Category: All Interviews

Interview With Laouari Medjebeur And Thomas Nomaksteinsky, Founders Of Mektoube.fr

Posted on December 30, 2011

Mektoube.fr foundersOPW – Dec 30 – Mektoube.fr is a dating site dedicated to the Muslim and Maghreb community in France. We have interviewed its founders Laouari Medjebeur and Thomas Nomaksteinsky. (See full version in French).

Mektoube.fr has constantly expanded since it was launched in 2006, how do you see its future in France?
We are still expanding. Half of our new members come by word-of-mouth.

For any markets, the short-term future is on mobiles. Currently, 20% of our traffic comes from our Web application. We are developing platforms for Android and iPhone.

The online dating market is experiencing a massive growth, how is Mektoube.fr different from others?
French niche market, as well as the French web itself, is fairly specific. Most of the dating sites are too small and will not reach a significant size. There aren’t many major dating sites. There is jDate but it is run by an American company. There is nothing for the Black community. 

Mektoube’s users are part of the French Maghreb “community”, although this is not one group but French people of North-African origins, who share common traditions.

Mektoube.fr is currently number one dating site for the Muslim and Maghreb community, how do you promote the site?
We ran a casting via Facebook to find our next models for our advertising campaign.

We also launched a TV commercial campaign in July and it worked well, so we’ll probably do this again.

The "communitarian drifting" potential issue has been raised. How do you respond to these concerns?
The development of websites aiming at communities has raised questions regarding any potential communitarian drifting. Mektoube.fr itself saw one of their advertising campaigns rejected because of the risks implied by possible misunderstandings over the contents of the ad itself. Yet Mektoube.fr never used, and will never use, religion as a commercial argument.

What are your projects at an international level?
Mektoube.fr will soon be launched in North African countries.

Your website mostly aims at French people originally from the Maghreb area, how are you planning to export the concept around Europe?
As for Europe, the Maghreb diaspora is a phenomenon specific to France, other countries mostly having only first or second generations of migrants. The Maghreb diaspora in Belgium has a similar structure as in France, but the market is too small to justify a move.

Both of you are experienced entrepreneurs. According to you, what’s specific to the online dating industry compared to other Internet based activities?
The online dating industry is not so different from any other e-shops: it’s important to gain new users so that the members have a wide range of choice.

There are two major points that make the online dating market different. It is more difficult to sell a service that implies feelings than actual goods. On the other hand, good e-shops can build on costumer loyalty, whereas dating site users will not come back once they have found love. As a result, the goal is to provide the best services possible so that the word-of-mouth brings more members in.

CEO Interview: Levent Gultan, CEO Of Turkey’s Top Dating Site Network, Istanbul.net

Posted on November 4, 2011

OPW INTERVIEW – Nov 4 – We’re extending our coverage on Online Personals Watch to more markets. I met Levent at iDate a few years ago.  He now runs Turkey’s top dating sites. Here’s his story. – Mark Brooks

What’s your founding story?
We got into the dating scene quite late. We entered the market in 2006 and the concept was a local dating site based around city neighborhoods. It caught on quickly and within the first 3 or 4 months we had the 3 main cities in Turkey. Over the years we have expanded our network into different cities adding a new one this month.

We were lucky as there were not many Internet start-ups going after city names so we got high profile cities such as Instanbul.net easily. The city name helps with SEO rankings and marketing the site.

There’s about 35 million Internet users in Turkey at this time and about 1/3 are under 15. Have you found similar?
42% of the 35 million are under 35. Our subscribers are on average 33 years old so not that young at the moment.

What do you charge? What is the propensity for people to pay for internet dating in Turkey?
We’ve had over 5 million subscriptions to date.  We don’t charge the female subscribers which helps us keep the male/female ratio balanced. On the male side we are converting about 15%.

How would you describe your dating positioning, in terms of being serious like Match.com or a little bit more casual?
There’s actually no real translation for the word ‘dating’ in Turkey. At the end of the day we are all called ‘friendship’ sites which has a lighter feel to it. You can mix being a member looking for dates with finding friends. So probably more casual.

