PRESS RELEASE — July 1 — Done For You Dating is a new service that lets singles delegate their online dating to a representative who manages their profile and exchanges messages under their name. Dating representatives at the company are selected to be socially savvy, skilled writers who are knowledgeable about popular culture. They receive specific training in online dating and personal branding. Company founder Luke Chao is the managing director of The Morpheus Clinic for Hypnosis, where he first started helping men overcome problems interacting with women. He is the ghostwriter of several books, including Sydnee Steele's Seducing Your Woman.
The full article was originally published at eMedia Wire, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: I like the idea of these virtual matchmakers, but they MUST disclose that they are a matchmaker. Of course, as soon as they disclose they are a matchmaker they'll be flagged and kicked off most dating sites. Does your dating site allow matchmakers? Lets take this into the comments section. Your comments please.
This is hysterical. Who’s not going to feel like they’ve been had when they turn up for a date with someone whom they know nothing about?
This is hysterical. Who’s not going to feel like they’ve been had when they turn up for a date with someone whom they know nothing about?
I’m the founder of Done For You Dating. I started it based on my experience with my secretary handling my online dating messages. Because she knows me well, has easy access to me, and has the time to personalize messages, she was able to represent me online much better than I could represent myself. (I only have the time to do online dating hurriedly, and with a lot of cut and paste.)
So I realized that I could provide the service to others–as long as our representatives take care to interview clients thoroughly and keep in regular contact with them. Right now, the company is me, my secretary, and a handful of other representatives on call. I know that there’s another company outsourcing their work to India, but I think cultural barriers can be a big problem there, since most topics of conversation online are about pop culture.
Some online dating sites do forbid commercial use in their terms of service, and we respect those terms. There’s one site where we do our work, and I have been in touch with them; they have no problem with our service at all.
Ultimately, I think it’s a net benefit to everybody involved. Dating sites get more traffic and generate more revenue, busy men get to meet women they otherwise would never meet, and women get to meet interesting, professional men who (frankly) have money to spend.
I know it’s a controversial service, so I’m taking care to ensure that all parties are respected. I’m following this thread, so if anybody has any comments or criticism, fire away!
I’m the founder of Done For You Dating. I started it based on my experience with my secretary handling my online dating messages. Because she knows me well, has easy access to me, and has the time to personalize messages, she was able to represent me online much better than I could represent myself. (I only have the time to do online dating hurriedly, and with a lot of cut and paste.)
So I realized that I could provide the service to others–as long as our representatives take care to interview clients thoroughly and keep in regular contact with them. Right now, the company is me, my secretary, and a handful of other representatives on call. I know that there’s another company outsourcing their work to India, but I think cultural barriers can be a big problem there, since most topics of conversation online are about pop culture.
Some online dating sites do forbid commercial use in their terms of service, and we respect those terms. There’s one site where we do our work, and I have been in touch with them; they have no problem with our service at all.
Ultimately, I think it’s a net benefit to everybody involved. Dating sites get more traffic and generate more revenue, busy men get to meet women they otherwise would never meet, and women get to meet interesting, professional men who (frankly) have money to spend.
I know it’s a controversial service, so I’m taking care to ensure that all parties are respected. I’m following this thread, so if anybody has any comments or criticism, fire away!
We endeavor to represent our clients accurately and naturally, the same way that a good ghostwriter or speechwriter studies their subject and writes in the subject’s voice. If the representative (matchmaker) is asked a question that she doesn’t know the answer to, she just picks up the phone and calls the client for clarification. We never make up information for the client.
We endeavor to represent our clients accurately and naturally, the same way that a good ghostwriter or speechwriter studies their subject and writes in the subject’s voice. If the representative (matchmaker) is asked a question that she doesn’t know the answer to, she just picks up the phone and calls the client for clarification. We never make up information for the client.
