How excited are you about masking? What about finding your potential soul mate? We discuss all that and more, including a sketch about city kids.
The show opens with a short monologue, and then goes into the news roundup, followed by a sketch and a special guest interview with Muzmatch CEO and Founder Shahzad Younas.
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You can find more about our incredible producer Todd Manley here.
Mariam: By the time this episode airs, we could be back for another round of mask gate. Do we wear them? Do we not? I prefer to wear mine because you'll never have to worry about being presentable again. Having a bad tooth day? Mask up. Chapped lips? Mask up. Just don't feel like being told to smile more? Wear that bad boy all day.
And on that note, let's get this show started.
Welcome to news with a bite session four, and now it's time for the news roundup. As of this moment, as I scour the news, some airlines are leaving it up to the individual to decide if they want to wear a mask. CNN reports. It comes after a judge in Florida struck down the federal mask mandate for transportation.
We will see what happens and if the government tries to bring it back, but for now, it's a free for all kind of like the seating on Southwest, which full disclosure I actually enjoy. You get to sit wherever you want!
reporter: Mr President should people continue to wear masks on planes.
President Biden: That's up to them.
Mariam: Meantime, as we deal with petty problems, bigger issues continue to brew overseas, the war in Ukraine, rages on, and it makes me feel like we're living in an alternate reality.
Why do countries supply more weapons to Ukraine? Why don't they just stop Russia somehow? I don't know the answer or how it can be done, but it just seems like we're playing a game of battleship with people's lives.
Volodymyr Zelensky: Today, it's not enough to be the leader of the nation. Today it takes to be the leader of the world, being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.
Mariam: Netflix is allegedly going to crack down on people who share passwords to one single account. According to BBC news, there was a drop in 200,000 subscribers over the last few months. Part of it may be due to more companies jumping on the streaming bandwagon. Netflix has been testing, adding users to an account for a few extra dollars a month.
And BBC news reports. Netflix has already been doing that in parts of Latin America. The market is too oversaturated in my opinion. There's no way we can consume all the content out there. Even if we are personally subscribing to each service and not sharing passwords. Old-fashioned TV has turned into a big advertisement for streaming.
Hey, want to see this show only on our new platform? Sure. Because money grows on trees! And just to let you know, I did a non-scientific poll on my LinkedIn and asked folks what they thought about all these different options and resoundingly, the six people that responded all said too many platforms. Not enough money to go around.
Okay. That's just it in a nutshell, just ahead, we'll hear from the creator of Muzmatch a dating app for Muslims, but to clarify. It's not dating. It's more about getting to know someone for marriage, but first a sketch about city kids.
Layla A: Look mom, it's a butterfly.
Mariam: That's not a butterfly. That's a piece of paper towel floating in the air, also known as trash.
Sarah A: Wow. Is that a squirrel? Come here you little cutie!
Mariam: Get away. That's a rat with rabies. One of its eyesis twitching.
Layla A: Can we get a puppy, please? We'll take care of it.
Sarah A: Yeah. Lots of people in small apartments have pets.
Mariam: I already have two pets. You and your sister
Matchmaking is a huge industry whether it's in person or online or through an app, people are constantly looking for companionship. They must not realize what they're getting into. I crave silence and being left alone, but I digress with us now is the creator of an app called Muzmatch designed to help Muslims find someone they are compatible with for marriage, founder and CEO of Muzmatch, Shahzad Younas welcome to news with a byte.
Shahzad Younas: Thank you for having me.
Mariam: Shahzad how did you get started in the tech industry before we talk more broadly about Muzmatch? Uh, what was it that got you into technology?
Shahzad Younas: Um, interesting. Actually, I've always kind of looked technology from a young age. I still remember my dad got me a BBC micro for anyone who remembers depends on the old people are here. Um, which my very first computer, I actually loved it. Um, I used to play games on it, but then he used to start actually coding in basic, which was like the language then. Anyway, I loved it. And I ended up actually doing a degree in computer science, but then weirdly. Um, I remember I did a technology internship at a bank and absolutely hated it.
And I was like, eh, I don't want to do technology as a job. This seems really lame. So I decided instead to go into banking and pure finance. Um, so I actually did that for about nine years. Um, I kind of like good fortune. Um, and I guess with the Muzmatch and, you know, the direction that my career took from, from then on was startups became a thing.
