London entrepreneurs Michael Blakeley and Rupert Coney launch new dating and friendship app clikd – the ‘Instagram’ of the dating world, where people can use photos to build their own personalised dating app.
Clikd, live in the app stores now in Beta form and live for purchase in April, uses photography based questions to bring together elements of photo sharing and social networking in its bid to help its users find friendship or dating.
The app’s hybrid proposition seeks to differentiate itself with a unique product in this growing market and hopes to attract 12 million users within two years.
The Market
The dating app and social connections market continues to expand; it’s valued at $3bn globally and is estimated to grow 36.4% by 2019 in the UK alone. The more traditional approach taken by Match.com and OK Cupid focuses on detailed form filling, whilst the current crop of Tinder and its cohorts focus on profile photos and speed. Apps like Tinder and Bumble dominate todays mobile dating market for millennials, however the focus on speed and looks has meant that the quality of matches has decreased. Clikd joins a new wave of dating apps which is seeking to carve a new path, that of combining speed and simplicity with a light touch filtration system that gives people better matches.
The global photo sharing market is at least six times the size of dating, with over 500m users on Instagram and Pinterest alone. The rise of smartphones means that photography and photosharing is now part and parcel of modern life. Clikd founders Michael Blakeley and Rupert Coney have created a product which seeks to bridge this divide, giving users a platform which targets both.
Clikd Progress and Ambition
Founded by Michael Blakeley, a data protection officer by trade and Rupert Coney, a management consultant. These driven founders have turned their backs on their corporate careers to focus on this creative proposition. Michael and Rupert have applied their skills and experience gathered from their corporate fields to raise investment, grow the team to 10 employees, design, build and take the app to market. Their pilot of the app, which targeted the creatives hubs of Hackney, Soho and London Fields, involved over 1,000 people, and saw them enjoy a 91% sign up rate by single people for the App.
Founder and CEO Michael Blakeley told My Entrepreneur Magazine: “Whilst we’re at the start of our journey, the overwhelmingly positive feedback from our testers and high numbers of pre-registrations, means that we are confident that clikd will attract over 1 million users in its first year and over 12 million by year two, globally.”
“The move from data protection to dating, has been quite a switch. They may sound similar, but in reality, the type of work couldn’t be further apart. However, I am enjoying the startup scene in London. There’s a real buzz and excitement around Old street and you can feel the hunger to succeed.”
Co-Founder and CEO Rupert Coney comments: “When it came to a choice between helping banks make more money, or helping people find friends and dates it took me about 10 seconds to decide, and I haven’t looked back since. The start-up scene is as challenging as it is rewarding and, with clikd, I feel for the first time like I have a genuine chance of making a material impact on our customers lives.”
James Preece, the UK’s leading Relationship Expert says “Clikd has a unique proposition, it has cleverly taken elements from a few different areas to pull together an exciting app. Its format and ability to personalise mean that it has the potential to both capture the public’s imagination and disrupt the market in a fun and exciting way. I look forward to seeing how Clikd progresses on its journey.”