relationships
Muzz 2023 Recap – a letter from the CEO
January 3, 2024
Salaam,
It’s Shaz the CEO of Muzz, and I wanted to share a few words with you on what we’ve achieved together in 2023 and Insha’Allah what is to come for you in 2024 (IA we get you married off!).
Looking for your soulmate?
You won’t find your soulmate on this blog post but you might find them on Muzz - the world’s biggest Muslim dating and marriage app.
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This year saw 134,166 people leave and tell us that they met their partner on Muzz! Alhamdullilah!
Can you believe there were over 62 million minutes of phone calls over 2023, with nearly half of all calls started by women!
A few of our fave couples..
Some of our fave successes were Ayesha and Zach from the UK who met in 2020, married in 2022 and now Ayesha works here with us at Muzz!
Don’t forget the amazing story of Halima, a French revert, and Hatem from Algeria who met on Muzz and got engaged 3 months later.
We first met Halima in 2022 when she filmed her singles story with us. A few months later we were so happy to hear that she found her perfect partner on Muzz and they invited us to celebrate their wedding with them in Algeria! We’ve never seen a wedding more colourful, vibrant… and explosive – you’re in for a treat.
Stories like theirs is precisely why we do what we do – our goal is to transform how Muslims meet and marry.
Seeing real couples, real weddings and Insha’Allah kids – makes all our efforts worthwhile.Thank you to everyone who has reached out and shared their story with us – we all pray and make dua that Allah grants you long and happy marriages.
Don’t forget – we are giving ONE LUCKY MUZZ COUPLE $20,000 to celebrate their wedding (or be sensible and put it on a deposit for an apartment). The entries so far have been amazing to see! Keep them coming – the competition is closing soon.
The 1000 person tent
We’ve tried some pretty ambitious things to help more of you get married. Let’s not forget our recording breaking 1000+ strong singles event we held in London this year. We hired out a huge marquee tent and matched you guys up for speed dating! It was super stressful (for us never mind you) – but safe to say, lots of you enjoyed it – and quite a few met a special somebody there!
Virtual Speed Dating
We know a lot of you can’t be at our events in person, so we built and launched in-app Virtual Speed Dating this year – the first EVER for Muslims. At 8pm, twice a week, we would pair you up for a series of 5 minute video calls – after which you can match if you like each other and carry on chatting.
Initial feedback has been super positive – but we’re not entirely happy with it and have a lot more work to do to make it better for you guys. Thank you to everyone who tried it out and gave us your thoughts – it helps us build better things for you.
Spotted our billboards yet?
If you didn’t get to go to our events, or try our Virtual Speed Dating, then surely you couldn’t escape our hilarious billboards?! From New York, Paris to Karachi and Lahore, so many of them went viral – and yet again – Muzz was pushing the boundaries of such an amazing Muslim product being shouted about so publicly.
Safety is important
Safety has always been a huge priority for us – and it’s even more important the more we grow. I have always been honest about the challenges of running a platform such as ours.
Whilst we do so much behind the scenes to remove bad members, we know that on occasion bad things happen. Some people are not serious, some people can mislead others etc. We always want Muzz to be a safe place with serious like minded people looking for a life partner (not a fling!).
Face matching
With that in mind, I wanted to share some of the work we have done on this front. Firstly – we’ve done a lot behind the scenes to help prevent previously blocked members from returning to the platform. One of the biggest things being via our selfie security measures (we were the first Muslim marriage app to include this). We now try and detect if the same blocked person attempts to sign up again and we prevent them from doing so. We also try and identify the device they are using and other attributes to prevent them coming back.
Age and ID verification
Not only that – we globally introduced ID and Age Verification. No more lying about how old you are or who you are. Look out for the blue tick and know that their official documents (e.g their passport) has been verified. This means they match their documents and their date of birth is correct. This is FREE to our members and Muzz covers the cost of these checks to benefit you all.
More privacy
Ladies – we heard you – privacy is super important to you. Recently we launched Invisible mode which you can enable.
It’s simple – Invisible mode means that ONLY people you LIKE can ever see your profile.
Know you can use Muzz and only the handful of people that you decide to show an interest in can ever see you. Browse privately without people being nosy on your profile.
Block your family and friends
Another feature I am so happy to share – is Contact Blocking. We know the worst feeling in the world is coming across an ex-partner, or a family member on Muzz. Awkward!
Well now you can upload your contact list from your phone to Muzz, and we will ensure that none of your contacts can see you – meaning you can use Muzz safe in the knowledge that you are private.
We raised A LOT of money together
2023 saw some truly devastating disasters befall our Ummah. Firstly a horrendous earthquake in Turkey left a trail of destruction and thousands dead.
The brutal occupation in Palestine escalated, with Israel bombarding the tiny stretch of Gaza with impunity. Thus far over 20,000 people, mostly women and children, have been murdered.
In both instances, you guys were so generous – and together we raised over $400K for those affected in Turkey, and over $250K for Palestine (in just two weeks!). Muzz also put our money in too, matching your donations to ensure we hit our campaign targets.
Thank you – I am always humbled by the generosity of our members, and shows what good can be achieved on a global Muslim platform.
Something HUGE is coming
I can’t wait for the new year – to share something HUGE we’ve been working on. Our goal was always – to transform how Muslims meet and marry. We ARE the app where Muslims meet.
I’m proud to share that Muzz Social is coming! In short – we want Muzz to be a place to make new friends, connect with your faith, community, get advice and get to know other Muslims near you. Let’s bring the ummah together on a social network for Muslims. A platform which is free from obscenity, free from dark algorithms, free from shadow banning. A place that MUSLIMS control – and are not controlled by others.
This is a huge thing to build, and is one of the hardest things to launch – but Insha’Allah we will work hard to bring this to life and build something we all can use – whether you’re married or not!
You’ll be hearing a lot more about this over the next few months as we roll it out – be sure to sign up first to grab your handle before it is taken.
Who is behind all this?
With all this, I’m so proud to share that our team has grown – we’re now over 100 strong, with team mates across the world – from Malaysia to Toronto – we’re truly global! Our team is here to grow Muzz, make Muzz a high quality app our community can be proud of – and help you find your partner, wherever you are.
If you’re a strong engineer or marketer and looking to join the team – please do check out our careers page. We’d love to chat!
From all of us, I want to thank you for your support, your feedback (however brutal), for spreading the word, for helping make Muzz what it is. We are truly grateful. We ask you all to pray and make dua for our continued success and pray that we can leave a positive legacy on the world for the global Muslim community.
We wish you all an amazing new year and we pray 2024 delivers you a loving partner ❤️
With love,
Shahzad Younas
Founder and CEO of Muzz
