OPW INTERVIEW – Sep 19 – Rutger Tolenaar is a Netherlands and European mega-affiliate.
Category: All Interviews
Quickie Interview: Jeroen, Director, Social Clicks
OPW INTERVIEW – Sep 19 – As a channel for iDating member acquisition, Facebook is hot. Red hot!
Want help with your European Facebook social media marketing. Perhaps
Jeroen can help.
Quickie Interview: Greg Swierad, CEO, IntelligentElite
OPW INTERVIEW – Sep 19 – IntelligentElite has grown largely through word-of-mouse. Greg is the new CEO.
Using Language Patterns To Match People: Jonathan Mall Interview
OPW INTERVIEW – Aug 9 – believe that 'people will tell you everything if you only observe.' So I was quite interested to learn of the work Jonathan Mall was doing in using language patterns to match people. If you'd like to learn more I recommend the seminal work 'The Secret Life of Pronouns.' – Mark Brooks
What's your background and founding story of Mailmindmatch?
While doing my PhD in Psychology, I read the literature demonstrating that language synchronization patterns can be indicative of effective communication, mutual rapport and coordination. Various papers report that people who matched their language style were more likely to start a relationship or have a higher chance to prolong their existing relationship. I immediately wanted to calculate match scores for my own communication partners and found that most recorded conversations accumulated in my Facebook inbox. Previous work, by Pennebaker's group and others (e.g. Ireland et al., 2010; Taylor & Thomas, 2008) >conversation transcripts, thus a thorough investigation and optimization of the language style matching approach was lacking for online communication. Therefore, I build a Facebook app to analyze all my messages and visualize the language style match. The language style match scores obtained for my friends on Facebook largely coincided with my feelings towards them. Ex-girlfriends and even good male friends were on top and people I cared less about were at the bottom. I conducted a large study, asking 300 people to rate up to 20 of their Facebook friends and then calculated which language characteristics would predict how much people valued each other. Over 2.5 million individual messages were analyzed and the predictive power of the resulting algorithms was high. Thus, language style matching in online communication can reliably estimate how effective two people communicate and how much mutual rapport they are feeling.
Now that I've graduated I am looking for partners to apply these algorithms in an environment where a good fit between people is important and has commercial relevance.
How does Mailmindmatch help iDaters make better matches?
iDating has long been trying to create algorithms that match people before they ever made contact. It neglects a large part of the courting process, the actual conversation. Effective communication means listening and reacting "on the same wavelength", which is what mailmindmatch.com measures. While language style matching can also be used to propose prospective dates, based on the content of previous conversations, ongoing conversations offer the most relevant information to determine whether two people match. For example, when an iDater is chatting with 5 prospective dates, the algorithms can indicate which one appears to be the best match.
Where can we see it in action?
The Demo is available at http://www.mailmindmatch.com.
How can an iDating site work with you to integrate the test into their site?
The infrastructure to do the processing of messages is in place. Chat protocols with 300+ words exchanged are enough to calculate language style match scores. The next challenge will be to integrate the technology in the most beneficial manner. While matching based on language style can improve existing matching algorithms that find prospective dates, given the individual nature of interpersonal communication, the algorithms are particularly powerful to evaluate starting conversations.
What would the ideal implementation look like?
An overall match score could be displayed next to a conversation. iDaters can be getting advice on how to communicate more effectively, i.e. achieve higher rapport. At the back-end, language style match scores can be used to operationalize the actual fit of two people once they started chatting, allowing to optimize existing match algorithms without the need of iDaters rating each conversation.
How much would it cost the iDating site to use this test?
The exclusive license costs 80k/year. If IP rights are warranted, other cooperations can be negotiated. Please contact me if you like to know more.
(References:
Ireland, M. E., Slatcher, R. B., Eastwick, P. W., Scissors, L. E., Finkel, E. J., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2010). Language Style Matching Predicts Relationship Initiation and Stability. Psychological Science, 22(1), 39–44.)
AtThePool CEO Interview, Alex Capecelatro
OPW INTERVIEW – Aug 20 – I used to run an adventure and social club in Silicon Valley. It was a singles club that wouldn’t admit to being a singles club. AtThePool.com reminds me of my little club. Yes, its great for singles, but that’s not really what its about. Here’s my interview with the CEO/Founder, Alex Capecelatro. – Mark Brooks
What is your founding story?
AtThePool has been live for just under a year. Our goal is to help people connect offline, so not too different from a typical dating site, except we're not focused on dating.
