Armenians’ app “conquers” UAE

Two Armenian friends who moved to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to study 3 years ago decided to develop an app in summer 2014 which would make people get away from monitors and socialize on the real off-line platform.

Jeltee app developed by Ashot Mnatsakanyan and Rafael Harutyunyan was launched  in UAE 3 weeks ago, and it already has 3600 registered users.

“The app takes one of your chosen Facebook photos and information about your interests and shows it to people geographically linked. The users whose photos are mutually liked get the chance to connect each other 24-hours in a row. After 24 hours, the only way of communication is only inviting each other to a real meeting through Jeltee. The app has the option of choosing a venue for entertainment”, Rafael Harutyunyan says to Itel.am.


Rafael Harutyunyan

The app doesn’t show the people’s names as according to the authors, it’s easy to find people through social networks in the same city.

Rafael Harutyunyan notes that if users together visit some entertainment places, they will get a discount, for instance, for 2 cups of coffee in a café at the price of 1.

Jeltee Co-Founder Ashot Mnatsakanyan stresses that their goal is to encourage offline communication.

“We want people to get away from computers or phones through the app and communicate in real. We give 24 hours for online communication. If you have the desire to communicate online longer, you can do it on other platforms”, notes Ashot Mnatsakanyan.


Ashot Mnatsakanyan

The app name is borrowed from Hindi: “jaldee” meaning “hurry up!”. The guys made some pronunciation changes and landed the current name of the app- Jeltee.

“We first thought of giving an Armenian name to the app, like, “Shtapi” (“hurry up”), but the pronunciation is a bit hard. People pronounced it in so many different ways that we decided to think of something else”, Rafael Harutyunyan says.

The guys note that they are not fully focused on developing the app on the UAE market.

“We are seeking for investment in the UAE to expand the scope of activities and “conquer” the local market. Afterwards, we will move on to other countries. People are very different here: 80% of them are expatriates, and it’s important to figure out how the product is consumed by representatives of various cultures and societies. It will further facilitate our operation in other countries”, notes Ashot Mnatsakanyan.

Jeltee is currently available for iOS operation system. It will soon be available for Android and Windows Phone as well.

The authors of the app note that even though Jeltee is available in Armenia but they are going to work out a version adjusted for our country soon. It’s not ruled out that 24-hour restriction will be replaced with 1 week for Armenia.

Jeltee presently has 100 registered users in Yerevan.

Narine Daneghyan