How do you get to know your clients? I can understand your secretary being able to model you, online. But a stranger isn’t really going to be able to duplicate a person after a short interview or get-to-know-you call. There’s a real authenticity and integrity problem here, don’t you think?
I love the idea of a matchmaker arranging dates for people via internet dating sites, but they need to be introduced as the clients matchmaker. Unfortunately, no mainstream dating site operates a matchmaker mode. I wish they would. Dating sites should bill matchmakers for a premium level of membership in the same way headhunters can pay to get specialized access to recruiting sites.
How do you get to know your clients? I can understand your secretary being able to model you, online. But a stranger isn’t really going to be able to duplicate a person after a short interview or get-to-know-you call. There’s a real authenticity and integrity problem here, don’t you think?
I love the idea of a matchmaker arranging dates for people via internet dating sites, but they need to be introduced as the clients matchmaker. Unfortunately, no mainstream dating site operates a matchmaker mode. I wish they would. Dating sites should bill matchmakers for a premium level of membership in the same way headhunters can pay to get specialized access to recruiting sites.
As much as possible, I’m trying to duplicate the personal secretary experience for clients. The initial interview is about two hours long, and if the client’s in Toronto, we meet with them in person. Then, we make regular phone calls to the client over the first few weeks, to get answers to questions or just to keep in touch. It will take some time before the representative has a good feel for the client and can work without his input.
Unfortunately, in this matter, veracity reduces effectiveness. We ran a test where Sue included a note that began “By the way, I’m Luke’s assistant” in her introductory e-mail. I hoped that it would raise my stature and intrigue some women, but overall it decreased the response rate once you exclude the responses that said “I’m not interested in a person who doesn’t have the time to do his own online dating.” I really, really wish it were otherwise, but the cost to the client would be higher if we had to disclose that we were matchmakers, and I don’t think that clients could bear those costs. (Even now, price is the biggest objection.) Once women start responding to the idea that a man who hires representation isn’t so bad after all, we will absolutely start doing full disclosure.
We’re still doing testing to figure out if there’s a way to bridge the gap between authenticity and effectiveness. I actually wanted to launch later in the summer, but the announcement of the other company encouraged me to launch prematurely.
It would definitely legitimize our business if online dating sites included a “matchmaker mode.” But even under the current model, we’re increasing the quality of profiles on the site, keeping our clients’ accounts active (at a point where they were ready to give up), and generating increased traffic from everybody we send messages to. So I can see a positive relationship between our service and online dating sites in the future.
As much as possible, I’m trying to duplicate the personal secretary experience for clients. The initial interview is about two hours long, and if the client’s in Toronto, we meet with them in person. Then, we make regular phone calls to the client over the first few weeks, to get answers to questions or just to keep in touch. It will take some time before the representative has a good feel for the client and can work without his input.
Unfortunately, in this matter, veracity reduces effectiveness. We ran a test where Sue included a note that began “By the way, I’m Luke’s assistant” in her introductory e-mail. I hoped that it would raise my stature and intrigue some women, but overall it decreased the response rate once you exclude the responses that said “I’m not interested in a person who doesn’t have the time to do his own online dating.” I really, really wish it were otherwise, but the cost to the client would be higher if we had to disclose that we were matchmakers, and I don’t think that clients could bear those costs. (Even now, price is the biggest objection.) Once women start responding to the idea that a man who hires representation isn’t so bad after all, we will absolutely start doing full disclosure.
We’re still doing testing to figure out if there’s a way to bridge the gap between authenticity and effectiveness. I actually wanted to launch later in the summer, but the announcement of the other company encouraged me to launch prematurely.
It would definitely legitimize our business if online dating sites included a “matchmaker mode.” But even under the current model, we’re increasing the quality of profiles on the site, keeping our clients’ accounts active (at a point where they were ready to give up), and generating increased traffic from everybody we send messages to. So I can see a positive relationship between our service and online dating sites in the future.
