STRATEGY EYE – Aug 19 - Badoo describes itself as a ‘meeting network’, enabling users to find, chat and flirt with each other online. Here, COO Bart Swanson talks competition in the social networking space.
Q: How do you stand out from other social networking sites?
A: We don’t believe there’s a social network out there that’s in the meeting network space. Dating sites are after people who are looking for serious relationships; Facebook is the place where you go to meet with your existing friends.
Q: What platforms are you available on?
A: We have our own platform. We have an app on Facebook. We’re also on mobile. iPhone, Android and a WAP site. iPhone is the biggest and we see 2M downloads.
Q: What is your business model?
A: Badoo is first and foremost a free service. We have two ways in which we monetize. By customers who pay for subscriptions, getting various added services such as advanced search. The other part is premium one-offs. For example, you can promote yourself. We have been profitable for the last 24 months.
Q: You’ve raised $30M in VC funding. Are you looking to raise more cash?
A: We’re trying to figure it out right now. The company does not need any cash for expansion.
Q: What do you think is the hottest trend in digital media right now?
A: Location-based services on mobile
by Sarah Vizard
The full article was originally published at Strategy Eye, but is no longer available.

“The number of users that pay, in certain European countries it can be somewhere between 5 to 15% of users, obviously in other countries, like in South America, it can be less than 1%.”
Anyone know what their average income is per customer?
I guess he’s talking about % of the total database and not active database?
“The number of users that pay, in certain European countries it can be somewhere between 5 to 15% of users, obviously in other countries, like in South America, it can be less than 1%.”
Anyone know what their average income is per customer?
I guess he’s talking about % of the total database and not active database?