This ‘Made in Lucknow’ app by a 19-yr-old is looking to make your relationships stronger
While still a student, Qaiser Malik marked his first presence in the Lucknow Startup group with the launch of Pixter, a social network, with a limited number of friends. Although Pixter didn’t succeed much, it introduced Qaiser to the Indian startup arena.
This story is about what 19-year-old Qaisar did next. In a matter of a few months, he launched Qupid, an Indian application for couples, which aims at building strong relationships in today’s hectic world. Qupid provides them a private space which only two of them can access, share thoughts on and plan life together along with a private chat on a disturbance free platform. Lovers can connect easily on Qupid while those, who are single can try their luck by sending invitations to their crush.
The idea and the app
Qaiser says,
The idea originated through our realization that a personal space for couple is needed as all other communication apps have multiple users and thus distractions. We wanted to bring the real life experience into a virtual space where people can communicate and behave with their better half just like they do in real life. There are similar apps available for this purpose but an app developed with a focus on Indian users while equipped with features to serve worldwide was missing.
In one of the startup meets, Qaiser met Nikhil Kumar, who owns an IT company Trendsetterz IT Services, which is focused on cloud and mobility solutions. Nikhil is also mentoring a few early stage startups. Qaiser and Nikhil’s instincts matched and in the next few meetings Qaiser narrated the idea of Qupid. Nikhil decided to mentor Qupid and also invest in its development. Team Trendsetterz made the first version of Qupid app within three months.
Also read: Why Lucknow is the new startup destination of India?
‘Sensational’ features
In Qupid, a partner can interact only with his/her own partner and is not exposed to the activities of other users. A couple can send each other ‘sensations’ (virtual kisses) in real time and love-buzzes to their partners. While date planner and notes allow couples to plan their life together, categories like anniversary, movie, dinner, coffee, and shopping etc. along with a related list of nearby places to explore saves much time and effort.
There are notes to save personal reminders along with feeds to say something about your better half. Couple can share pictures, and text through these feeds which can always be made even more special by adding it to personal Qupid Memory Lane common to both the partners. The user is notified when the sent text is read.
Jab we ‘break’
Qupid also gives couples an option to break-up. At any point of time, a user can connect only to a single person on Qupid. They can select another partner only once they break up. The application ensures high security to user data as an account is linked to a single phone number. There is an in-built app lock and once the user deletes the account their whole data is automatically erased.
Quantifying the relationships
Qaiser says,
As per reports, more than 62% of smartphone users lie between 18-34 years of age. This segment includes teenagers, adults and married couples so the scope of usability for Qupid is high.
There are apps like Avocado and Couple in this domain with more than a million downloads each.
Qupid was launched in India in October 2014 and within a week it was made available for international users as well. Out of the total 1000+ users, more than 75% of the traffic is from India and the rest comes from other countries. Qaiser adds,
We have 62% users from tier 2 cities and 38% from other parts of India. The most popular features on Qupid are Buzz, Sensation and Date Planner. With the next version V2 for Android we will have an iOS app of Qupid available for free.
Related read: 5 Innovative Startups that can help you find your Valentine!
Stigma & challenges
For Qaisar, introducing Qupid to users was one of the major challenges. He says,
Couples are generally skeptical about registering themselves on such applications keeping in mind the information security.
However, all the information is saved only on the user devices. Since only the Android version of Qupid is available right now, the pre-requisite for using Qupid is an Android device at both the ends.
Where’s the money honey?
Initially, Nikhil (Trendsetterz) helped Qaiser with his mobility development and ideation team to lift Qupid off the grounds and manage it afterwards. Though the first version of the app is out, an iOS version of the application and e-commerce integration for increased user engagement are queued up. To take these plans ahead, Qaiser and his team is looking to raise a capital investment of one crore in the next five to seven months.
You can download Qupid from the Google play store.
