The Halifax-based creator of a dating app hopes to challenge the likes of Tinder and Match.com.
Frogo founder Marc Zirka plans to compete in the crowded marketplace by offering a user experience that is inspired by mobile games.
A “pilot” version of the app is available for download on Android and iOS, and is free to use. When the full version launches, Zirka will monetize it by selling premium subscriptions.
“You have, all the time, the element of surprise because you cannot search for a partner,” said Zirka in an interview. “Based on how you are answering questions, and how others are answering questions, we match people together. This is why we call it a ‘gameified’ app.”
When users sign up, they are invited to answer a set of questions that help build a psychological profile of them. The profile is then used to calculate their temperamental compatibility with other users.
To make the process more fun, many of the questions are whimsical or quirky, such as, “Would you date someone with hair like Einstein?”. This particular answer would indicate the extent to which a user is concerned about a potential partner’s outward appearance.
Like mobile games that increase user engagement by encouraging the player to progress through a series of levels, would-be daters then send each other questions that they must answer similarly in order to “level up” their compatibility and earn the right to communicate.
The premium subscription will cost about $10.00 per month and will allow users to send more personal questions, but only to other premium users. To ensure propriety, the chat function will not allow images.
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Premium subscribers will also be given a trial period—possibly of up to three months, but that remains to be decided—before they have to begin paying.
“We’re all in the business of making money, but what I don’t want is for it to be a scam,” said Zirka, explaining the purpose of the trial period.
For security, users cannot send each other questions unless they both opt-in by “liking” each other.
Apps that rely on a sizeable active user base for their appeal, such as dating apps, sometimes struggle to reach critical mass. When the full version of the app launches, Zirka hopes to solve this problem with regionally targeted advertising blitzes.
New users will not be prevented from signing up if they are outside the regions being targeted, but Zirka said that concentrating marketing efforts on one area at a time will help ensure that most new users can meet in person if they choose to.
Zirka, whose background is in the telecom industry, is the CEO of both the Lebanese TelcoVision Group SAL and the Nova Scotian Strategy Up, both of which are management consulting firms that specialize in improving the operational efficiency of startups and information technology companies.
Frogo—a subsidiary of Strategy Up—will also soon be spun off into a separate corporate entity to offer increased transparency to prospective investors.
Zirka plans to raise $3 to $5 million of investment in the near future. Until now, the app’s development costs have been paid for by him and two co-founders, whose shares he has since purchased.
About 15 percent of the money raised will be spent on continued development of the app itself, 15 percent on staffing costs, and the remaining 70 percent on marketing.
As part of the fundraising effort, the Frogo team will attend this May’s Collision Conference in Toronto—one of the largest tech conferences in North America.
