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08/03/11 | Uncategorized

A Dating Site for Couples: Meet Mobile Startup BeCouply

By Becky Cruze (Co-Founder, BeCouply)
I am the co-founder of BeCouply, the app that helps couples have epic social lives by making it easy to discover new date ideas, capture special moments and connect with other couples. I never imagined I’d wind up co-founding a tech startup… and there have been many twists and turns on my journey to BeCouply!

After graduating from George Washington University with a degree in political communication in 2008, I took a job as a paralegal at a small law firm in Washington, DC. The firm handled family matters, primarily divorce and child custody disputes. With just two attorneys on staff, I was given a pretty high level of responsibility and learned quite a bit, both about the law and about human relationships. But overall, I found it pretty draining emotionally to be surrounded by so much sadness, anger and fighting. As a single girl at the time, I also began to wonder if any happy couples really existed.

Nearly two years into the job, I met my boyfriend Pius Uzamere. After a few dates, I found myself running through my mental checklist of qualities I desired in a mate. I realized he had them all, plus a few extras I didn’t even know I’d been wanting!

As our relationship became more serious, we noticed that our social graph began to change. We spent more time going on double dates with other couples and less time hanging out with our single friends. We also found ourselves wanting to share ideas for future dates and memories from past dates with our couple friends, without necessarily wanting to broadcast our cutesy couple stuff to all our Facebook friends and Twitter followers.

We started searching online for a web or mobile app to meet our needs. We were shocked to find that there was literally nothing out there for couples like us. There are a million dating sites for singles looking for love and another million sites for engaged couples planning a wedding. But it was as if couples who were not in the midst of getting married had just been completely forgotten.

Lucky for me, Pius is an MIT computer science alum. So, when we didn’t find any existing solutions to meet our needs, we decided to create our own; thus BeCouply was born.

With our mobile app, you and your sweetie can discover fun things to do and romantic places to go, ensuring you have the best dates ever. We also make it easy for you and your honey to capture special moments on all of those great dates and to connect with couple friends, old and new.

Pius and I have both been working full-time on BeCouply for about six months. As the non-technical co-founder, I work on a little bit of everything from product design to social media and content production to business development. The life of an entrepreneur can be tough at times. But for me it’s a breath of fresh air to be focusing on happy couples rather than those in the midst of a divorce or custody battle!

In mid-June we relocated from Washington, DC to Silicon Valley, knowing there was no better place to be to take our startup to the next level. We were fortunate to be selected for the NewME Accelerator, based in Mountain View. NewME is a brand-new accelerator program focused on minority-led startups that includes fellow female entrepreneurs Angela Benton (co-founder of NewME and founder of Cued) and Tiffani Ashley Bell (founder of Pencil You In).

CNN’s Black in America 4 with Soledad O’Brien will be featuring the NewME startups (including BeCouply) on their next documentary, airing in November.

We’ll be launching a private beta test for our iPhone app in August, which should be available for download in the App Store shortly thereafter. Our goal is to have every couple around the world using BeCouply to help make their social lives epic. We hope you and your honey will join us!

Editor’s note: Got a question for our guest blogger? Leave a message in the comments below.
About the guest blogger: Becky Cruze is the co-founder of BeCouply, the mobile app that helps couples have epic social lives. Born and raised in Phoenix, AZ, Becky holds a B.A. in Political Communication and with Special Honors for her senior thesis on YouTube advertisements in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign. Becky lives in San Francisco with her boyfriend and BeCouply co-founder Pius Uzamere. Follow her on Twitter at @beckyloveshugs.

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