NEON - July 11 - Jean Meyer is the CEO and founder of a slow dating app Once that sends users only one match per day. The app has launched a new feature that lets users see their attractiveness score.
Q: Don't you think this score could destroy a person's self-esteem?
Jean Meyer: Every dating app has an attractiveness score. People with high scores are matched with other people with high scores. We wanted to be a little smarter and stay transparent. We believe it is important to be transparent about how we do things.
Q: You use this transparency to lure people back into the app. How does it work?
A: We do not email people with: "Hey, come back and use the app". We want to give them relevant information. It works because people are curious and want to know their score.
Q: What is your score?
A: Not very good - 2.58. The score just tells me that my pictures are not good enough. That's a good feedback.
Q: Don't you think it has something to do with being a man?
A: That as well.... the average score for women is 4, for men it is 2.
Q: Who decides who is matched with whom?
A: In the beginning we had human matchmakers. We asked them to just rely on their gut feeling. We did that for a year and a half, until we had enough data to write an algorithm.
Q: Are interests and hobbies also being considered?
A: The picture is 95%.
Q: So if I rate many blonde men well, will I be matched with blonde men?
A: It's not that easy. We are doing a cluster analysis based primarily on people whose opinions are very divided. Imagine two different women. They both have the average score of 2.5 out of five. But one of them got plenty of twos and threes and the other got a lot of ones and fives. Then one of them is the average and the other is polarized. The people we care about are the ones who split the opinion. Because they probably belong to a certain type. Either you love them or you hate them.
