September 2009
It was around the middle/end of september 2009 when i truly entertained the idea of a matrimonial service. I mean it literally started off during a coffee with my family and cousin in the sunny old east end of london. I was visiting family and got into a discussion about a new matrimonial 
service that my cousin had just launched which was in its infancy. Being full of ideas and very much forward thinking i offered some advice and marketing opportunities that i thought i would be of benefit to them.
It was later that evening after returning home that i thought to myself ”i want to do this myself”. I want to launch a premier halal but unique matrimonial service directly helping those muslims that sincerely practise islam according to the sunnah and shariah inshallah. Within a couple of days I had purchased a domain name, come up with a brand , put together a basic business plan and noted down some lucrative ideas (even to the point where i had seen a possible business premises).
The following week I had put forward a proposal to a professional branding and development consulancy firm i had direct dealings to generate some ideas.
The early signs were looking very good alhumdulillah.
October 2009
It was all about planning and doing some market research. After, spending endless evenings snooping out the competition it was about gathering as much intel to establish the key players in the market. Obviously, you have the regulars like match.com, shaadi.com, eharmony, singlemuslim, muslim matrimonial etc etc. who in there own respects are the market leading companies our target market was ever so slightly different. This is because ‘my nikah’ was never about dating! It was always about providing a halal and shariah compliant service aiding muslims in finding a suitable partner encouraging the wali to get involved from the initial stages.
‘My nikah’ was developed for the sole purpose of removing the need to go down the road to your aunty-ji (aunty to most) who could pair you up with somebody they thought was a good match. You see it is highly unlikely that one person or even a group of people can sort through hundreds of profiles and find a true match based on your real inner requirements. Where do you start? Can you imagine having to skim through hundreds of profiles trying to pair up 2 people? And who actually has the time for looking at every minute detail or requirement that a individual really has? No wonder we end meeting dozens of people before we even find half a match the meets the most basic of requirements.
The online aspect of the whole process is to aid and assist in finding suitors that meet your needs whether it be from a spirtual point of view, cultural or academic background, or even a combination of all these!
Towards the end of the month i managed to put a brand concept together which looked the business. Within 24 hours i had a mobile telephone and business cards printed and was ready to hit the ground running.
November 2009
It was in November that it really hit home that match making was not actually going to be as straight forward as it seemed. After all, how difficult could it be to match 2 people when you have piles and piles of completed profiles? Hmmmmmm…. Back to the drawing board!
Soon after this setback, i decided the way forward was to go develop an interactive system that would do the match making for you! I mean the accuracy and speed would be a winner. Going online was now the main focus of the business.
The branding too had flaws and need to be revisited. According to most people it looked great and sent out a positive message, however, it didn’t do the concept and theory behind the brand justice! Basically, it looked to commercial! It looked too westernised! It didn’t look appealing from an Islamic point of view!
It was now time to bring in the expert branding and consultancy to help and develop this service inshallah.
December 2009
Cometh the hour cometh the new brand! After contracting in Double Barrel (design & consultancy) it soon became apparent that the future could be bright inshallah. We soon had a logo/brand which would appeal to muslims whether young or old. Alhumdulillah, the branding/development of the service now looked like a far superior product.
January 2010
Discussions discussions and more discussions. Now really thrashing out the details, processes, the makeup of the site and development in greater detail. Inshallah we were now begining to identify some sort of structure but had some key pieces missing in the jigsaw. How could we be unique but not comprimise our islamic values and law? Hmmmmmmm…. The more the discussions were progressing the idea of a facilitated environment (venue) accompanied with a full time marriage consultant seemed to be the way forward. We believed the benefit of being able to meet in a neutral venue were both parties felt comfortable would help to smoothen the process inshallah as opposed to the traditional meeting in homes.
February 2010
Finally the design for the new business cards were here. We made the decision not to use advertise any telephone numbers on the cards because the drive was towards online and only online. The whole process was being designed in a way that users could request who they would like to arrange a meet with and even select and agree amongst themselves the date and time they would like to meet inshallah.
During February we also made the decision about the use of a pre-registration web page until the full site was launched. Because the devlopment time required to produce the full working system was approximatley 3 months we thought the pre-reg website could be used to collate as much interest in the meantime. The idea was to have a electronic form which would take name and email addresses inshallah. Also,we could then use these email addresses to send out launch dates, offers and more importantly monitor the level interest being shown!
March 2010
March was family and friends time! Like most new businesses starting off with unbeatable offers always attracts attention. What we decided to do was to offer the first 250 registrants a bargain pre-registration fee of £19.99 for 12 months subsrciption. You can hardly buy a meal for 2 people for £20 these days so this was a mega deal! This meant that they were paying a fraction of the cost because they were signing up early. This offer was mainly for family, friends and close business partners and was limited til July 31 2010. We had NCR booklets printed and were ready to roll with the special offer!
April 2010
Website is heavily under devlelopment. The wire frame is complete! It’s all coming together alhumdulillah.
