Image credits: Sabrina Bratcher / Shutterstock
Whether you’re a homebody, divorced, or a newcomer looking to make friends in a new city, Wyzr Friends is the go-to activity-based friendship for adults over 40 to connect with like-minded people. I’m thinking of becoming an app. Attend social events, arrange carpools, and try new things.
This app works similarly to Bumble Friends. By giving users a thumbs up or a thumbs down and matching messages, you can get to know each other and arrange in-person activities that you both can enjoy. For example, maybe you both like watching movies, wine tasting, shopping, golfing, cooking, and hiking. You also have the option to create a joint account with your significant other, which is useful for setting up double dates.
In addition to shared interests, you can choose health and wellness goals to showcase on your Wyzr Friends profile and match with people based on what they want to improve. Examples include mindfulness, spirituality, finances, and career goals.
Many older adults find it difficult to make friends, and about 35% of adults over 45 in the United States admit to feeling lonely. However, there aren’t many friendship platforms that cater to this particular age group. Those that exist (Stitch, Amintro, Silversurfers, Senior Chatz) are primarily online forums, chat rooms, or group experiences, making it difficult to form one-on-one connections.
“A lot of these friendship apps are aimed at much younger people,” co-founder Taylor J told TechCrunch. “There is nothing in the world that is made by people over 40 and aimed at people over 40.”
Additionally, Wyzr Friends has two unique features that make it stand out: “Friend Blast” and “Carpool.”
Friend Blast lets you send invitations to specific matches, making it easy to make plans with someone in just one tap. Additionally, the app plans to launch a group chat feature in the coming weeks, allowing you to coordinate events with multiple people at the same time. Video chat functionality is also on the long-term roadmap.
Carpooling, on the other hand, is a useful feature for many members, especially if they no longer drive and want to carpool with someone going to the same concert, shopping mall, nail salon, etc. Simply enter your date, time, and destination to adjust your pickup location.
Friend Blast and Carpool are premium features, but Wyzr Friends is making them free until December 31st in hopes of getting more users on board. Another way startups are trying to make money is through sponsorships and branded content.
“We want to keep this app free,” J emphasized. “We have no intention of charging a monthly membership fee. We may someday introduce in-app purchases for premium features, but for now what we want to do is keep the app subscription free for as long as possible and keep our branded content free. The way we create it is by using video, and we have strategic partnerships that are on that page.”
Wyzr Friends is in talks with a major technology company for its first strategic partnership, J said.
Rather than revealing your exact age, Wyzr Friends connects people based on age groups: under 50, 50-64, 65-74, and 75+. The app also has an ID verification feature to ensure that a user’s profile matches a government ID. This is an important feature because scammers often target older adults.
“We believe strongly in identity verification and safety, especially for this age group,” co-founder Taylor J said in an interview. She added that Wyzr Friends is also considering adding age verification.
This verification is done through Persona Integration, an identity startup that recently partnered with Walmart’s delivery app Spark to reduce identity fraud among drivers.
Finally, it would be remiss of me not to mention the iconic song that plays every time you open the app: “Thank You for Being a Friend” by Andrew Gold. It’s definitely a heartwarming addition for fans of “Golden Girls.”
Wyzr Friends launched its public beta on October 11th and already has 400 users and 1,400 installs. Available on his iOS and Android devices in the US, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Philippines, Singapore, and Mexico.
The app will be officially released early next year.