Hi Luke,
I’d like to interview you for Online Dating Magazine.
Thanks,
James Houran, Ph.D.
Hi Luke,
I’d like to interview you for Online Dating Magazine.
Thanks,
James Houran, Ph.D.
Hi James,
I would be happy to talk to you. You can phone me at (416) 479-0152 or e-mail me through the contact form on DoneForYouDating.com, and we can take it from there.
Luke.
Hi James,
I would be happy to talk to you. You can phone me at (416) 479-0152 or e-mail me through the contact form on DoneForYouDating.com, and we can take it from there.
Luke.
Hi Luke,
My name is Scott Valdez and I am the Co-Founder of Virtual Dating Assistants. Welcome to the market.
After we launched our service on the 10th of last month, I always surprised people when I told them that for a number of reasons we wouldn’t mind a competitor coming out of the woodworks. So on Tuesday night when one of our clients told us he searched for our company name and Done For You Dating popped up in Google Adwords, we were not disappointed to see another company launch based upon the idea we recently debuted. With the mass coverage we got on information sources such as VentureBeat (article was on NYTimes.com), TechCrunch and UrbanDaddy we were not surprised to see someone else step into the arena.
One of reasons we didn’t mind a competitor showing up is that we know that any press coverage you get will probably at least mention our company, which means free publicity for us. But as I just told a young lady today over the phone that is from Toronto and went by the name “Jesse” (who we believe, for a number of reasons, was someone on your side doing some competitive research), what we did not like about Done for You Dating is the following:
1) The extent to which many of our ideas such as my partner’s story, our over-the-phone date simulation service (you all call it “over-the-phone role play”), and some of the word choice on our site seemed to have been closely replicated on yours.
2) Your ties to hypnosis and the Seduction community. If your company continues trying so hard be controversial to get more press coverage and openly applies Seduction tactics to your online interactions, you could negatively affect our reputation.
3) That you have repeatedly tried to differentiate yourself based upon a false statement: that we are outsourcing our work. The fact that my partner Mark used a VA in India a number of years back does not mean we are simply outsourcing work to India and crossing our fingers as you would like everyone to believe. Rather, we are strategically offshored in Buenos Aires, which is currently the top metropolis for expats in the Americas, and we are only using native English speakers to interface with others online. As I told a client in an email yesterday that posed a question about the use of native English speakers, “Anything else would be online dating suicide and would ultimately result in very dissatisfied clients. We know much better than that!” Our employees are highly-skilled native speakers but we can pay them less because their living expenses here are a fraction of what they would be there.
Those are simply my personal initial reactions to your entrance into the market and I hope they are not taken as a direct attack against you or your company (as that it not the intention).
Again, welcome to the market and I wish you all the best of luck with your launch.
Kind regards,
Scott
Scott Valdez
Co-Founder and President
VirtualDatingAssistants.com
305-459-3099
Hi Luke,
My name is Scott Valdez and I am the Co-Founder of Virtual Dating Assistants. Welcome to the market.
After we launched our service on the 10th of last month, I always surprised people when I told them that for a number of reasons we wouldn’t mind a competitor coming out of the woodworks. So on Tuesday night when one of our clients told us he searched for our company name and Done For You Dating popped up in Google Adwords, we were not disappointed to see another company launch based upon the idea we recently debuted. With the mass coverage we got on information sources such as VentureBeat (article was on NYTimes.com), TechCrunch and UrbanDaddy we were not surprised to see someone else step into the arena.
One of reasons we didn’t mind a competitor showing up is that we know that any press coverage you get will probably at least mention our company, which means free publicity for us. But as I just told a young lady today over the phone that is from Toronto and went by the name “Jesse” (who we believe, for a number of reasons, was someone on your side doing some competitive research), what we did not like about Done for You Dating is the following:
1) The extent to which many of our ideas such as my partner’s story, our over-the-phone date simulation service (you all call it “over-the-phone role play”), and some of the word choice on our site seemed to have been closely replicated on yours.