I had been moving around quite a bit in the States. I found incredibly difficult to connect with people around me. I began working on At the Pool when I was living in a town called Beacon, upstate New York and it was probably the most depressing time in my life. I was building a chemical manufacturing company out of an automotive garage, and it was extremely isolating. I tried Meetup, but it didn't really work up there. I tried Facebook but Facebook doesn't really help you meet new people. I tried dating sites and learned that a lot of people using dating site not for dating but to get out and meet new people.
So the initial thought for AtThePool was to create a really easy and fun way to meet new people in your area based on your interests.
I've got a whole ton of questions for you, but one question just is burning in the back of my mind, what were the chemicals in the garage?
Long story. I have a background as a chemist. I spent a number of years doing that. With a couple of friends out of MIT, we developed a new class of materials based on Aerogel, which is the world's lightest material.
I sold lasers, and we had to measure Aerogel, and it was very difficult to measure. Amazing stuff!
Our company was called Aerogel Technologies, and we were pretty much the only manufacturing plant in the world that's making Aerogel.
Are you a fan of traditional idating sites, or are they broken? What do you think?
Idating is getting more and more popular. It's here to stay, and it's just getting bigger.
Would you say you're more of a social discovery? You're discovering new people to hang out with.
The website is 100% social discovery but we have a new app that is coming out in about a month. The app is very different. The app is looking more at your existing relationships connecting to people nearby, and it's not so much about meeting new people. Meeting new people is interesting and exciting if you're in a new town, but on a day-to-day basis your existing relationships are overwhelming. You know a lot of people that you are not following up with, you know people who are probably right around the corner that you just haven't caught up with in quite a while. Social discovery is interesting, but I don't feel like it's an entire product. It's really a feature within a greater product, and that's how we are evolving our company.
What do you think of Meetup?
I have a lot of mixed feelings about Meetup. I love the mission. It's really good in the business community but it really doesn't resonate with the young community. Part of it is the design and the user experience. It's more than 10 years old. I feel like they need to reinvent themselves, or they are not going to stay relevant to the new crowd.
So how are you making money?
At this point we are focused on execution and growth. We are not focused on revenues right now. We do have a couple different models that are in the works and that we are experimenting with. The first one is launching sort of white-label pools, communities of people that have a reason to meet. There are pools we can white label and drop into conferences and other events we are getting a lot of attention and a lot of attraction to.
The other one is local deals. For example, we know who in Santa Monica is into yoga, into cycling or surfing, because that's how our interest graph is built. What we are doing is building a recommendation engine, and if we scale the right way that's a huge business.
How many members do you have now?
We are not disclosing the number, but we have members in over 95 countries. The growth has just blown us away, it's been pretty phenomenal.
Are you looking for funding?
We raised funds about 7 or 8 months ago, and we are well funded for the next year. We're not looking for money right now, we're just focused on executing/launching this mobile product, and just having a good time.
What is AtThePool and GetThePool going to look like in one year roughly?
I'm extremely excited about the mobile launch. Our goal ultimately is not one year out, but maybe five/ten years out. We believe the entire world needs to be connected. I want to be able to travel anywhere in the world, connect with the people around me, and be able to get offline.
eDarling CEO Interview, Lukas Brosseder (MD And co-Founder Of Affinitas GmbH)
OPW INTERVIEW – Aug 13 – eDarling recently pared away from eHarmony and is independent again, and ready to compete internationally. eDarling launched in the UK recently and is now open for business in 22 countries. Here’s their founding story, from Affinitas co-founder Lukas Brosseder. – Mark Brooks
This is our first interview with eDarling. What’s your founding story?
David Khalil and myself founded the company in November 2008. In Europe, we didn't see a true matchmaking company. Here, it was always a combination of a dating site and a personality questionnaire, but not a true matchmaking service, and existing players weren’t very innovative. None of the matchmaking sites such as Parship in Germany and eHarmony in the U.S. were able to go international. We believed that this was possible, and that was our idea. In May 2009, 6 months after the launch in Germany, we were live in 4 other countries.
Would you say that your product and philosophy is different from the likes of Parship and eHarmony?
What distinguishes us is a very true matchmaking system. We are focusing on delivering very good matches. You only get 7 initial matches when you finish our relationship questionnaire. We pride ourselves in the quality of the matches, and the communications.
eHarmony has been a big part of us for a very long time, and we have grown together in a lot of ways. Initially, they were one of our biggest heroes. Our matchmaking system is very different from the eHarmony system.
Let's talk about matchmaking then. What is your philosophy; what kind of basis do you focus on for the matchmaking?
