WEBWIRE – June 5 – Lluis Carreras, CEO at Mobifriends, will present on strategies for mobile dating machine learning projects. The L.A. iDate conference will spend most of its time focusing on artificial intelligence and M.L. The event takes place on June 12-13, 2018 at the Sportsmen's Lodge Events Center in LA, CA. Registration for the event can be made here.
Month: June 2018
Tinder Is The Most Popular Dating App For Single Millennials
by Julia La Roche
See full article at Yahoo Finance
Viola.AI To Gather Single Women Database
BITCOIN.COM – June 5 – With its Identity and Relationship Verification known as REL-Registry, Viola.AI is set to create the world's largest single women database on the blockchain for a transparent and safe platform for ladies to meet their potential partners. Viola.AI REL-Registry, which is built on blockchain, verifies each user's identity through visual recognition, social media check and ascertains their relationship status. No more faceless characters, bots, or fake profiles.
Meet The Women Leading Some Of Dallas-Fort Worth’s Biggest Public Companies
DMAGAZINE – June 2 – Mandy Ginsberg, CEO of Match Group, came from a family of entrepreneurs. Her father was a first-generation Jewish immigrant who'd followed the family legacy of building his own business. As far as her grandfather was concerned, Ginsberg was selling out when she began her career in corporate America. "My grandfather was mad at me for days," she says. "He said you'd make much more money working for yourself than working for someone else." Ginsberg served as CEO of Match Group Americas, CEO of The Princeton Review, and president of Match before taking the leading role at Match Group, which employs ~1,400 people and generated $1.3B in revenue in 2017.
Q: Did you always want to be a CEO?
A: I wouldn't have said CEO was a goal, but it wasn't out of the realm of possibility.
Q: Why are there so few women CEOs?
A: It's a social change. As there are more women leaders, it will change over time.
Q: Did your company change with a woman at the top?
A: Having strong women in leadership roles attracts other women.
Q: Was there ever a time you were overlooked or discriminated against for being a woman?
A: I walked into a meeting to hand someone a piece of paper. An older man asked me for a cup of coffee, and I was running the business. If it had been a man, I don't think he would've asked. It was very funny, but very rare.
Q: What did you wish you knew earlier in your career?
A: In your 20s, you try so much to be something you're not. I wish someone had said all that doesn't matter. You've got to be authentic and just work hard. Don't be afraid of taking risks.
Q: Has there ever been a time you felt like you failed?
A: I've never felt like I've failed. It's really not about if you fail, but what you do about it.
Q: How do you know it's time for the next step in your career?
A: When you stop learning and you're stagnating and not challenged, it's time.
Q: What are you doing to improve opportunities for other women?
A: At our organization, it's about accessibility – making sure there's enough time to provide access to people in the organization. We've got such a big portion of our executive team who are women, we probably do stuff more innately.
Q: How do you negotiate pay?
A: My mother would say, 'If you don't ask for it, you're not going to get it.' If you don't get it, it's OK, because it puts into the head of your manager that this is your goal. Men tend to shoot higher than their skill level. For women, shoot a little higher. Push yourself. If you feel like you're hitting a ceiling some place, take the risk to go to another place.
‘Wingman’ App Allows Friends To Join The Matchmaking Process
DIGITAL TRENDS – June 4 – On dating app Wingman, singles get to recruit a friend to sign up and create a profile for them. Based on the concept of an actual "wingman," the app allows friends to take control over who singles match with and helps make swiping left and right feel like less of a chore. "I was never comfortable dating online. Most of my single friends were in relationships …, yet they were always very interested in my dating life and wanted to support my journey", said the app's founder Tina Wilson.
Hinge Is Ditching The Facebook Login
After Australia, Bumble To Focus On Growth In New Zealand
NZ HERALD – June 2 – Most Kiwis won't be familiar with the name Whitney Wolfe Herd, but matchmaking app Bumble should ring a few bells. Bumble has been available in new Zealand for three years, with ~1.73 million conversations started. The bulk of users are between 23 and 27 years old and there's a 50/50 gender split. "After a hugely successful 12 months in Australia, we are now focused on growing the already engaged New Zealand market," Herd said. "Bumble is the perfect fit for New Zealand, a country that has always been a world leader when putting women first." The app is available in 144 countries and has ~33M registered users. It has ~80 staff working across six offices and is widely acknowledged as one of the fastest growing dating apps globally.
The Queer Dating App Her Expands With Curated Community Spaces
TECH CRUNCH – June 1 – Her, the app formerly known as Dattch is launching a Communities feature to let people connect around interests and identity as a group. The feature includes message boards where users can post content in Communities or follow another person’s feed to stay up to date.
“Netflix Of Dating” App Wants To Fix Relationships
ALLOY – May 30 – "The Love Destination" is a new video app that's calling itself "the Netflix of dating". The site is backed by Katia Loisel, a relationship and body language expert. It will offer online courses and a library of on-demand videos including series, documentaries, and how-tos covering love and relationships. Subscribers can access the content for a $9.95 fee when the service launches later this year.
by Nicole Pomarico
The full article was originally published at Alloy, but is no longer available.
7 Steps To Pre-Seed And Seed Round Success
FORBES – June 1 – Former Tinder CEO Sean Rad revealed that their early marketing strategy was anything but ordinary. They enlisted the help of fraternities and sororities to get the word out about their product, making it cool and desirable to use.
- Define your market strategy.
- Propose an innovative concept.
Having a product that is similar to something else that is on the market, even if it is significantly better, will not get you funded. - Gain traction at the pre-seed and seed round stages.
If you are a founder who has had multiple successful exits, this won't apply to you. If you are a first-time founder and are raising money, traction is going to be one of the most important parts of your pitch because if you have traction, we can see that you have product-market fit and the risk of you failing is significantly less likely. - Know your numbers.
Customer acquisition cost, lifetime value and other elements must be considered. If the words "I believe" or "I think" are mentioned during the call or you start wavering and changing your previously stated numbers, we will start to doubt all of your numbers. You should know all of your numbers inside and out and be able to answer any questions surrounding them. - Check your attitude.
If we are investing in your seed round, it means we will have a relationship with you for the next three-to-seven years. If we do not like you, I can guarantee we will not invest in you. - Diversify your team.
This goes for both sides. If you are an all-engineering team, an all-business team or a group of individuals with a homogenous background, we will be far less convinced of your ability to execute on your pitch deck than if you had evenly divided skill sets. - Divide ownership amongst your team.
If the CEO has 95% and the CTO has 5% (or even in some cases none), this could raise a red flag. Your entire team needs to be bought into what you're doing.