Hi there, my name is Dawn, and I’m the creative founder for the newly released dating app Verimour.
I got divorced in 2015 after twelve years of marriage. I’m a busy person, so it made sense to me that dating apps should be faster and better than trolling the local market. However, what I found instead was the current mess we all know and love to hate.
I’m a life coach and a problem solver. My DNA is hardwired to uplift, empower, compliment, and simply do everything in my power to make the world a better place, one person at a time. Therefore, when I saw the dishonesty, poor communication, and outright criminal goings-on, my heart was broken, and my stomach sickened for all the people dealing with it.
The original idea started with only the following five features:
Third-party id verification
An objective review system
Serious and casual profile options (though I originally used the hipper though in my head somewhat more ambiguous terms LTR/NSA)
Audio/Video options in addition to the text versions
And a skype style in-app communication feature
My reasoning was those were the bare minimum we needed to begin a better, more transparent experience and start changing the “I need a shower because I feel like I fell in a waste treatment plant” feeling many of us have any time we resort to once again using the available options.
I won’t bore you with the long brutal story of going from concept to reality. What I will say is that extreme thought has gone into every single detail, from the color scheme and logo to the name and how each screen and feature is implemented.
My attitude about every aspect is that if I don’t like it done to me, I’m not doing it to you. That means no advertising and no bs tactics trying to trick you into paying for stuff you don’t want or isn’t helpful to you. It also means giving you every single tool my creative little brain can come up with to put you in charge of your own experience and lessen the stress around simply finding someone you want to spend time with.
I believe with all my heart that this industry can be fixed. I’m still working to make Verimour better. Now I need you to check it out and spread the word.
What you can expect to find in Verimour and the reasoning behind it.
Background/identify verification — This is the foundation for all of it. Rude behavior, inappropriate pictures, financial scams, rape, and even murder make finding love online riskier than ever. The most common method for confirming identity is social media logins. But fake social accounts lead to fake dating accounts. Verimour uses a paid third party and legally recognized documents to verify every account so users can be certain they are interacting with real people. And if a crime does occur, we can tell authorities the exact identity and location of the perpetrator. We don’t use social media to validate, because we know that simply doesn’t work: https://www.idtheftcenter.org/Cybersecurity/fake-social-media-profiles-watch-what-you-click.html
Serious or Casual profile options — To reduce angst around the ambiguity of dating intentions, Verimour provides both serious and casual profile options. You can have both, but we differentiate them with different colored backgrounds giving an immediate visual indication of their stated goal. We say, “we can’t make them honor their choice, but we can make their intent clearer.”
Audio/Video profiles — Much relationship advice revolves around perfect profile verbiage or pictures. But decision making improves when we can see or hear the person of interest. Verimour’s audio and video profile options add one more layer of confidence and trust to the decision-making process.
Reviews — Most people have come to rely on feedback and reviews. To help answer the question, “why is no one picking me?” Verimour allows anonymous, up downvoting of images with the most common photo complaints. Unpopular pictures aren’t removed, but you’ll know when you should. *Important Note: This feature is currently only available on Android. Apple denied us the ability to use it, citing the importance of not hurting people’s feelings. We have some potential creative workarounds, but here is what it looks like in Android. If you like the concept, you might be able to help us by doing a shout-out to them to bring their policies in line with the current landscape.
Free to browse but must be verified to interact — We wanted you to be able to look around and get a feel for things before spending any money. However, in order to maintain the integrity of the security features, you have to be verified to actually communicate.
Powerful privacy settings — Use the app in the best manner for you. Let anyone message you, require mutual interest, or allow anyone who meets your stated search preferences. By default, we turn on a setting allowing only a single message from someone until they get a response
Date suggestions and date scheduling based on geo locations — This is a really slick feature visually, but it’s also the basis for some very important security and feedback options. When you go to suggest a date, it drops a pin at the midpoint between your two locations and provides suggestions that are additionally searchable. Once you agree on a place, checking in upon arrival via the Verimour app triggers a notification to launch 24 hours later with the above-shown feedback form (although we will be changing them from stars to yes or no questions to be more objective). Only the person or person’s who check-in will be allowed to review. That way, people aren’t getting bad reviews from someone who wasted their time by not showing up (such as experienced by the user in the article linked here): https://www.marketwatch.com/story/from-53-matches-to-4-dates-what-a-month-on-tinder-is-really-like-2018-03-13
Conversation starters — not sure what to say or need a little help getting started? There is a button alongside the chat bubble allowing you to scroll through a variety of possible first contact conversations questions.
These are the highlights and what is currently available. Please look for an upcoming post covering all the amazing things we still have planned. And if you want to see new options be available sooner, the best way to help us out is by sharing the news and building our download and app store review numbers. Investors need to know you like us, and we need investors if we are going to have the money to build faster!