Smartphone apps became a thing. Tech was becoming a bigger, bigger part of our lives. Um, and I was more excited by it and I thought, actually, that's the direction I want to go down. So the timing was better for me to kind of make that jump into tech. Um, and I jumped in head first.
Mariam: Usually when people come up with these things, they see that there's a problem and they want to find a solution. Was there something that you saw that needed this solution.
Shahzad Younas: Yeah, for sure. So like, obviously I'm a Muslim, I totally get the culture. You know, I kind of say, look, Muslims, don't date. We marry and you know, very top level, I guess that's the difference, you know, um, we're looking for the life partner. We're looking for the one and, you know, conventional mainstream, mainly Western dating apps are more catered around casual hookups and, and all that kind of stuff.
So for me, All right. Considering as a Muslim, you know, finding a partner is such a big part of our faith. Um, why aren't we using technology in a better way? And it's kind of way to that. You know, when I first set Muzmatch up, which was 11 years ago now, um, it was just as a side project as a website. Um, I literally created just because I thought I can do better than what's out there.
And I kind of did it on the side and ran it, for a few years, and then it got to about 2013, 2014 when I could actually see that hold up apps with a future, you know, and it sounds strange to say, because it wasn't that long ago, but you know, apps have, uh, you know, kind of really consumed so much of our time and attention.
But, um, back then I could, I could see the actually apps and smartphones were the future and, and it kind of became really compelling to me to actually Muzmatch, should be an app, not a website. And I was so excited by it because it was kind of one of those ideas that once it's in your head and you can't get it out, um, where I thought, oh my God, if I don't do this, someone else is going to do it and I'll kick myself. And that was enough of a draw for me to decide to quit my job, learn how to build apps and then, and then build it. And, you know, my, I don't know how they did it, but I blitzed it. I learned how to build apps and built it in six months and got the first version out. And thankfully it paid off and, uh, you know, we're now, you know, what are we now?
6 million members and counting. We're the biggest in the world, you know, the team have grown massively, um, I'm weirdly still in my bedroom now, which is a bit strange. So some things don't change, but yeah, we've, uh, we've literally kind of come a long way. Um, and just so many things that kind of come up in our direction, you know, that I think for the Muslim communities getting more comfortable about using apps, the whole premise of using an app.
And like I said, the way, um, smartphones and apps themselves are such a part of our lives now. Um, I guess the appeal is there for more and more Muslims to find their partner through these means.
Mariam: You mentioned that you, you thought, uh, you could do something better than what's out there now. I mean, I'm older. I'm from the old school. I remember when there were websites launching. I never dabbled in them full disclosure here. Okay. But I remember just hearing horror stories from people. It was like some random guy in some other country trying to contact you and stuff. So how do you prevent that kind of stuff from happening on your app?
Shahzad Younas: Yeah. Yes, I am. By the way, you, so you, you, uh, you're quite lucky you avoided the website era. Cause it wasn't pleasant. It was horrible. I remember when I saw these websites, I actually signed up to one to try out and I was, it was so ikh it was so not nice. Um, and I thought, my God, this is horrible. Uh, and that was the best we had right. That was the thing. Um, you're right. The, the quality was very poor. The website itself was usually quite poor. It was usually super expensive as well. And just the quality of the people was a bit random to be honest. And so there wasn't much to . And I remember when I speak to people about it. They would only use the websites because there was no other choice.
Everyone hated it. No one, no one had anything good to say, but everyone was like, what else are you going to do? Which to me that's quite powerful because then you're like, hold up. There is something else you can do something surely we can do better. Um, and you're right, you know, one of the beauties of, of smartphones and apps and what they allow you to do is the security side can be so much better than it can be on a website, you know, through a phone obviously you can make use of the camera. You can make use of location and GPS. Um, you can actually register them with a phone number, which ok you know, an email address, anyone can knock up in two seconds. Whereas the phone number is a little bit trickier to do. So you start introducing, I guess, security hurdles that, um, to all of that, um, you're able to authenticate people a little bit better than you could on a website.
Um, and I just think, and this, my, my driver, when, when, you know, excited by apps was that if I'm talking to someone, if I'm chatting to them, sending them messages, I'm not going to turn my computer on, go on my laptop, wherever, log in, send a message and then wait for a response. You know what I mean? That's just not the way you can do it.
