Qlove is a dating app created by a final year UoB Mechanical Engineering student Anselmo Parnada and his brother, Aldouz Parnada. Whilst dating apps have gripped the attention of many university students, this is a first as an entrepreneurship to come out of UoB and has unique functions as a dating app. 

Anselmo expressed that the idea came about because he had always had an interest in starting his own business, telling Redbrick, ‘I pitched this idea to my brother because he is good with computers.’ The two entered the idea of Qlove into the UoB Start-Up Games pitching competition, earning second place and some funding. 

When asked to outline the concept of the app, Qlove told Redbrick, ‘To match with people, instead of swiping, one person has to answer another person’s quiz, which has three questions and three multiple choice answers. 

‘If you can pass their quiz, you match with them, you are likely to have something in common with them and conversation should flow.’

In comparison to other dating apps, such as Tinder and Bumble, Qlove expressed that their app was less superficial. ‘You have to have something in common to match with them, it isn’t just based on their looks.’ 

Qlove also said that the process of creating the app was quite challenging: ‘When we jumped into this we didn’t know much about mobile app development, so it was a lot of learning […] having a decent work/life balance is also important.’ In terms of where the app has progressed so far, Qlove told Redbrick: ‘We have had troubles releasing on iOS, but we are pushing with that,’ adding that, ‘In the short-term we would love to grow at UoB before expanding elsewhere, and we mainly target university students because they want to meet people and have fun.’

Qlove added that the app is an example of how UoB students can be inspired to look into creating their own start-ups, joking that a ‘Selly Oak Valley’ could soon rival the entrepreneur-heavy Silicon Valley. Qlove told Redbrick that ‘It would help the reputation of what we have here as students of this university, and secondly it would just be really cool to see what we can make as a community and to help each other out.’

Qlove can currently be downloaded on Google Play Store and iOS.