s a new dating app in town, but it’s not your typical algorithm.
Schmooze is a “matchmaking tool that blends machine intelligence and memes to connect people,” according to Tech Crunch. Vidya Madhavan, the app’s founder, claims that the programme employs a “humour algorithm” to connect users based on their taste in memes.
Madhavan’s app is founded on the idea that a shared sense of humour can unite people. She observed a pattern in how Gen Z utilises dating apps and refocused her concept on a meme-based platform. Late last summer, 200 Stanford students participated in the beta test. The software now has over 10,000 downloads across the country, with consumers using the standard swipe right, swipe left action on more than 5000 devices.
Vidya Madhavan had always aspired to work in the business world. Given the size and influence of companies like Tata Group, an Indian global conglomerate, she grew up in India thinking she might be in the business of owning a factory.
She excelled in school, finishing at the top of her class in high school, earning a mechanical engineering degree in India, and most recently enrolling in Stanford’s business school. Instead of starting the more traditional business, she had in mind, Madhavan found herself experimenting with something quite different: A schmooze is a matching software that uses machine learning and memes to connect people using what Madhavan refers to as a comedy algorithm.
To date, 90,000 matches have been created, but only a small percentage of those who have been matched have moved on to using the in-app messaging feature. Schmooze has a number of competitors in the business, but it is proven to be more than just another dating site. Schmooze, though getting off to a fast start, still has to focus on its target market. Ulu Ventures just invested $270,000 in the app as seed funding. It’s still unclear how the app will extend into new markets in the foreseeable future.
In the meantime, Schmooze faces stiff competition from traditional dating sites as well as emerging apps and questionnaires that try to match people based on shared interests rather than appearance.
It’s also plausible to see more meme-based dating apps appearing out of nowhere, especially in today’s fast-paced market. (Weirder things have happened in the past.)
Schmooze, on the other hand, appears to have promise. It just received $270,000 in seed funding from Ulu Ventures and other investors to continue working on its product. On TikTok, the company is having success reaching out to its target demographic. As industry watchers have seen time and time again, there is a lot of money to be earned in the world of online dating and its tiered-services business model.
Madhavan, on the other hand, has fallen in love with her five-person startup, much to her surprise. “It’s unexpected, in so many ways,” she adds, partially because of her formative years and partly because she had never dated online before serendipitously meeting her husband on LinkedIn.