It's a very personal thing. And there's nothing right now, more personal than our phones. And that one for me was why it was so obvious that actually apps with the future for this and not websites because for messaging, messaging is a very private, personal thing. Uh, you know, you can see it now. You know, we're doing millions of messages every day because people embrace that, that method of communication.
Mariam: Did you see usage, uh, surge during the pandemic.
Shahzad Younas: Yeah, so we were crazy busy actually. So we've just, I mean, we're very lucky as a business. We've literally just grown every single month and definitely during the pandemic, I think we were 25% busier, 25% more matches. Um, just more activity across the board. Um, so super busy.
Um, and that's actually maintained even as kind of lock downs have ended and people are back out in the real world, you know, um, uh, dating Sunday, which is, which is where it's turned into in the west, which is the first Sunday of the new. Um, which at least in the UK, I think we were still in lockdown or some were in some form of lockdown.
I remember, um, that was a record day for, us on every single metric. You know, we had record numbers of people signing up, like people sending messages, um, checking out profiles all that kind of stuff. So it was kind of crazy to see, I guess, that level of activity. Um, so yeah, we've been very fortunate that, um, um, I guess people have embraced using, um, apps like mismatch.
I think one of the things that I noticed anecdotally was, uh, during lockdown, people who, and even friends of mine who previously said, oh, Shaz, you know, like, I love what you're doing. I love your app, but I would never use it. It's not my thing. But during lockdown, when there was literally no other options, they will kind of come out the woodwork and say, all right, Shaz tell me about this app.
How does it all work? And can you get me a free gold membership? So I knew then. It was definitely kind of it accelerated, uh, erasing that taboo around using an app. So, uh, and, and we still got a taboo, but it's definitely less than it was.
Mariam: Well, let's talk about the app for those who don't know. What does it do? How do you use it and how is it different from other dating apps and maybe, maybe dating is the wrong word to use here.
Shahzad Younas: Yeah. So a few principles for us in how we've designed the app and how I think about the app. So number one is, you know, we're definitely centered around, we want to help you find your life partner, but at the same time, um, you know, so we're very kind of unashamedly here for something serious.
You know, if you have something casual, we kind of say, please go somewhere else. You know, this isn't the place for you. So that's number one. And number two, we want to make the experience positive and not scary and depressing, you know, like a lot of people find or found the websites and for some people find the search quite depressing things.
So we wanted to make sure that it wasn't the case, that it was a bit more of a positive experience. Um, number three, no doubt. We wanted to make sure that through the app you know, the Muslim demographic are so diverse, you know, both in terms of backgrounds, but equally in terms of religiousity, right? And for me, it was so important that Muzmatch treads that middle line, that if you identify as a Muslim, whether you're super religious or actually not religious, you would feel comfortable at home on Muzmatch and you would feel that I can find my partner on Muzmatch. And for me, I think we've nailed it because if I look at the, kind of the breadth of people we have on Muzmatch, you know, people who wear all forms or none of religious clothing. People who say, yeah, you know what, I'm a Muslim, I do drink, but actually I'm, I'm looking for another Muslim.
Great. You know, like, uh, I wanna make sure that we don't put anyone off who is a Muslim, who cares about finding another Muslim, you know? Um, so that for me is important. Um, in terms of the mechanics of the app, you know, I always say we tried to take the best of call it mainstream apps out there and get rid of the worst bits, um, as well as kind of, I guess, really listening to the community and tailoring the app to, to them.
So to give you an example, we were the first app ever to have a chaperone feature.. Um, you know, which is, you know, islamically there's a requirement where whereby, you know, if a guy and a girl are talking, there should be a third-party present just to make sure that there's not, there's nothing untoward going on. And I thought, actually, I thought of a very smart way of kind of implementing that and built it in the very first version.
And, you know, we have a subset of users who do use that and have told us if you didn't have that feature, I wouldn't use Muzmatch. You know? So number one, number two, a lot of things around privacy. We were very kind of privacy first in that, especially for more so for women actually, but actually for men and women, you can choose to a use a nickname rather than a real name, but also you can choose who can see your photos, uh, um, uh, and for how long, et cetera.
So you're really in control. Not only that, you know, we introduced one thing we introduced when, uh, lockdown kicked off was video and voice calling because we thought, all right, if you can't meet up the best way to get to know someone is going to be through video and voice, um, and that's just taken off, we do seven years worth of calls every month. It's crazy, you know, the sheer volume. And what's really interesting is two things. Actually, number one, that whole premise around calling is very permission led. So both parties have to opt in and can opt out anytime. So you're always in control of who you can call you.