May 2010
Friday 7th May 2010 the Pre-registration website launches!!! Alhumdulillah it is the day of Juma! The site has been uploaded and we can now begin to collect user interest. From here on a email newsletter was put together informing friends, family and the ummah of the new service so that they could register there interest. The email spamming or campaign has begun! It’s clearly obvious that the first folks to target were friends and family.
Shortly after this, the business cards were completed, printed and arrived about the middle of the month. Next it was the pre-registration leaflets and posters which were hot of the press towards the end of the month! The stationery was coming together and it was now about circulating and pressing on with aggressive marketing.
June 2010
From late may it was all about spreading the word and getting the message across. Alhumdulillah, the early response was great! Informing people and clarifying there misconceptions was becoming a regular pattern. The obvious thought that travels through the mind when internet and matrimonial is put in the same sentance is ‘dating’. So the challenge was really to clear the misconception and identify how the service was different! Alhumdulillah, every brother and sister we approached left us real positive feedback! They could see the benefit of key features and barriers that had been put in place to uphold the core values of the islamic shariah and sunnah.
There was one comedian who actually opposed the idea of using technology to assist in match making. However, his idea was nonetheless stupid but moreso a little degrading to sisters. He actually thought that lining up a large group of women in a straight line and then allowing a brother to cherry pick would result in a better service. Are you serious? The brother had obviously been smoking something lol. I’m sure a reality check must have kicked in by now. I can most definitley say sisters will no doubt line up… but to give him a good hidin ;o) lol
During June we attended 3 events. The first of which was at Central London Masjid (Regent’s park). This was our first experience of setting up a full on promotional stand and speaking to brothers and sisters in the public domain. Alumdulillah, we had a fantastic response setup was really impressive! We recieved lots of positive feedback and registrations. We distributed a large volume of promotional flyers and attracted many admirers (they liked the look of the promotional stand). We even had compliments from the sheikh of central masjid who requested we give him a large quantity of promotional flyers and business cards so that he may circulate them to the many brothers and sisters that enquire about matrimonial services at the masjid. During this event we had great response from other institutions, charities and event circles amongst others who were more than willing to help us promote the ‘my nikah’ service through there networks.
Other events we attended included Noor Ul Islam fair and the Alamiyah institute charity dinner which again were very successful and generated huge interest!
The journey continues!
All thanks and praise are due to Allah (SWA).
July
July just flew past! The entire team flew out to Saudi to perform the rituals for Umra with the aim to get back just before the start of Ramadaan. The development was still moving along alhumdulillah.
August
The database back end was now coming together! After a short demonstration the fruits of the labour were visible alhumdulillah. During August the month of ramadaan coincided and mashallah made keeping up with the work more challenging. Also, a new competitor launched its service but the fundamentals of the service were completely different from my nikah thus ensuring we still had a completely unique service.
Due to unforseen issues the launch date for the website had been put back til mid October. Inshallah this is a blessing from allah SWA.
September
A slight setback! Hmmmm…. The design house decided that the interface that had been developed was not suitable for the mid/long term future and that a design change had to be made! Not good! Because we were already late with the launch! However, after seeing the new interface I must say it was even more impressive than the previous 
) A blessing in discuise alhumdulillah.
GPU is now around the corner and preparations are well underway! I thought it would be a good idea to distribute a wedding list of services bag to all those attending GPU! The basic purpose of this was to provide everyone with a list of business services to those looking to get married or were in the planning stages of there wedding. The bag would include businesses such as caterers, banqueting halls for hire, limo services, photographers etc etc as well as some merchandise like pens and bookmarks amongst others! All i needed now were sponsors!
October
GPU preparations are seriously underway!!!
Some serious late nights and hard shifts are going in! A lot of time has been spent in organising the team and ensuring all preparations are planned well to ensure a successful launch of the service inshallah.
November
Alhumdulillah the GPU was a very tough but extremely successful event! We had a very positive response and the feedback recieved was very positive. Alhumdulillah hundreds registered there interest! Even with more than 20 members of staff we were still overwhelmed with the response. We were able to get the message across and identify why ‘My Nikah’ is unique and a must for those seriously looking for marriage.
During the event, we had contact with several representatives of global institutions that were very keen to extend and drive this service overseas inshallah. However, at present we are solely putting all our efforts on the UK community but have already put plans in place for a global launch at a later date inshallah.
December
Still heavily pushing the marketing campaign and promotional activities to make muslims aware of the service including new flyers, promotional stands and other tools. Several organisations and business services have approached us to form co-partnerships assisting us to attract a larger audience inshallah.
January 2011
Unfortunatley the site is still running behind schedule but we are working extremely hard with the developers to push the launch on and resolve the stumbling blocks. The delay has given us the ability to adjust and enhance some of the core features of the site which will inshallah make the users’ experience much more pleasurable inshallah. I would personally like to apologise for the delay and pray that you have sabar inshallah. I am extremely confident that the delay will be worth the wait inshallah.
