Keen as Mustard
A dating app built exclusively for Australians — where matching is just the beginning. After matching, users unlock discounted real-world experiences at restaurants, cafes, cinemas and pubs, turning online connections into actual dates. No other dating app in Australia offers this.
100+ screens. 50+ API endpoints. Delivered in six months — including a complete rebrand mid-project, at no extra cost.
- Client
- Josie & Ryan — Sydney, Australia
- Industry
- Dating & Social
- Platform
- iOS & Android App
- Team
- 6 members
- Delivery
- 6 months — on time
How We Started
Two Sydney co-founders came to us through referral with a clear frustration: Tinder, Bumble and Hinge dominate Australia, but none of them are built for Australians. Matches pile up, conversations fizzle, and nobody actually meets.
Their idea flipped the model — reward the match with a reason to meet. Discounted experiences at real Australian venues, built into the app itself. We scoped it, designed it in Figma screen by screen, and shipped it in six months. When the original name couldn't be trademarked four months in, we absorbed a complete rebrand — new name, new logo, new identity — without a change order.
Research
What gap exists in the market?
Global platforms dominate Australia, but none are built for Australian users — and none offer anything that helps two matched people actually meet.
What already exists?
Tinder, Bumble and Hinge own the market by optimising for swipes and engagement. A locally-focused app with real-world experiences had no competitor.
How do users actually behave?
Matches pile up and conversations fizzle. Users wanted a reason to meet — discounted restaurants, cafes, cinemas and pubs gave them one.
Design & UI
How is the app structured?
Discovery mode, passport mode, real-time chat, giveaways, subscriptions and verification — 100+ screens mapped into one coherent journey.
Low-fidelity layout decisions
Every screen was designed in Figma and reviewed with the client — iterated round after round until sign-off, before a single line of code.
Why did we design it this way?
A warm, premium palette and trust signals on every screen shift the experience from endless swiping toward actually meeting someone.
Testing & Deployment
Did real users understand it?
546 internal testers put the app through QA, with test builds shared throughout development via TestFlight and Play Internal Testing.
What changed after feedback?
Four months in, a trademark issue forced a complete rebrand — new name, logo and identity, delivered at no extra cost without slipping the deadline.
What is live or complete?
100+ screens, 50+ API endpoints, admin panel and landing page — delivered on time in six months, with 500+ pre-launch signups collected.
Problem
Global dating platforms treat Australia as just another market. They optimise for endless swiping, not real dates — and they offer nothing that helps two matched people actually meet. Keen as Mustard was structured around fixing that: local focus, verified profiles, protected privacy and a built-in reason to take the match offline.
Built for Everywhere, Not Australia
Tinder, Bumble and Hinge dominate the Australian market, but none of them are built for Australian users — local culture, local venues and local expectations are an afterthought.
Matches That Go Nowhere
Matching is where every existing app stops. Conversations fizzle because there's no bridge from chatting online to actually meeting — no plan, no place, no reason.
No Real Trust Layer
Fake profiles and catfishing run unchecked on the big platforms, and your contacts or colleagues can surface as suggestions at any time. Users never feel fully safe.
Research
The journey was designed to balance trust, compatibility and user safety at every stage. By connecting verification, personalised onboarding, discovery, real-time chat and post-match experiences into a single flow, the platform creates a more confident and intentional approach to modern dating.
Design
Over 100 screens designed in Figma and iterated with the client until sign-off — discovery mode, passport mode, keen and super likes, real-time chat, weekly giveaways and premium subscriptions, with trust signals present on every screen without ever getting in the way.
Wireframes
Every flow started on paper — low-fidelity sketches that locked down structure and navigation before any visual design began.
Top Features
Dual Verification
Every profile on the platform is anchored to a real, verified human. A two-layer identity check — live selfie liveness scan followed by a government ID match — runs silently during onboarding, issuing a permanent verified badge to profiles that pass both. Zero fakes, zero catfish, and zero guesswork for users who are ready to trust the people they meet.
Contact Blocking
Personal life and professional world — kept permanently separate. The app cross-references your phone contacts and builds a silent, bidirectional invisibility shield: your boss won't find your profile, your relatives won't appear in your feed, and none of them will ever receive any notification about it. One permission grant, automatic from there onwards.
Personality Filters
Appearances open the door — personality keeps it open. The trait-based filter system lets users express who they are through values, energy levels, communication styles, and life goals, then scores every potential match against those dimensions. The feed evolves with what you tell it. You stop swiping on faces and start discovering people who actually feel compatible.
Design Details
This identity was born from a complete mid-project rebrand — when the original name couldn't be trademarked, we designed a new one from scratch at no extra cost. Bold mustard gold balanced with violet and teal gives the brand its playful, confident energy, while Plus Jakarta Sans delivers a modern, friendly voice and golden 'Super Keen' moments add warmth to the matching experience.
Challenges & Solutions
Every real project hits real walls. Here's what came up, and how we got past it.
Four months into development, the client discovered the original name couldn't be trademarked. Name, logo, identity — everything had to go, with development in full swing.
We designed the complete Keen as Mustard identity — new name, logo and colour palette — at zero additional cost, without pausing a single development sprint.
The promise was a dating app with no catfish — but heavy-handed identity checks are exactly where signups die.
A two-layer check — live selfie scan plus government ID match — runs silently during onboarding and issues a permanent verified badge. 546 internal testers put it through QA.
100+ screens, real-time chat, subscriptions, giveaways and moderation — for a two-person startup on a fixed timeline.
One team shipped the Flutter app, React landing page, admin panel and a Node.js backend with 50+ API endpoints — in six months, on time.
Outcomes
Keen as Mustard was never about building another dating app — it was about proving what a referral, a bold idea and six months of focused work can produce: a dating experience built exclusively for Australians, delivered on time despite a complete rebrand mid-project.
100+ Screens in 6 Months
Full dating experience — discovery, passport mode, chat, giveaways and subscriptions — delivered on time by a six-person team.
500+ Pre-Launch Signups
The React landing page we built collected over 500 early signups before the app ever launched.
Rebrand at Zero Cost
When a trademark issue struck four months in, we delivered a new name, logo and identity without a change order.
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