In this day and age of dating apps, there are a hundred different ways to meet your match. A brand new app, launched on Valentine’s Day of this year, aims its arrow into a different niche, posing the question: what if you’ve already found your match? Duety, the new app for iOS and Android created by Oriana Castro Ramirez, aims to reinvigorate loved-up couples using an innovative points system. We caught up with Oriana to get the low-down on Duety.
What is the basic concept behind Duety?
“The basic concept of Duety is the game of ‘brownie-points’ as they call it in the United States. Here in Colombia we call it Matripuntos. It’s basically ‘marriage miles,’ or points you give to each other for good things you have done for each other. Say you wait outside the changing room for an hour for your wife – you get points! You attend her family reuinion, more points! It’s the small things you do for your partner that creates value with them. In the future there will be an option to redeem these points. Duety keeps track of only the positive things of the relationship – the only way to take points off is to redeem them. The end goal is to basically keep up a journal of the relationship.”
On the Duety website, you mention the “five love languages.” Would you elaborate on this?
“The five love languages come from a book written by Gary Chapman in the ’90s. We all speak a different love language – whether it is words of affirmation, physical touch, quality time, receiving gifts, or acts of service, we all use one of these primarily. We all express our love in different ways, and this is mirrored off of how we saw our parents expressing their love as we were growing up. I used this theory combined with this concept we already have here in Colombia called ‘matripuntos’ to create Duety as a sort of fun game to be used by couples. We want to be an accomplice to building a model relationship.”
Where do you see the company in a year? How do you hope to develop the app even more?
“Soon, we will be launching an aspect of the app where you can redeem the ‘matripuntos’ you earn by going to one of our ‘allies,’ or establishments affiliated with Duety – this could be a bar or a restaurant. You will be able to go to this establishment and exchange ‘matripuntos’ for a meal or a drink with your significant other. We will test this with certain couples starting in April in Bogotá. We will also keep the app fresh for daily users with daily tips from a sexologist – tips on how to keep your love life fresh. Over time, when we acquire more users, we will provide our users with infographics on how their relationship progresses over time using the points system, kind of similar to how Spotify gives monthly and yearly infographics for its users.”
Are there any other aspects of the relationship world you hope to tackle with Duety?
“‘Matripuntos’ is the main focus, but we would also like to use the app for couples therapy. We would like to provide access to great therapists through the app. I think therapy is a great medium of communication because the professional provides a tool for talking about those things that have become ‘stuck’ at home. The therapist can help the couple move past these stale talking points.”
Where do you hope to expand the app in the future?
“We are already operating in every Spanish-speaking country around the world, but we hope to expand the “rewards system” to the rest of Colombia, as it currently is in the testing stage in Bogotá. The end goal is to have this system operating in other countries where people are open to novel experiences – Mexico, Argentina, and Chile first of all. Once this is firmly established in Latin America, we hope to expand the “rewards system” to the United States – but we want to make sure all the kinks are worked out before we introduce it to such a large country.”
