You are the “director” of Banjo Meet. Where did the idea for such an app come from?
Jonathan Lucquet. The idea of a music-focused dating site has been on my mind for a while. But for 15 years, I spent much of my career in real estate. It was the first confinement, in 2020, that raised many questions. It was time to change careers. That year, I dropped everything to get into Banjo, which took me a little over a year to put together and which I was able to launch in February 2022. It is elsewhere with this project that I became a developer.
And it was a way to link your two interests, computing and music…
Exactly. IT has always been a passion. At the same time, music is part of my life, of my day to day. And I realized that it was the same for everyone: I don’t know anyone who doesn’t listen to it. It is something universal.
What’s the point of putting music at the heart of the app?
Today we consume music in a different way, particularly through platforms such as Spotify, Deezer or Apple Music. I told myself that it would be interesting to exploit the data, compare the playlists, try to detect commonalities between the users. I think what we listen to really reflects who we are. Our education, our childhood and even our political ideas. Something like a personality map.
Does it allow more sincere contacts?
Banjo uses an algorithm that automatically syncs users’ playlists. And we bring back everything, including titles that they don’t necessarily want to share, that they’re ashamed of. That is the point: you open your intimate space to others, you reveal yourself without a filter. There is no cheat.
Is this a way to stand out from other dating apps?
I wanted to try to match people differently than most other apps do which, in the end, focus on the petty dating kind of things. It brings a new way of combining, in music, without a superficial side. By calculating music compatibility scores, Banjo helps highlight input commonalities.
What are Banjo’s next goals?
I am reworking the mobile app, downloadable on iOS and Android. And if Banjo is free today, I’ll have to go to a more classic budget model, with a subscription system and paid features. But the main goal is still to engage in as many romantic encounters, which might not necessarily have been done on traditional dating sites.
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