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Works3 of 12
3
Checkmate
2022 – present
iOS app, Website, E-Mail and SMS
With the team at Marriage Pact
iOS app, Website, E-Mail and SMS
With the team at Marriage Pact
Plate 1
Checkmate on the App Store: scan a friend, answer questions over time, see your odds. Swipe.
Screenshots, Apple App Store.
Checkmate lets you see your compatibility with anyone in seconds. Scan your friend, and see the long-term odds for the two of you, drawn from nearly a decade of relationship science research. People add all of their friends: “it’s on sight” one student put it, of the social norms that developed around the app. “If I recognize the face or the name, I add them.”
It went viral across colleges in spring of 2023. PayPal was famous for growing 7% per day. Checkmate grew 15% day over day.
A new and improved version, rolling out across schools in autumn 2026, adds relationship reports, your top 10 at your school, and more.
Plate 2
Weekly active users, 1 February to 9 March 2023: the five weeks in which peer-to-peer virality first worked.
Checkmate analytics, daily figures.
Plate 3
A quarter of a million users and the communities they fell into.
Chart, Marriage Pact, September 2026.
Press
2023 Apr
Opinion | Checkmate and AI: Reality is becoming dystopian, but we might not know it opinion
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