2) Your ties to hypnosis and the Seduction community. If your company continues trying so hard be controversial to get more press coverage and openly applies Seduction tactics to your online interactions, you could negatively affect our reputation.
3) That you have repeatedly tried to differentiate yourself based upon a false statement: that we are outsourcing our work. The fact that my partner Mark used a VA in India a number of years back does not mean we are simply outsourcing work to India and crossing our fingers as you would like everyone to believe. Rather, we are strategically offshored in Buenos Aires, which is currently the top metropolis for expats in the Americas, and we are only using native English speakers to interface with others online. As I told a client in an email yesterday that posed a question about the use of native English speakers, “Anything else would be online dating suicide and would ultimately result in very dissatisfied clients. We know much better than that!” Our employees are highly-skilled native speakers but we can pay them less because their living expenses here are a fraction of what they would be there.
Those are simply my personal initial reactions to your entrance into the market and I hope they are not taken as a direct attack against you or your company (as that it not the intention).
Again, welcome to the market and I wish you all the best of luck with your launch.
Kind regards,
Scott
Scott Valdez
Co-Founder and President
VirtualDatingAssistants.com
305-459-3099
Mr. Brooks:
These virtual matchmakers is nothing new.
Remember Match High End Matchmaking during 2006? 2007?
It was discretely buried because ….. online daters do not want friends / parents / neighbours / relatives / fans / matchmakers or other users to be involved in a private matter as building a personal relationship with future in mind.
Match only offers now its ProfilePro service: “Our professional writers will write your profile for you.”
Morever, these virtual matchmakers will discover that mutual filtering method is in the range of 3 or 4 persons who selected each other per 1,000 persons, so in a 10,000,000 persons database (as in Match), there are as many as 30,000 to 40,000 persons to screen. 30,000 persons is the population of an average small city!!!
Any client will discover 30,000 to 40,000 persons will match its matchmaking criteria!!!!!!!!!!
Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
Mr. Brooks:
These virtual matchmakers is nothing new.
Remember Match High End Matchmaking during 2006? 2007?
It was discretely buried because ….. online daters do not want friends / parents / neighbours / relatives / fans / matchmakers or other users to be involved in a private matter as building a personal relationship with future in mind.
Match only offers now its ProfilePro service: “Our professional writers will write your profile for you.”
Morever, these virtual matchmakers will discover that mutual filtering method is in the range of 3 or 4 persons who selected each other per 1,000 persons, so in a 10,000,000 persons database (as in Match), there are as many as 30,000 to 40,000 persons to screen. 30,000 persons is the population of an average small city!!!
Any client will discover 30,000 to 40,000 persons will match its matchmaking criteria!!!!!!!!!!
Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
Hi Scott,
Nice to meet you. I will answer your concerns:
I had been planning my business for several months before your firm launched in June. My domain name doneforyoudating.com was registered on April 20, 2009, while virtualdatingassistants.com was registered four days later, on April 24, 2009. I congratulate you for being first to launch your business, but I want to emphasize that I did not (nor want to) copy your business, and that I had been forming my plan independently.
The service offered on my website is similar to yours because online dating is a linear process — take good photos, write a good profile, screen candidates, engage them, and ensure a smooth transition from online to offline — which means that every company offering to this service will offer basically the same process. I don’t see how it would be any other way.
My backstory is true, but I’m sure it’s not original to either me or your business partner: There must be dozens, if not hundreds, of other men in the world who have delegated part of their online dating to their secretaries. Tim Ferriss blogged about it way back in 2007.
I did made the assumption that your partner’s original offshoring location (India) is the country you are still using, and I take back my statement. I can’t be the only person thinking this, though, so it might be helpful to potential clients if you clarify on your website that you outsource to a B.A. rather than India.
