This Founder Learned To Make His Startup Standout In A Crowded Market

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Online dating, whether through a website like OkCupid or PlentyOfFish, or via a mobile application like Tinder or Bumble, leaves some users unsatisfied in finding meaningful relationships. Tai Tran, 25, Jessie Salas, 24, and Benna Iqbal, 25, saw the shortcomings of these applications and websites and together created the app called Blue. Blue aims to make dating more conversational both online and offline through innovative and creative features like smart icebreakers and relationship literacy. Tran is a Forbes 30 Under 30 in Media and former marketer at Apple.

Frederick Daso: Seeing that you’re entering a crowded space being the dating market, what was the driving factor in developing Blue? Was it through a realization that there were unmet needs in the dating market, or did you look to improve on a competitor’s features in their product?

Tai Tran: The driving factor behind Blue was to have a human-centered focus in online dating. Speaking to a lot of young adults, they told me that they have become jaded with online dating just because it is so easy to turn people into only profiles and not to see the people behind them. These unmet needs and common complaints that we get from users of dating apps, such as prioritizing looks over compatibility and interest, motivated our app’s design.

One of our core features to rectify these problems is Instant Match Live, where we ask three fun questions to users at 7 P.M. If you and another member respond the same way, you both will receive each other as an Instant Match.

Daso: You looked at the current state of how people interact on dating apps, and you’re designing features such as Instant Match Live to help encourage particular behaviors or diminish other norms that are not conducive to genuine conversation. You’re trying to shape consumer behavior. How can you ensure that you’re able to do that with the features that you’ve implemented?

Tran: That’s an excellent way to describe it. How do we suppress bad behaviors and promote good ones? When it comes to online dating, a lot of the users we spoke to, especially female users of dating apps, told us they get bombarded with many messages. To help more promote more positive behavior, we introduced a “smart ice-breaker” mechanic. The new tool gives users more control over how conversations start. Until both members answer the icebreaker, you can’t begin to chatting with your match. My philosophy is that even though you match with someone, that shouldn't permit you to start bombarding them with messages, especially any that are vulgar and suggestive.

Daso: That makes sense. We hear stories all the time about individuals sending certain suggestive messages to others, which is not appropriate or fair to the receiving person. However, don’t you worry that by introducing these artificial mechanics to promoting good behavior, there may be some unintended behaviors to emerge as a consequence?

For instance, the smart icebreakers, one could come up between to matched people where one knows the topic well, but the other doesn’t, so they aren’t able to establish a mutual interest from the beginning.

Tran: That is true in a sense. For us, a “smart ice-breaker” is not meant to get both users to answer the same way. It’s really for both members to have a starting point for the conversation. One of the common concerns we’ve seen is that no one wants to make that first move to chat. With Blue, both people answering the ice-breaker provides a start point for any subsequent conservation.

Daso: Great. Last question here. For another founder in a college student or recent graduate who’s working on an app for social interaction (not necessarily dating), what advice would you give to them to build an app that can promote positive, pro-social behavior that allows for humans to connect?

Tran: We talk a lot about good and bad behavior, but I think it’s all about community-building. You want to build that community flow but focus on quality and group norms. Specifically, these soft rules of expectations and actions that you want them to follow and abide by in their interactions with others via your app. By focusing on setting these norms in place first versus gathering a bunch of users, you’ll be able to cultivate that community rather than struggle to get all these new users on the same page about how to interact on the app.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and readability.

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This story was first published on Forbes.