Are you making use of Facebook?
We are but not as much as we would like to. Our users don’t want to really disclose their identity. Turkey has the highest Facebook usership in the world with over 90% of people using it. The challenge is to find ways to make Facebook users feel comfortable to load profiles to dating sites but still in an anonymous way. We are also trying to advertise with Facebook.

Overall would you say that the rise of social networking and Facebook is good or bad for your Turkish dating sites?
I think through Facebook everybody has a reason to be online. But the flip side is that people tend to be resistant to other things online.

Are there any other particular difficulties with operating in Turkey or challenges  doing business as an Internet dating service?
We have similar challenges to all online dating sites. There has been a lot of abuse with mobile dating apps. We had to make sure we provide a very secure service with a money back guarantee to build user confidence in the market.  

How do people usually pay? What are the modes that are most popular?
Credit card is the most popular. There are over 40 million credit cards in Turkey right now due to low interest rates with our banks. We also have a small portion of wire transfers. Paypal is on the rise.

We interviewed the CEO of Pemberpanjur recently and their main competitor is e-cift in Turkey.  Do you think these more serious models have legs in Turkey?  
People are still learning about online dating through the casual sites. As time goes on they will be looking for more serious sites. The good thing is that there is traction in the market but serious sites are not as popular are casual sites.

What aspects of your service will you be focusing on for the next year?
We want to introduce new features that you wouldn’t see in general dating sites. In terms of strategy there is still a lot of room for growth and we are looking into some more serious dating sites as well as wanting to explore new geographies.

CEO Interview: Michael O’Sullivan, CEO of Sites Instantly

Posted on October 26, 2011

OPW – Oct 26 – I ran into Michael O’Sullivan at iDate Moscow.  He runs Sites Instantly, a little white label upstart based out of Russia. Here’s his story. – Mark Brooks

How was Sites Instantly started?
It was started in 2002 by a colleague of mine, Tobias Heaton Armstrong.  He saw a gap in the market for white label software and he recruited our current development team which is based in Russia.

What’s your background?
Primarily I’m a technical computer engineer by trade but I’ve always ended up in a sales environment.  

What do people typically earn in the part of Russia your team are based in?
Developer costs are probably 60% of what you would pay in the UK so it’s not cheap as chips but price determines quality. Russian mentality is very good for understanding technical tasks; if you get the right guys who have a bit of imagination you can do some great things.

How many people do you have there?
We have 7 people working in Russia, almost an ideal size for software development. If it’s any bigger you run into problems like no-one knows what someone else is doing. Cupid has 100-200 developers and that is a real management challenge.

What sets Sites Instantly apart?
Two things…We’ve spent a lot of time on ease of use. You can create the site in 2 minutes. We try to make it easy for people to roll out sites, people who are not technically minded. We find our features work well in casual and niche markets. The other good thing is that we are small tight team so with our top web masters we are able to do things that some bigger players can’t purely by nature.  Once the supertanker gets going its very hard to custom features for someone.

Magic question:  what do you pay out?
50%. I agree that 50% is fair to everybody; nobody is motivated more or less that way for your success.

What markets do you convert in?  What markets are you beyond critical mass in?
I would definitely say UK is our biggest market; it’s probably about 70% of our paying members. Continental Europe after that and USA is about 5-10%

Can you disclose revenues?
Yes, it’s all public information after all! It’s about £70,000 per month, obviously that is split between our white label partners.

So you’re pushing 1 million pounds a year in revenue. What are your goals for 2012-2013?  Where will you be in 2013?
We want to earn significantly more in the next couple of years. We have a bunch of initiatives to help us grow revenue. The UK is a lucrative market for us so we want to grow there. We have members on a management team who are based in Shanghai and we are waiting on reports of how we can crack the Chinese market.

CEO Interviews: Shellie Hunt, President of OM Dating, Dating Site for Those Who Practice Meditation and Other Spiritual Activities

Posted on October 7, 2011

OPW INTERVIEW – Oct 7 – Shellie hunt is a success coach with her own reality TV show called ‘remake my life.’  She concentrates on empowering women, and has created the dating site OM Dating. – Mark Brooks

What is your goal with starting an online dating site?
Being a single woman myself, I think the real goal was being able to fine like minded people, that not only were in the industry or around circles that I was in but also were causal, driven by a higher purpose. People that understand higher purpose, people who are outward focused. Does this person volunteer for certain things? Do they own non profits, participate in non profits?  Are they more globally minded?