Finally, my work with hypnotherapy has helped hundreds of clients here in Canada, and my book with Sydnee Steele (a woman) is probably the least-manipulative “seduction” book on the market. I’m not concerned about my background hurting the reputation of my new business; if anything, it would be the other way around.
I share your perspective that every new company in this field will develop, and bring publicity to, this fledgling market. There will be a lot of ground to break and a lot of barriers to overcome, so I’m happy that you extended a friendly welcome to me and I look forward to communicating with you again in the future.
Luke.
Hi Scott,
Nice to meet you. I will answer your concerns:
I had been planning my business for several months before your firm launched in June. My domain name doneforyoudating.com was registered on April 20, 2009, while virtualdatingassistants.com was registered four days later, on April 24, 2009. I congratulate you for being first to launch your business, but I want to emphasize that I did not (nor want to) copy your business, and that I had been forming my plan independently.
The service offered on my website is similar to yours because online dating is a linear process — take good photos, write a good profile, screen candidates, engage them, and ensure a smooth transition from online to offline — which means that every company offering to this service will offer basically the same process. I don’t see how it would be any other way.
My backstory is true, but I’m sure it’s not original to either me or your business partner: There must be dozens, if not hundreds, of other men in the world who have delegated part of their online dating to their secretaries. Tim Ferriss blogged about it way back in 2007.
I did made the assumption that your partner’s original offshoring location (India) is the country you are still using, and I take back my statement. I can’t be the only person thinking this, though, so it might be helpful to potential clients if you clarify on your website that you outsource to a B.A. rather than India.
Finally, my work with hypnotherapy has helped hundreds of clients here in Canada, and my book with Sydnee Steele (a woman) is probably the least-manipulative “seduction” book on the market. I’m not concerned about my background hurting the reputation of my new business; if anything, it would be the other way around.
I share your perspective that every new company in this field will develop, and bring publicity to, this fledgling market. There will be a lot of ground to break and a lot of barriers to overcome, so I’m happy that you extended a friendly welcome to me and I look forward to communicating with you again in the future.
Luke.
Match might have a database of 10 million people, but if you’re only searching within your city, you’re searching within a 100,000-person subset of that database. Then, 3 or 4 matches in 1000 people translates to only 300 to 400 people to review.
Match might have a database of 10 million people, but if you’re only searching within your city, you’re searching within a 100,000-person subset of that database. Then, 3 or 4 matches in 1000 people translates to only 300 to 400 people to review.
By the way, I don’t know who the young lady who phoned you is. If she’s from Toronto, she might have been a reporter who had received our press release. Anybody doing competitive research would ask a man to phone, since your website targets men specifically.
Luke.
By the way, I don’t know who the young lady who phoned you is. If she’s from Toronto, she might have been a reporter who had received our press release. Anybody doing competitive research would ask a man to phone, since your website targets men specifically.
Luke.
Hi Luke,
I appreciate the diplomatic response.
There is only one point that I would still like to make clear: We are not technically outsourcing (you wrote “…clarify on your website that you outsource to a B.A. rather than India.”)
Outsourcing implies the subcontracting of a business function or process to an external service provider. What we are doing is are running our own operations from an offshore location. We are hiring Americans who are living down here in Buenos Aires (there are hundreds) and retaining control of the full process ourselves. I am in BsAs overseeing the quality of our work personally.
I too look forward to communicating with you more in the future.
Thanks again,
Scott
Hi Luke,
I appreciate the diplomatic response.
There is only one point that I would still like to make clear: We are not technically outsourcing (you wrote “…clarify on your website that you outsource to a B.A. rather than India.”)
Outsourcing implies the subcontracting of a business function or process to an external service provider. What we are doing is are running our own operations from an offshore location. We are hiring Americans who are living down here in Buenos Aires (there are hundreds) and retaining control of the full process ourselves. I am in BsAs overseeing the quality of our work personally.
I too look forward to communicating with you more in the future.
Thanks again,
Scott