BYU-Idaho student Johnathan Strickland is assembling NCMO, a new dating app for Christians.

Strickland is a sophomore studying social work and got the idea to create a new dating app when chatting with his friend.

“I was sitting with my buddy, and he was telling me about how he had met a lot of girls, but a lot of them only wanted to make out,” said Strickland. “They weren't actually in it for a long-lasting relationship, something that you know he was looking for at the moment, and that's when we came up with the idea for the app.”

The Goal

Strickland said he wants to fill this dating gap with his app by helping Christians find the kind of relationship they are looking for. Though the app will be more targeted to Christians in general, Strickland wants to release the app for testing in Latter-day Saint-dominated areas first because it will incorporate many Latter-day Saint principles and values.

“The point of our app is to weed out people that don't actually want to date or have a long-term, lasting relationship from people that do want to have a long-term, lasting relationship,” said Strickland. “So one side is for dating, and one side is for people who just want to get together. They want to have fun and meet new people. Maybe they're about to go on their mission, but they still want to have the experience of meeting up with other people. There are a lot of different reasons why people may not want a long-term, lasting relationship. Our app targets that.”

Another gap Strickland wants to fill in is the concept of “ghosting.”

“You know, it's hard when people get a match, they don't end up actually even talking, or they don't want to start a conversation,” said Strickland. “This app is looking to close those in on that. People deserve clarity.”

It’s called what?!

Strickland and his team decided on the “catchy” and “stigmatized” name, NCMO.

“People know it as a non-committal make-out, right? And when we were coming up with the name, we needed something that was catchy, that people already knew, but also that was go to follow the guidelines of what we wanted our app to do,” said Strickland “There's a stigma around ‘NCMO,’ that people just want to get together and non-committal makeout, and that's exactly what we are trying to go away from.”

Strickland said the name has symbolism that coincides with the app’s setup and purpose.

“NC” or “Non-Committal” represents the app’s first side of the platform, for those who are looking to meet people without wanting something serious. “MO” or “Marriage Optional” represents the other side of the app, for those who want something serious but need to keep in mind they are just dating and don’t need to marry the person they match with.

The Team’s Collaboration

Strickland said the new app couldn’t have been done without his team consisting of friends Eli and Alex, Derek—a partial stakeholder—and Dania, who is developing the prototype.

Elijah Baisden, a friend and member of Strickland’s team, says he helps with the team’s finances.

“I work in finance, and so a lot of what I've been doing is the modeling and background analysis, kind of trying to figure out what our market share could be, building our pitch decks so we can take the product to the investor, and ideation,” said Baisden. So, as we're walking through kind of what we want the product to look like with our kind of developers, we’re just making sure that we're aligned. And then trying to address some of the issues that we see with current dating apps out there on the market.”

Baisden said working on the app has been a fun way to grow different skills and spend time with his friends.

“I honestly, I think I just enjoy working on different projects,” said Baisden. It was a cool, cool way to spend time with a couple of buddies. And then it’s also just a really good experience practicing and pitching to investors. Doing some of this kind of higher-level type finance functions that you probably wouldn't do, just normally do, like securing funding for a company, that sort of stuff. So I'm excited to kind of practice with that, right, and get in a little bit more involved with it.”

Strickland said his team began taking and putting the app together in the middle of January. Since then, they have had ideas sent back and forth for adjustments and have gotten features trademarked. NCMO’s prototype is near completion and will soon be ready to take to investors. Strickland is hoping to have the app released at the beginning of September. The app will first be released to select college campuses whose demographics could best critique and benefit from the app.

“Those controlled environments will allow us to send out polls and surveys and things like that for people to fill out, so we can gather information and data market analysis in different areas,” said Strickland. “So we're being very selective with how we do this. We want to do this the right way.”

Strickland said he and his friends will have great insights for getting the app started because they are part of the demographic they want to help.

“We really are encouraging people to get out in person,” said Strickland. “I'm a kid, I'm a student, and my buddies are students, and we like to have fun and we know what kids want, because we're kids as well.”

Feature Image: Love Connection Phone, Image by amrothman from Pixabay