But then the more interesting thing is, uh, nearly half of all calls are actually started by women. So it's women instigating the call, which I didn't expect that I always thought it'd be men who would instigate the call, but not at all. So yeah, super interesting there, the key for us like I said making sure it's high quality as, as a product, isn't it as an app and making sure it's easy to use, you know, really focusing on the UX UI, um, because a lot of apps, a lot of websites were confusing, were horrible where just not pleasant to use.
Whereas for us, you know, I look to the big mainstream Western apps, be it social media apps or dating apps, et cetera, in terms of the quality bar by that we need to hit. And a frustration of mine was always. Why are Muslim products always inferior quality? And my mindset is always, no, we're going to, we're going to set that level to be super high, just as high as the mainstream Western apps, right?
Because these guys they're good at this stuff, you know, and there's so much more that we can learn from them as well. So for me, that's always a principle that we have in mind as well of what. Our customers should expect of a platform like ours or any platform that services Muslims. It should be high quality.
Mariam: Well, I am going to have to ask you, I know I saw you posted something recently about the legal battle with match.com. What's next for you with that?
Shahzad Younas: Uh, I'm slightly limited right now in what I can say. However, I mean the fight is not over, so by way of background, you know, we've, we're a brand that's existed for 11 years as Muzmatch.
Um, Match Group, effectively, um, tried to acquire us back in 2017/2018 four times. We said no each time. Um, then they decided to sue us over the name. Um, so they sued us in the states around, um, the swipe gesture in the app, which we got rid of. Cause we didn't actually have it. Um, we actually didn't have it in the app for quite a period.
Um, um, so we made a bunch of changes and we settled the U S case. But then in the UK, they decided to sue us there around use of the actual name Muzmatch obviously there trying to imply that the fact that we're called Muzmatch people would think we're part of match.com. And I mean, it's, it's kind of crazy because there was so much evidence shared in the trial and there was no concrete examples of, of any of that in 11 years.
Um, like tangible examples, but unfortunately the judge ruled against us. and said he felt that, um, the word match and match.com are synonymous and distinctive of match.com. I disagree, but so we're gonna,
Mariam: I was going to say when I hear Muzmatch, I think muzzies, I don't know .
Shahzad Younas: Exactly. trust me exactly like I it's kind of intriguing because in the case, um, both sides us and them, we searched over 60 million, uh, customer queries and there were literally three example. There were no examples of credible confusion. There were three examples brought up and if you read them, they're very, very poor examples of it's quite a stretch to say that the customer is confused at all. And they were quite weak, but it's baffling. It genuinely is, but it is what it is.
You know, we're in this situation, we're going to appeal. For us you know, I'm a fighter, right? This is, this is, this is, I always say it's a non-fatal wound. It's a setback. No question but we'll get over it, you know, we'll deal with it. Um, we've got a lot of things up our sleeve and in the pipeline. So it's not by no means it's not the end of us at all.
Um, um, if anything, um, for me accelerates some of our future plans, which I can't quite talk about, but yeah, we've, we've got, we've had all these plans of things that we want to do. And if anything, this whole thing has just sped some of that up. So I'm always, my motto is use everything as an opportunity.
And this for me is just yet another opportunity.
Mariam: Have you ever used Muzmatch yourself?
Shahzad Younas: I have, it's kind of interesting because, um, uh, and it team, Hey, because, um, all I do is find bugs cause, cause I know how things should be designed or how things should work. So there's so many things that I think as a customer, you put it on notice cause you wouldn't know that that wasn't the intent of why that thing was designed that way or whatever. Um, so I actually, I think they called it dog fooding the app, like where you use your own product. Um, so many things are found, but also so many ideas I've found or come across in terms of how to make it better as well as just talking to people and asking them. How are you finding it on here? Like be brutal. Tell me the good, the bad, the ugly of your experience here. So it's such a learning. It's so good as a learning experience, um, in terms of actually trying it in real life, because you can design these things all day long, right. Um, it's only when you're in it and using it, actually try and get out.
Do you actually feel the emotion of it right. And you feel, oh, actually this bit, that wasn't our intended effect, but I can see the effect of this design change or this feature. Um, so it's, it's really quite enlightening to actually give it a go..
