Zugot™About Zugot Project
Zugot Project started from one question: why do we look for a partner the same way we shop for a refrigerator?
The problem with profiles
Classic dating sites are built like a search engine: filter by age, height, city, income and observance, and get a list. That works beautifully for products you can describe with a spec sheet. People are not like that. What makes us connect with someone — their humor, their pace, how it feels to be near them — fits in no form field. And filtering by fields screens out, in advance, exactly the person who might have fit.
The research behind it
In 2008 Jeff Frost, Zoë Chance, Michael Norton and Dan Ariely published a study called People Are Experience Goods: Improving Online Dating with Virtual Dates. They showed that people are experience goods — you can't evaluate them without experiencing them — and proposed a fix: before meeting in person, go on a virtual date. In the study, participants wandered an art gallery together as colored circles, talked in real time, and the images on the walls served as conversation catalysts. The result: those pairs liked each other more when they later met face to face.
Read the full research breakdown ←What we built
Zugot Project implements that virtual date almost one to one, adapted for the religious community across the full spectrum — from secular to haredi. Up-front filtering is kept to the necessary minimum: observance level and the range you're open to, age, and real constraints. Everything else happens in the gallery.
Why there are no photos in the room
The date room has no profile photos — not by oversight, but because the research argues against them. A photo makes us judge before we've had a chance to know, and that early judgment is exactly what the virtual date exists to bypass. Photos are collected at signup and revealed only after a date, once both sides have expressed interest, with every copy watermarked per viewer.
The name
Zugot — the Hebrew plural of "couple". The project is also known as פרויקט זוגות, which is the name most people search for.
Who's behind it
Zugot Project was founded by Sagie Avrahamov and Yehuda Chanimov. Sagie has worked across technology fields for over six years, building several different digital platforms along the way. Yehuda has worked in matchmaking for close to five years, with a solid track record of successes in the field. The combination of technical experience and hands-on matchmaking experience is the foundation Zugot Project is built on.
Ready to try?
Registration is short, and the first date starts in the gallery — not in a list of profiles.