How do you promote it?
Initially there were campaigns that we did inside workshops, seminars, retreats.  All different types of works in the human potential industry.  We marketed it in a place where like minded people could come together.  But it is very exclusive. OM Dating isn’t something that anybody can come on to. OM is very exclusive with their members. There are certain questions we ask. For example: What’s important to you as far as your integral values?  

What do you not like about other online dating sites?
It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack and I think when you can make the haystack smaller and more refined then it’s easier to find partners.

Now you’ve got a number of single events listed on the website too.
Yes, there are a number of events listed for people who wish to apply for OM dating.  It definitely gets you out of your own back yard.  Many people there travel and are worldly.  If we only stay in our own backyard its difficult, if you broaden it then there’s so many different options.

The difference is these people are actually taking action, actually engaged.  It’s the difference between successful people and unsuccessful people.  We take action and we’re engaged.

CEO Interview: Seda Berber, CEO of PembePanjur, “Turkish Version of eHarmony”

Posted on September 29, 2011

OPW INTERVIEW – Sep 29 – Seda lives in L.A. and operates PembePanjur, which is the nearest thing to eHarmony in Turkey. – Mark Brooks

PembePanjur translates to “pink shutters”. What does it mean?
People say that when they grow up they want to get married and live in a house with pink shutters. It’s a cultural and traditional terminology in Turkey. You can find the term in the movies, etc. We grabbed the cultural term and used it as the name of our company, which is based on serious relationships and marriage.

You’re based in LA and you’re UCLA educated. You’re an interactive marketer and designer. Why are you interested in matchmaking?
I have a degree in Sociology. I got into interactive design and marketing just before I came to the USA and got more education in marketing. My partner is a developer and we were working on a project. We were talking about starting an online dating site.

What is your target demographic?
Our target is 30-40 year old young professionals.

Do you like eHarmony?
Yes. We looked into the serious dating sites in more depth and then adopted the model to the Turkish culture and traditions and that’s how we came up with Pembepanjur two years ago. eHarmony was a major site that we looked into.

How many questions do you have and what line of questioning do you use on the site?
We have a combination of about 130 questions. 64 cover social and economic background and 64 are personality analysis. Our service is based upon compatibility, basically character analysis.

Did you pull on your background in Sociology or more of a Psychological profile?
It’s Sociology but the questions are not done by us. We hired a psychologist and she prepared the questions based on other worldwide known questionnaires then it was adapted into Turkish.

There are some challenges working with the Turkish market in terms of billing and regulatory issues. Can you tell us more about some of the challenges you had to overcome?
We didn’t have many regulatory problems. The biggest problems we had were the merchant accounts with the banks. Turkey still has a pretty conservative society which is reflected in the banking system. It took a while to open a merchant account. Trusting a dating site service was not on the top of their list.

You are two years in, how many members do you have?
We are 1 year and 9 months in and we have over 350, 000 active members.

How do you market the service?
We have been doing online marketing so far i.e. facebook. In the last two months we did our first public relations campaign such as TV/radio and we were also in the Sunday paper in Turkey. This is just the beginning for us; we believe doing PR is the best way to promote.

Did you see an immediate jump or was it more over a period of time?
It was an immediate jump. The day after the article in the Sunday paper our revenue went up quite a bit.

What did you do to get the attention?
We had been building relationships with a big funding company in Turkey created by the top 18 online giants. They selected us as one of the top 3 Internet projects of 2011 so that’s how we started to get the press attention.

CEO Interview: Ross Williams, Founder and CEO of WhiteLabelDating

Posted on September 22, 2011

OPW INTERVIEW – Sep 22 – WhiteLabelDating is celebrating it’s 8th year anniversary. Here’s our interview with the CEO/co-founder Ross Williams. (FD: WLD is a client of Courtland Brooks) – Mark Brooks

The Futures Company came out with a white paper titled; ‘Is happiness your business?” There are 21,000 books on Amazon on “happiness”. Does this relate to your business?
We have members of the sites that we want to make happy. We’ve also got partners that run the sites. A lot of them have given up their full time job to run their dating site which means they can work where and when they want. In online dating we hope we sell the dream of happiness, we sell the promise. If I asked a single man what would you pay to meet the woman of his dreams he would say ‘anything’. We aim for happiness for consumers, partners and our staff.

