Origin Story of Groupli: The App to Pair People

What's the problem?

Oddly enough, it is not that easy to connect people in a group. You can't just pair people randomly. If you pair people randomly, you might end up with the same pairs over and over again.

This might not be a problem for you. But if you want to make sure that everyone in the group gets to be paired, you need to keep track of the pairings.

Not so easy

Even if you keep track of pairings, pairing people is not that easy. As far as I know, there is no system that can guarantee that every member of the group gets to pair up.

Another complication is that someone may have to sit out in a round. This happens when the number of people in the group is odd. Or someone is unavailable.

If the group is large, it gets even more complicated. If you are keeping track of pairings in a large group, you have a lot of pairings to keep track of.

Just make an app

After a while, I got tired of keeping track of pairings in a large group. I figured there had to be a better way to do it. I thought I could just make an app for the list of pairings.

As it turns out, it is not that easy to make an app that can pair people in a group. Since there is no simple algorithm for pairing people in a group, I even had to involve my wife, who has a master's degree in physics, to help me with the algorithm.

The algorithm we developed is not perfect, but it works well for groups of up to 14 people. With each person, the algorithm takes exponentially more time to run. So it is not suitable for larger groups. My wife has promised to help me tweak the algorithm if the need arises. I plan to add a pro plan for groups larger than 14 people in the future, if needed.

Conclusion

I hope you find this application useful. I have been using it myself for a while now and it has made my life easier. I hope it can make your life easier too. If you have any feedback, please let me know. I am always looking for ways to improve the app.