ABUDHABI: MASDAR STUDENTS RAFAEL HARUTYUNYAN AND ASHOT MNATSAKANYAN DESIGN APP TO RIVAL TINDER

The National, UAE
March 24 2015

Masdar students design app to rival Tinder

Emmanuel Samoglou

ABU DHABI // Two PhD students from the Masdar Institute are taking
on Tinder with their own spin on traditional ways of online networking.

Rafael Harutyunyan, 25, and Ashot Mnatsakanyan, 27, both from Armenia
– who form the Abu Dhabi company BROgrammers – have developed Jeltee,
which takes its name from the Hindi word “jaldee”, meaning “hurry up”.

Like Tinder, users swipe through the accounts of others, but the
difference is that after you start chatting to someone you have only
24 hours to decide whether or not to meet before the chat “disappears”.

“You either like, or dislike people,” Mr Harutyunyan said.

Users, who must be over 18, create a profile through their Facebook
account. Profiles show the age, the number of shared interests and
the distance between two users.

To maintain anonymity, Jeltee does not share names, which they say will
prevent people from searching for extra information on the internet.

Once a match is made, the chat begins, and the clock starts ticking.

“When it ends, the only option left is to invite them somewhere.

“If you don’t, the chat will disappear,” Mr Harutyunyan said.

“We noticed how much time people were spending online in different
applications and we were like, this is crazy. For months, they can
chat, never meet, and just share pictures. Just endless chatting,”
Mr Mnatsakanyan said.

“We ran through some scientific research that showed even three
minutes is enough to know if you would like to go out with that
person or not. In our case, we make it 24 hours. We shouldn’t need
more than that.”

Mr Harutyunyan said: “It’s pretty hard to understand what a person is
like when you’re just reading what they’re writing. You cannot feel
their emotions. The other person can write whatever they want. You
will have an illusionary portrait of that person. We are promoting
quick interactions.”

There is another incentive to meet – restaurants and cafes that
Jeltee has partnered with will offer discounts to those who are
meeting through the app – so called “Jeltee specials”.

Each user receives half of a discount code. Only when they meet can
they join their discount codes and receive the deal.

Since launching in early February, Jeltee has attracted more than
8,000 users and established 17,000 different matches. It is available
on iTunes and Windows Mobile in the UAE.

“Because the UAE is so multinational, it’s a very good place to test
the application and to understand how people use it,” Mr Mnatsakanyan
said.

They hope to release an Android version of the app soon and expand
to other countries.

To avoid the fate of Tinder, which was partly blocked in the country,
they are not marketing Jeltee as a dating app.

“One problem with them is that they are positioned as a dating app,
which is not the case with ours,” Mr Mnatsakanyan said. “We are
definitely not about dating, it’s about social discovery.”

Mr Harutyunyan said: “We are trying to build a community of social
enthusiasts who are keen to meet new people in real life.”

They are monitoring registrations and filtering out users who do not
use the app as intended. User profile photos are also moderated. Any
complaints are investigated.

Peter Crasta, a senior security consultant at First Information
Security, advised anyone using social media apps to be careful sharing
personal information.

“Don’t give out crucial information such as telephone numbers,
addresses, and PO box numbers,” he said.