All the other larger competitors’ matchmaking is based on the big five model. We truly believe in compatibility and being matched based on having similar interests and personality traits. We have several innovative algorithms implemented that understandably I can not talk about in detail. A big part of the secret sauce are the users on the site, and here we pride ourselves on having a high educated, extremely dedicated user base. I think that also is a big part of our success.
Recently you parted ways with eHarmony. Could you give us some more insight on why, and what happened?
We parted on very good terms on either side. I think the main reason for the parting was Dr. Neil Clark Warren’s strategy to decrease eHarmony’s international footprint. We wanted to grow internationally. It was a good way and good timing for everyone to take different routes and to take different strategies.
How many countries are you in now?
We launched in UK and Ireland just a couple weeks ago, and now we're in 22 countries.
Congratulations on entering UK and Ireland. How did that go, and how did you seed into those countries from scratch?
We have done this 20 times before. We know how to grow business internationally. With UK and Ireland, it was the same set up as it was with Hungary, Finland, Denmark, and Slovakia, which all were launched at the beginning of this year. We make the site free and spend significant 5-digit marketing budgets per day to build up a user base. When we have a user base and also activity on the platform that is sufficient, we start to charge.
What is eDarling going to look like in a year or so's time?
We will grow further international. We just launched in Ireland and UK which is the largest dating market in Europe. So there are a lot of things to do. We won't rule out launching in more countries in Europe. We also see opportunities in South America.
ThreeDayRule.com Interview With CEO/co-Founder Talia Goldstein
OPW INTERVIEW – Aug 6 – I really like ThreeDayRule. They’re discerning about their membership, and offer events and reasonably priced matchmaking. Here’s my interview with the CEO, former VH1 TV show producer Talia Goldstein. – Mark Brooks
ThreeDayRule.com has been around for a couple of years, right?
It has. It started as a city search for girls. We would tell girls where to go based on their guy type. That became really popular among girls but also among the guys. From there we started hosting singles events. We had about 500-600 people at each event. At that point I quit my job as a TV producer, and started Three Day Rule, the matchmaking service. In September 2012, we built the online version.
What are the pitfalls of events, and what do you do differently?
We have singles events for men and women, and the ratio has to be even. We find really cool locations, offer them free drinks or appetizers, and we let them mingle among themselves. Those make for the best events. We also do events just for men or just for women. For example we had an event called The Night of Beauty, where our single girls get their hair, makeup and nails done.
How do you monetize, and what do you do for members?
We have the online division, which is a curated dating site so not everyone is accepted. You have to apply or be invited to get online. Then we have our matchmaking service as well. We curate these events so we can go in with our matchmakers and meet the most quality people.
I know you turn people away. How do you cover that with them when they come back and say, “I really want to be a member”?
It is a little bit difficult, and just because somebody is denied from the site, it doesn’t mean that they’re not a great dater. They’re just not right for our dating site. We are really looking for busy professionals that are ambitious and have a great career.
What would be an example of somebody who wouldn’t be a good fit for Three Day Rule?
I can’t tell you the exact secret sauce.
How would you say your services differ from a traditional matchmaker?
We are in between mass market dating sites and matchmaking. On the online version, you are sent one match a day. Everybody is assigned a matchmaker. You can reach out to a dating coach, a stylist or you can do a photography session.
The typical matchmaker is 5K and the higher end are at $60K. What do you charge roughly?
It depends on what you’re looking for, but it’s about $3K in average,.
Do people come in for an interview, or is it done online?
We have matchmakers in the cities we are open in, and we will continue to do that. So, they meet with our matchmaker in person.
Where would you like to be at the end of 2014?
We are in Los Angeles and New York, and this month we will be launching San Francisco. So, we are really hoping to launch a different city every couple months; Chicago, Dallas, Boston.
Are there any business development type folks you’d like to reach out to that can help?
We are doing a lot of partnerships with brands. So, any partners who would be interested in working with our members we’d like to reach out to.
myZamana Interview With CEO/Founder Ashish Kundra
OPW INTERVIEW – July 30 – In the future India will be one of the top three revenue-producing iDating markets. myZamana was started by a Meetmoi alumni and is doing well there now. Here’s our introduction to the founder Ashish Kundra and myZamana. – Mark Brooks
myZamana.com is a primarily Indian Dating site. I see that about 70% of your traffic on Alexa is in India.
Yes, that is correct.
What’s your background? You worked at MeetMoi?
