I'm Varun Sud, Founder & CEO at Juleo. Ask me anything!
Hi Grapevine, I'm [Varun](https://www.linkedin.com/in/varunsud/), Founder at [Juleo](https://www.juleo.club/): The Trusted Singles Club. We are not a dating app, nor a matrimony app, but a Club of Govt ID verified Members who don't just match but meet fast! I'm here to chat with you about my journey in all things startup, consumer tech, marketing, product and Juleo! Ask me anything, I'll be back at 9 PM and begin answering! :)
Hi Varun,
What led you to want to build in this space? Also what were considerations when leaving a pretty interesting career to build?
Hi @AlphaGrindset! I was looking for a consumer internet problem that would lead to impact at scale, and nothing seemed to be a bigger problem than this one, and globally at that! Further, this space marries (pun intended!) the opportunity to build a highly profitbale business to create wealth for my investors and team mates, and also solve the pressing soceital problem of loneliness and touch people's lives :)
I was fortunate to be in a place where I could take a financial risk, and I felt I had gotten so much from the institutions I worked/studied that it was perhaps the right time to give back by dedicating the most productive decade of my life to building something that hopefully outlives me.
Amazing to hear that and thanks for the reply. True the market is huge in human matchmaking.
One more if I can ask: this might have not been a personal pain point for you at the moment (going by your experience)
How did you recognize the pain point?
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Hey Varun. Glad to have you here. Can you explain with an example how is your platform better than the current incumbents and the OG rishta bhejna?
Hi @LetsGetLaidOff! We are fundamentally different from any dating or matrimony app out there:
1) We are a Trusted Singles Club where every Member is Govt ID verified and criminal record checked for safety
2) Every Juleo Member gets a personal Matchmaking Genie (virtual not human) who helps them meet Members who are their type. Genie is your friend, wingperson and coach in the journey to find the one!
3) Women's profiles are private by default and they choose to reveal themselves only to Members they are keen to meet. There is no directory of Club Members
4) Men only spend time and energy on women who are already keen to meet them. No endless swiping or pressure of being witty on chat to get noticed - Genie does the hard work of picthing them to women Members
5) The focus is on not just matching but meeting fast. The Meet can be IRL or over video/audio via the Juleo app. There is an option to take a friend along, or even family if both sides so desire
To sum it up we are a safer, more efficient and more responsible way to find a partner without the mental health toll of incumbent apps.
@LetsGetLaidOff I missed replying to rishta bhejna... whats happening is that as large families of yesteryears become smaller and singles migrate to larger cities for jobs, the parents networks in their hometowns fall short. Further, human matchmakers remain SMBs because human networks are limited and don't scale like digital networks. That's why many people work with multiple matchmakers at a time if they are not comfortable coming online. We hope to give our Members the comfort of a personalized (virtual not human) matchmaker with the scale of digital networks.
DaringTrain
Stealth
20 days ago
Hi Varun,
Congratulations on your fundraising. Massive respect for founders in India.
Had a few questions about Juleo (Sorry for being harsh):
- You keep women's profile private on the app. You have the option for keeping all profiles private if the user wants. Just curious, why women exclusively? Is men's privacy not a concern?
- You mention if a person lies about their relationship status, BNS 318 and its consequences would apply. If a person lies about their relationship on the app, can they be prosecuted under this law? Do you think it's okay to misrepresent legal terms on the app? Was your legal team okay with this? What about users who falsely get comfort that people who lie on the app can be criminally prosecuted?
- During the end of registration, you ask for either Aadhar or DL. Why are official government documents being asked? How am I being ensured that they don't get leaked/ misused?
Thanks
No need to be sorry @DaringTrain, these are very important Qs that I'm glad you asked
- We are following what users told us when we did our research. We found that women cared about putting themselves out there, but men less so. That said there isn't a directory of Male Members either, the Genie selectively shares men's profiles with women who are his type. Now this system works great for men too because they only spend time and energy on women who have already expressed an interest in them
- It was indeed our lawyers who suggested we add this, so disagree that we are misrepresenting legal terms as the law is there for anyone to read. If someone is lied to on the app BNS 318 let's them lodge a case
- We get name and DOB from the Govt ID to ensure that no one can fake identity and age, and keep the Club clean. You have the option of sharing this information safely via Govt of India's Digilocker where we don't get the id/id no. itself, just the particulars from Digilocker with your consent. We are GDPR, CCPA complaint and ISO certified post a thorough audit, and hold ourselves to a high bar on data security and privacy
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Hey Varun, why do you think Bumble and Hinge are failing to do what they're supposed to do?
