Traitify exists to bring “fast, fun and accurate” personality assessments to a broad range of industries seeking to make personalized recommendations to their customers. Their visually-based assessments help to match personality types with products, events, media, and companies, as well providing a unique foundation for digital matchmaking, or, as they like to call it, “sophisticated dating solutions.”

In an interview with Clark Buckner from TechnologyAdvice, Traitify cofounder Josh Spears about the company’s origin, how they’re working to make personalized recommendations better, and the future of applying recommendation engines to a broad swath of industries.

Traitify’s Origins

When Spears once faced an upcoming blind date, he browsed Facebook for what information he could discover about her, seeking to take her on a date that was more just dinner and a movie. Realizing that such information wasn’t enough for him to make a well-founded guess as to her personality type and what she might enjoy while on a date, Spears and cofounder Daniel Sines devised the initial idea for Traitify. What if they could leverage the abundant data points every person seems to have about themselves these days and offer a would-be blind-dater better suggestions for their dates?

But, Spears jokingly mentioned how awkward it would be to tell a blind date, “Hey, nice to meet you. Take this Myers-Briggs test and tell me what your type is.” So they developed Traitify, a visually appealing and unique take on personality tests.

Let’s Get Visual

Instead of offering their assessment takers text-based questions, Traitify offers images to “stimulate thoughts, emotions and experiences left uncovered by traditional questionnaires.” With the help of their three on-staff psychologists, led by Dr. Noreen Honeycutt, their Head of Psychology and also a founder, Traitify’s able to learn more and different information about people because of the unique and carefully considered ways they collect such information. Essentially, what Netflix has popularized with their recommendation engine, Traitify wants to do for many different kinds of companies.

The Future of Personalized Recommendations

When asked about how such personality assessments and recommendations will affect consumers in the future, Spears replied, “Personality is a part of everything we do. It’s a part of how we learn, how we interact with each other, and how we grow professionally.” In other words, he sees the work he’s doing now as becoming rather pervasive in the next few decades as more and more companies seeks to know their people, not just their users.

In fact, Spears was quick to point out that Traitify.com includes the line, “built for people, not users.” Because they focus so keenly on assessing what makes a person unique among all others, they realize that their clients aren’t just a “collection of data points.” He points to the once-booming daily deal market as an example of companies who view their clients as just a number. Spears believes that the future of better personalized recommendations will help companies see their customers as real people, “to develop that loyalty that’s so essential for any successful business.”

Visit Traitify.com to read more about Traitify’s assessments, or listen to the entire TechnologyAdvice interview below. To connect with Spears, email him at josh[at]traitify.com, or follow the company on Twitter @traitify, on Instagram @traitify, or on Facebook at Facebook.com/traitify.

This interview was conducted by Clark Buckner of TechnologyAdvice, an Inc. 5000 company that is dedicated to educating, advising, and connecting the buyers and sellers of business technology. Clark hosts the TechnologyAdvice Podcast, and also keeps tabs on news and events in the company’s tech conference calendar. Tweet him a hello or connect with him on LinkedIn.