I did, I interned at MeetMoi during college. It was my first exposure to the dating space. When I graduated I moved to Boston, and started programming various sites. My sister was single and looking for a date. I thought, “Why don’t I build her a service?” That’s how it all got started.
What did you learn from MeetMoi? That seems really relevant to the Indian Market. 49% of all Internet usage is on mobile in India.
Yeah, MeetMoi was definitely very early on in the mobile dating space. It was an unfamiliar concept to people at that time. Now the mantra is “Mobile First.”
How did you start of? How many users do you have now?
Initially, it started like JDate for Indians. The focus was primarily on the US market, which in retrospect was the completely wrong way. My goal is to build a very large, long-term, mainstream site, and it turns out the Indian market is much larger than the Indians in the US market. There are four million South Asians in the US and a billion in India.
First we signed up 10K users from large metropolitan areas in US. Then I started seeing an influx of users from India until I really just couldn’t ignore it. Within a few months most of our users were in India, and I started doubling down in that market.
You mentioned that half of the population of India is under 25 at this stage. What are their thoughts on the likes of Shaadi and Bharat Matrimony?
It depends on the person’s background. If you are from a rural area and don’t have Internet connection then obviously all of this is irrelevant to you. If you are from a more traditional household, then Bharat Matrimony and Shaadi might be good options for you. If you are living in a city, you might want to choose your own date and not want to be subjected to the kind of patriarchal system of arranged marriages, which I see Shaadi and Bharat Matrimony as synonymous to.
What is myZamana’s fit in the market?
We are basically a mainstream service that helps people meet new people.
Who would you class as your competitors in India?
There are a couple of startups going after the dating/meet new people market, but there isn’t one competitor we really look at.
You are at 1.2 million users so far.
We want to be one of the leaders in this market. It’s really early days, only 11% of the market is online, so we are patient.
How is the infrastructure though? Are you finding most of your users in mobile as well?
Surprisingly, most of our users have mobile devices, but we still get a lot of traffic from the web. Android is definitely the biggest app platform there.
The payment infrastructure is very recent, so it’s really hard to accept payments. We don’t, we are a free site. We are ad supported, and we really like that model. It works well for us.
3 or 4 years ago we did some work with a group dating app called Ignighter. They started in USA and got popular in India. Now they are bases out of India and changed their name to StepOut. What is your take on that?
India is very interesting market given how rapidly it’s changing and how large it’s eventually going to be. It was a wise decision for them, and they are a pretty significant player in the market.
What’s your end goal? Where will you be in 2 years time?
In 2 years time, if we grow maybe the order of magnitude or two, we’ll be definitely a pretty big player in the meeting new people/dating space. It really depends on the Internet penetration in India which is now 11%.
In terms of monetization, what are the options that are becoming available now? What do you think it’s going to look like in a couple years time for means of payment?
Currently there are four options. Mobile payments where carriers take 75% fee and the transactions are capped at around $2, so it’s really not worth it. Your second option is brick and mortar payment collections, which is what Shaadi and Bharat Matrimony do. The third option is credit card payments online. But the credit card penetration is around 4%. Fourth option is advertising, that’s what we’re really big fans of. In the future the credit card penetration will pick up.
Have you thought about monetizing the diaspora?
We don’t really spend a lot of time thinking about that. It’s probably a pretty good short-term business opportunity, but in the long run I don’t see it as a viable option. We want to invest things where we see a presence in 10 years. The US market is shrinking. ,South Asians here will not forever want to marry only South Asians.
Would you describe myZamana as a social discovery site? Is that a good title for this section of the industry?
Yea, I think that could work.
Bang With Friends CEO Interview
OPW INTERVIEW – Apr 30 – This is a very unusual interview. The CEO wanted to be anonymous. Bang With Friends is growing fast. Here’s their story… – Mark Brooks
When will Facebook be buying Bang With Friends?
I'm not sure they can afford us.
How much is it?
The rumors may or may not be true, but you'll have to ask them for more comments.
Well there was a post I saw and the price was $30 million.
Let's just say we’re in private talks.
Why anonymous?
We're anonymous because we started as a side project. It was a little joke and it's taken off on its own. We were working on other startups at the time and we didn't want to compromise those.
How many are on the founding team?
Three.
Who came up with the idea initially?
It was a team effort between all three of us. We started asking why is online dating so dishonest and so frustrating? Especially for Generation Y. We wanted to make something simple that allows you to straightforwardly say what you were into and what your intentions were. The most obvious case is finding friends with benefits.