Mariam: Did you find a match on your own app?
Shahzad Younas: Uh, no. No. Unfortunately I always say like my, uh, uh, Muzmatch, is my baby and it takes over my life, unfortunately. And it has, you know, I barely have a social life or any free time. Um, just because of the, I guess it is running a business and especially one that's grown this quickly and the team has grown, you know, it's grown from like I said just me to now 60 odd people in a short space of time. Um, and we're still growing. So, uh, no doubt. That's th there's a lot of stress there and a lot to do. Um, yeah, unfortunately that's my focus, but, uh, yeah, always cause I'd love to what
Mariam: what are you hoping to do next? Is there anything aside from Muzmatch that you're working on that you can talk about?
Shahzad Younas: Ooh, um, not quite, I mean, I'm, I'm always some of the big believer that to do something well, you have to focus. Um, and so I'm always extremely focused on one thing, do one thing really well, which is Muzmatch right now. Um, no doubt. Like I said, we're looking much broader of, uh, effectively, um, you know, in the broadest way, how do we help connect the Muslim community in the broadest way? So the heart of them is matches.
We want to provide the best service to help you find your life partner. And the easiest way, the most fun way, uh, the highest quality way in terms of finding good quality people, et cetera, et cetera. And no question, you know, our mission is we want to transform how, how Muslims meet and marry.. No question. I think we've had the biggest impact of anything in terms of how Muslims are meeting a mind around the world.
And it's, mind-blowing like, literally just sounds crazy. Just this week, five different people have told me that either they or a sibling, um, have met and married on Muzmatch, which is crazy, you know? And it's just, just this week, people I know. Um, there's so many people out there who I know of have met on Muzmatch. Um, we're genuinely changing lives, which I think is that's genuine value in terms of what we bring to the world.
Um, so I, I'm definitely excited by that. There's a lot more that I want to do, you know, we're we're right now, we're building features that we're going to release very soon that have never been released to the Muslim market at all. Um, and not only that, you know, for us, I like to think if you were to compare our app to call it a mainstream dating app, for example, in some of the features I think we, we, we punch way above our weight. We've got a very feature rich app, extremely, you know, um, and that's by design, you know, for us, I want to make sure that we set the bar really high, even higher than what we see out there.
Mariam: What would your advice be to folks who are interested in, in kind of becoming an entrepreneur and, and jumping into something like this?
Shahzad Younas: The best advice ever is just start it sounds cheesey to say. Have an idea. I mean, some people say focuse on an idea that solves a problem for you, which I do think that makes it easier, but don't necessarily restrict yourself to that. Sometimes you might observe a problem out there and think, actually, I think I've, I can solve this, definitely talk to people and figure out do people actually want this thing?
Because, uh, the number of people I've spoken to, who've convinced themselves that the world needs a thing, but then you're looking at it kind of objectively like, nah, no one's interested in this mate. This is going to die. And it does. Um, so definitely talk to people. A lot of people will say to you, Hey, yeah, that sounds interesting.
Um, that's not a good enough, like you need any people to really be a lot more enthusiastic about it and really say, flipping, I need this, you know, they need to be saying, I need this thing. Um, I wish this existed. You know, that's what you need. Um, uh, get something out there ASAP. I think that's always useful. There's a lot you can do some people say, some people say, oh, but you know, let's say it's a tech product. I can't code, et cetera. What can I do? There's a lot you can do, even though you can't code and you can definitely design prototypes, et cetera, without needing to code and get people to play around with that. So there's a lot you can do.
Don't tell yourself that you can't get out there and start learning. And because then through that, um, you end up figuring you'll automatically start figuring out the next steps, if that makes sense, but you know, no doubt, even, you know, I'm seven years in and everyday I'm always experimenting and learning with stuff.
And the only way you learn is by doing, you know, so the best thing you can ever do is just start. You know, don't procrastinate. People say I've gotten all the time. Everyone's got tons of time because if you actually, add up the amount of time that you waste in a given day or a week in that time, there's so much stuff you can do.
So just, um, be very disciplined, very focused, um, and just start,
Mariam: well, thank you so much for joining us.
Shahzad Younas: You're welcome. Thank you so much for having me..
Mariam: And that was founder and CEO of Muzmatch, Shahzad Younas in London news with a bite is written and hosted by me, Mariam Sobh. It's produced by Todd Manley of ear site studios.
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