Thanks for your Q @devdos!
3 reasons these apps are failing users:
1) People match but don't end up meeting in real life [2 out of 3 users of dating & matrimony apps amongst a sample of 1000 survyed by YouGov said they have never met anyone in person from these apps]
2) The apps are rife with scams
3) They have led to fatigue/burnout/mental health issues
In summary, they are hurting more than helping.
Wanna know why? Indulge me in a little history lesson :)... Match.com was the OG who in 1995 visualized a dating/matrimony site/app as a public bazaar ie a ctalogue of men and women. Tinder came and added their super successful spin on the bazaar model, and Bumble theirs. However, the bazaar model has continued for nearly 30 years and is the root cause of the above:
- Indian women feel uncomfortable putting themselves out there on a bazaar and prefer private matchmaking channels, leading to skewed gender ratios
- In a bazaar everyone aims out of their league v/s being realistic (but human) and then gets disappointed
- Bazaars give the illusion of there being choice and lack of success hurts even more
- As someone put it: Both men and women are dying of thirst on these apps. Men because its a desert. Women because its an ocean, water water everywhere but not a drop to drink)
- Bazaars (endless scroll of profiles) require a large no. of free users. That is why apps havent made verification mandatory because if they did they worry users will drop and they won't have enough to sustain a bazaar
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Hey Varun
@salt here
In a world full of men and women masquerading as ones who are seeking long term relationship in the guise to satisfy their carnal desires, how will you scale if this is true?
Hi @salt, you are right this is a big problem. Which is why Juleo has a Club Code of Conduct just like a Gymkhana Club does, Also every Member has a Trust Score which drops on violating the code. One of the code violations is misrepresenting your relationship goal.
Further, at Juleo we have clear lanes for different relationship goals and our Matchmaking Genie helps you find the right one for you to ensure you have the best experience, whatever your goal is.
samosa
Stealth
20 days ago
How sure are you about your encryption and data privacy? Are you open to a challenge to break it ?
Hi @samosa, we are as confident as we can be. We also acknowledge that cyber security is never perfect and constantly evolving and will be happy to work with ethical hackers who can help us keep evolving.
Hi Varun,
RamRahim Here
Dating sites have the most difficult times building a network - because we are talking about geographical penetration which is usually difficult compared to interest based penetration.
I won't even touch Gender network
In such case
How have you/are going to solve chicken and egg problem/cold start problem?
PS: You have mentioned it's not a dating site but let's be honest it's will be dating app
Hey @RamRahim, the cold start problem is indeed the elephant in the room. We have built a playbook learning from ex global CMOs of Bumble and apps like Meetic in France (acquired by Match Group). You should see it playing out over the next few weeks.
And to help create the network faster we have a Video Meet format where somone in a city where we have a sparse network at the start can meet with somone from cities where we focus our go to market activities and hence have a dense network.
We cater to relationship goals including Marry, Date to Marry and Exclusively Date, and in the first 2 we see high interest to meet a great match who may be from a different city,
Thanks for doing this!
How will you solve the two sided market place problem? Supply > Demand
Ps: afaik, Tinder went to colleges. Classic playbook. Schmooze did something similar.
Hi @WryExile38! Our growth hacks include a super attractive referral program (Rs. 333 to be won/referral) as well as seeding ourselves in communities of alumni of premium organizations and institutions, which is why Im here :) Thats our equivalent of what Tinder/Bumble did going from fraternity to sorority on US college campuses. In this day of whatsapp alumni groups (many of which got activated during the pandemic) we don't need to do that!
First of all congratulations.
This is a big step. Can you tell me a bit about this journey?
1) what influenced/motivated you to become a founder? Was this something you always had been dreaming about? Or did something click looking at the founders post covid era?
2) As a founder what was the moment that made you respect other founders? As in a pain point that you weren’t ready but got to know that every founder has to go through this?
3) how has your life and social circle get impacted from where you started? You worked at BIG companies but I still assume you still would have had a good growth. So how does life look from where you started? How does the future look like? How did the people around you get affected by this?
4) Last and the most obvious, what made you confident enough to start in this segment? How do you see this segment growing and evolving? Does AI actually would have a better impact?
@TommyBhai, thanks for so many Qs, here goes...