So it sounds like you weren’t a fan of internet dating. What sites would you say are your least and most favorite? Are there any which have inspired you? Or inspired you to improve on?
The big guys don't really fit well with what we're doing as a younger generation. Even the new upstarts that we've seen haven't really gotten straight to the point like we have, and taken such an unabashed and simple approach.
How well has Bang With Friends been received by Facebook corporate?
We have a good relationship with Facebook. Of course they are careful with their brand, and we're working with them to make sure that everybody is happy.
You've got 820,000 users and 200,000 couples matched, which seems very high. How do you get so many couples?
A lot of it comes from the safety we provide. Since everybody that you're seeing is a friend of yours, you're much more likely to be interested in them and meet up with them. Also everybody has at least a few friends that they've always had an eye on.
Can you tell us your latest numbers?
We are definitely north of that 200,000 matches. I believe we are at around 880,000 signups now.
How successful is your app? And take that as you will.
We're happy just enabling more people to bang.
You have to have a sense of humor to use the app.
You need a sense of humor and it definitely plays toward the younger generation and the recognition of how important sex is.
How do you make money?
We don't. We're not worried about making money right now. We're all about the customer.
But you have some aspirations to make money, surely?
I'm sure we'll have some stuff coming out that helps us keep things going, but for the most part our goals here are staying focused on creating success for our users. We know that will drive our business forward.
Where will you be in 12 month's time with Bang With Friends?
You will see us move beyond just banging and beyond your friend group.
So Hang With Friends to go with Bang With Friends?
I can say it will be more generalized. More ways to meet up rather than strictly hook-ups.
Interview With Brian Donegan, Director Of Foreign Investment, Isle Of Man Government
OPW INTERVIEW – Apr 4 – Brian
Donegan is the Business Development Manager for IT with the Isle of
Man. He works for the IOM government. The Isle of Man is taking an
interest in the internet dating industry. – Mark Brooks
What do you do?
6-7
years ago the Isle of Man became involved in igaming and very quickly
turned that into a successful sub-sector of our IT industry. It’s
currently responsible for 10% of our GDP and employs 700 people with an
average income of £55,000. There are a number of things that made the
Isle of Man attractive for the igaming industry to locate here – no
corporate tax and a very strong IT infrastructure. We have a strong
interest in finding other verticals that can complement what we’ve been
doing . Internet dating is transactional based, there is no product to
ship, and it doesn’t seem to have a great deal of regulation. As a
government, we offer 40% grant assistance to companies that relocate to
the Isle of Man across a basket of headings like hardware, software and
setup costs.
Tell me about the infrastructure regarding the Internet.
We do very well. We only use 10% of our total Internet capacity.
To
enjoy the benefits of having a corporation in the Isle of Man you need
to have a couple of executives based in The Isle of Man. Is that
correct?
If
you’re going to have a business established in the Isle of Man, the
idea of having a brass plate is unacceptable. You need to have some real
substance, and so those two people should actually be middle management
caliber.
In general, what can you tell us about the Isle of Man?
The
Isle of Man sits in the Irish Sea, just off the northwest coast of
England. There are 85K people in the island. The island is a Crown
Dependency of the UK, but we are independent in terms of our economy.
How about VAT?
VAT
is at the standard rate of the UK, so it’s at 20%. VAT is not an issue,
largely because the lower cost associated with doing business in The
Isle of Man offsets the cost of VAT.
What are the personal taxes?
They start
at 10% rising into 20% at the highest for all employees. For high net
worth individuals we have a tax cap. If it exceeds £600,000 they pay no
more than £120,000 tax per annum. Whether you earn £600,000 or
£600,000,000, once you hit that benchmark you pay no more than £120,000.
How much does it cost for business-oriented property and personal, roughly?
You
can buy a very attractive four-bedroom detached executive home in and
around the capital Douglas for £500,000- £600,000. It equates very well
with the UK market.
There
is a selection of modern steell and smoked glass buildings in our
business parks, and they reflect very well in relation to
competitiveness compared to the UK, probably 30-40% lower than mainland
UK prices.
How
would that work for an American born company that relocated to the Isle
of Man that continue to do a majority of its business in the USA?
The VAT issue is really only an issue for European area, so out with the European it’ not an issue.
What should people do if they want to find out more?
Contact
me in the first instance, and I would be more than happy to help them
and give them additional information and advice. My e-mail is
Brian.Donegan@gov.im.
I
would also encourage readers to ask questions, and Brian if you’d like
to keep an eye on the posts when we run it for 2 or 3 days and that is
another way people can contact you I’m sure.