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From Cubbon Reads to “Bookmark”: Founders Launch India’s First Dating App for Readers

Bookmark is making book lovers across the country Swipe Books, Not Looks.

India, January 2025 — The founders of Cubbon Reads, India’s most popular silent reading community, launched Bookmark, a dating app for readers. The app connects people based on the books they like, in addition to other personal preferences like distance, the type of relationship they are seeking, and gender. Their display picture remains hidden until they match with someone and exchange ten messages each.

Books provide a relevant context for a conversation. The experience of founding Cubbon Reads highlighted this aspect of befriending someone over a shared context. Amongst hundreds of people, it became easy to find a reader of one’s own kind in a crowd, simply based on the books that they were holding. Conversations started easily without the need to introduce one’s name or background.
Commenting on the app’s experience, Harsh Snehanshu, co-founder of Bookmark shared, “Profiles are structured like a book. Every profile has a biography section with blurb, preface story, epilogue and even a bibliography—of the books, authors, genres the person has read.
Besides, since love of books goes beyond romantic love, there’s a “book buddy” mode as well for those who are not single but wish to find a like-minded reader friend. Apart from the face reveal and book-like profiles, there are hundreds of witty prompts such “An author I’d love to hate you with”, “Books I’m two-timing with” or “The gen-Z abbreviation I hate” that make Bookmark profiles fun to go through
Additionally, Shruti Sah, co-founder of Bookmark, said, “We deserve better than just swiping on a moustache, a salt and pepper head, or a face veiled by glossy shades. When we go about chest-thumping after brands that speak about “real love” and “inner beauty” and diss at fashion shows, why are dating apps still big on a user’s display pictures? If apps really had to make it easier for us to vibe with someone, it has to be via like-minded interests at the forefront.”


Over the last 11 months, the app has already seen over 15,000 installs across India and is
available on both Play Store and App Store.


( Source : Deccan Chronicle )
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