1) Honestly, I was never somoene who always dreamt to be a founder. For me having impact at scale has been a driving force and feel fortunate to have got the opportunities to do that as an employee in several orgs before I started up. My time at Zomato-Blinkit gave me the confidence and inspiration to start up - Deepi & Albi are IIT friends and seeing how they ran a multi billion dollar listed company made me believe I could run a small company of my own ;)
2) Hiring! Been sad to see people shop our offer and not show up on Monday morning when we were excitedly waiting to welcome them :(
3) Social circle has not changed one bit. Yes, my wife has been super duper supportive in convincing me to start up and bringing in the dough. It's important to stay grounded at all times.
4) AI will touch every segment there is ours included. Whats clear is the current crop of apps will get disrupted, by us or someone else, whoever executes the best. Users want more authenticity, safety and in real life meetings, something the current paradigm is not able to provide. My confidence to start in this segment comes from my training as a student of the Indian Internet user for 15+ years which has taught me the art & science of converting deep consumer insights into world class products and marketing campaigns. Eg (shameless plug) https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_PlufNIs6l/
iamthebest
Student
20 days ago
I need a step by step guide to do a startup but with a practical approach in the Indian context and I need a mentor who can guide me towards the right direction as I don't have any knowledge and have only read some guides and books but still clueless. Can you please become my mentor and guide me and moreover I'm also very much into technology and can assure you that I'll be of very much help to you and your company.
iamthebest
Student
20 days ago
Thank you very much sir. Really excited to connect with you.
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What cultural insights have you gained from integrating traditional Indian matchmaking elements into Juleo's platform?
@CircularLollipop tons! You may like this: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14ybxiKl7nGT4cVBNggu7ymTHvk8KHV_1CtPjNmCIWs8/edit
Your journey is very inspiring. What helped you get to the places you did?
If you could share a tip for someone who wants to do better than where he is in life?
@SentinelPrime
1) Hard work
2) Meditation & the Bhagvad Gita
3) Being around smart, driven and nice people
I'd say - read a lot, learn to meditate and surround yourself with likeminded people
Hey Varun, great to have you here - know a few folks who crossed paths with you at Google, heard only good things :)
What lessons have you learned from your previous experiences at companies like Zomato and Google that you are applying to Juleo?
Glad to hear we have common friends @TrivialConclusion :)
Top 3 (which also happen to be Google's values):
1) Respect the User - listen hard and never lose track of what they want and don't
2) Respect the Opportunity - think big and be responsible
3) Respect Eachother - you can build a fast moving, high performing company with a culture of respect and empathy
Hey Varun, what factors influenced your decision to pursue angel funding over venture capital for Juleo, and how did that choice align with your long-term vision for Juleo?
@ExcitedParchment we are extremely fortunate to have a bunch of friends and family who have so graciously come forward to support us. This has enabled us to not raise institutional capital so far, but we totally intend to going forward.
samosa
Stealth
20 days ago
Why did you choose to keep women profiles private ? Why do only men have to face this bias ?
@samosa no bias at all, in fact we solve both men and womens biggest problems by creating a system where our Matchmakign Genie first shows women men's profiles and only shows men the profiles of women who are keen to meet them, thereby saving them incredible time and energy of swiping and chatting which is what causes app fatigue/burnout. We are NOT a feminist app ala Bumble. Men and women pay the same Club Membership Fees as we believe both genders are equal partners at Juleo. Unless both are happy, neither will be happy.
ShamelessPrincipal
Student
20 days ago
Hi Varun,
What would be you recommendation to fresher devs who want to take their apps to the startup phase? Can you elaborate on your first experience in the space and how you find investors?
@ShamelessPrincipal I started up at 40, so my journey may not apply to a fresher dev. Id say find an accelerator program to back you and a business cofounder.
How does Juleo address the mental health challenges associated with traditional dating apps, and what measures are in place to ensure user safety and well-being?
@CarefreeDrinking we have consulted psychiatrists and psychologists while designing Juleo. Essentially we create a system where there is trust, ghosting is penalized and there isn't a bazaar that creates the illusion of plenty and then disappoints. We have taken inspiration from the modus operandi of the traditional Indian matchmaker and replicated it digitally, as we realized it solves users biggest painpoints on the apps (1) Fake, bad, unverified profiles (2) A problem of plenty with poor curation (3) Getting lost in chat and never meeting (4) Being ghosted and left without closure doubting/second guessing ones own self. We believe our traditional system of matchmaking is not only a more efficient way to actually meet people but also more responsible sans mental health toll. We are packaging it in a modern avatar akin to yoga.
How has your educational background at Wharton influenced your approach to entrepreneurship and business strategy?
Hi @BadBaggie5 - its taught me to think big and global. Its given me access to incredible knowledge and people. Its taught me to value EQ as much as IQ.
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