Blink is an audio-only blind speed dating app inspired by a revelatory experience at a blackout restaurant. We sat down with Taly Matiteyahu, Founder of Blink, to learn more.
Tell us about yourself
As a first-generation American, I grew up not being afraid of a challenge. I obtained my Bachelor’s degree from New York University before earning my J.D. from Columbia Law School in 2015. After graduating, I started working at a law firm, but quickly found myself craving a more dynamic and innovative environment. In 2017, I took a huge pay cut and sacrificed the stable career path that lay ahead of me as an attorney for a career in legal operations. Over the years in legal operations, I grew passionate about product development and eventually transitioned to work as a Product Manager at a legal tech company.
I began working on Blink, an audio-only blind speed dating app, in March 2020. Blink’s objective is to build a dating space where a person’s personality, values, sense of humor, passions, and quirks are what set them apart — not their looks, race, ethnicity, name, or fashion choices.
How did you get the idea for Blink?
I’ve had the idea for Blink since 2012, when I ate at a blackout restaurant and befriended a couple I dined with. Making connections with strangers based on conversation alone, free of looks-driven assumptions, sparked the thought: would people date a wider variety of people and find more satisfying relationships if they were able to make an emotional connection with someone before swiping left? In 2020, I finally began turning the vision into reality and hope to change online dating’s looks-first paradigm and, one day, move the concept beyond the dating world.
Tell us more about Blink and the process of going on a date
Unlike other dating apps, where users eliminate prospective partners based on superficial snap judgements, Blink allows members to move beyond a looks-first approach to meeting potential partners. Blink does this through a two part matching process consisting of a Blink Date (10 minute audio-only blind speed date) and a Glance (reviewing nameless & profile-less photos). Blink schedules members for Blink Dates, after which each member evaluates the date to let us know how it went. Since we know love isn’t blind and mutual physical attraction plays a role in dating, our Glance feature lets members identify people they might be physically compatible with. We only match people based on mutual positive feedback from both the Blink Date and Glance.
We typically ask why good photos are important, but in this case, why is it important to NOT see the other person?
In a world where we aren’t all professional photographers or social media influencers, we're expected to boil down our entire essence into a curated profile to be superficially judged on first impression... and then expect these surface-level snapshots to entice people to truly get to know us. Blink’s goal is to change this looks-first approach and allow our members to more meaningfully connect with each other, without padded profiles.
As psychotherapist Ken Page said, “immediate attraction isn’t the best forecaster of future passion. Intense immediate attractions can blind us to the actual quality of our interactions with others, and to the actual characters of the people we date.” Attractions can grow, particularly as we get to know people and develop deeper connections. There is so much more to a person than their clothing, the shape of their nose, their height, the color of their skin, etc. - and while it’s easy to say that and believe that, it’s much harder to live by that given unconscious biases that we all have.
We envision a world where people put who someone is, rather than what someone looks like, first.
Are there any ways for folks to try audio-only blind speed dating while they wait for the Blink app to launch?
Yes! As the app is being developed, we’ve been pairing folks for Date in a Blink, an audio-only blind speed date podcast. If anyone is interested in participating, they can submit a form here.
To learn more about Blink:
Website
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To learn more about Date in a Blink (Blink’s audio-only blind speed date podcast):
Date in a Blink Landing Page
Available on: Apple Podcasts & Spotify
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