I understand recently you had a run rate of about £30 million in revenue a year?  What proportion of that is from your partners/white labels?
Around 85-90%. It’s where we focus most of our time.

How many partners do you have at this stage?
It grows each day. There’s 1,000’s in the system. A couple of hundred partners generate decent revenue for us.  It’s a long term business. We have partners who are generating tens of thousands of pounds in revenue a month, who weren’t doing anything last year.

You’ve grown considerably. Is it true that the bigger you get the more difficult it is to introduce innovations?
It is.  You don’t want to innovate at the expense of existing business. We have over 6,000 sites on our book now and we have to test/check they all work well. We are about to see some exciting developments at our partner conference in October. We spend £1.5 million a year on development.  Two thirds of this goes on new features.

You’re 8 years old now, right?
We turned 8 last week. In the first 4 years we grew from £0 – £3 million a year, and from 2007 to 2011 we grew to £30 million a year. Exponential growth.

Would you have guessed you would be at this stage 8 years ago, was that your goal?
Yes, we were very confident. We didn’t really come out {with our numbers} until about 4 years ago but that was our intention. You don’t want to shout too loud until you are in a position to manage the growth you’ve got. We’ve gone from UK-only to International. 

In what year will you generate £100 million?
I would think by 2013 or 2014 but there are lots of things that could happen before then. There are great opportunities in mobile, social and international.

Match.com is at about £280 million revenue.
We matched Match.com in the UK about 9 months ago. We are a lot larger than them in the UK.

What would be your top 3 pieces of advice that you would give to someone new to the industry, to be successful with WhiteLabelDating?
Marketing, marketing, marketing. You just can’t start a dating site without brand marketing. 

See all posts on WhiteLabelDating.com

CEO Interview: Sam Moorcroft, CEO of ChristianCafé.com

Posted on September 15, 2011

Sam moorcroft christiancafe OPW INTERVIEW – Sep 15 – Sam was inspired by Matchmaker.com and started ChristianCafe.com in 1999. He’s also tinkering in the Brazil market.  Here’s his founding story… – Mark Brooks

Listen to the interview

One of the things that made your site quite unique for the longest time was that you had a ‘cuppa joe’ on the homepage instead of having a picture of a happy couple. For a few years you ran a picture of a cup of coffee which I thought was really unusual. Why the cup of coffee?
We were thinking; where would people meet for the first time offline when they had connected online? The most likely place would be a café; it’s unassuming, it’s cheap, they can do it at lunchtime or early afternoon, no commitment, no money involved. It’s a public place so it’s safe. We wanted to capture that whole feeling so we used a coffee cup logo which is actually from a real coffee shop. All the photos you used to see on the site were real people.

Have you tried stock photography vs real people?
Yeah, we are in the process of doing it right now. You’ve got to find a couple that does it from a marketing point of view but doesn’t lack authenticity. We now have a happy couple on homepage, have had for the longest time. We want to rotate different happy couples, real and stock, and gauge which works best.

What are you going to put on your homepage? You mentioned a very personal photograph.
We were thinking about using a picture of my wife and me because our story is very linked to online dating, it’s what we do for a living.

Let’s go back in time. What’s your founding story?
A job came up in Toronto with my brother so I moved there, started a new job but after 6 months I got laid off. So I found myself in a brand new city, only knew 3 people, single and unemployed. I started going online and I discovered personals.  I was interested but I thought that the people were weird. To my surprise the women I met were normal. I became addicted. A friend was always complaining that the sites could do a better job and that I should put my money where my mouth is. I approached my brother and he helped finance it. We launched in early 1999. I knew that it had to be niche; I couldn’t compete with Match.com. It took off in the Christian market; within 6-12 months we broke even and from then it has been phenomenally successful.

What dating sites inspired you?
Matchmaker.com, currently owned by Date.com. Their whole philosophy was based on niche markets. Unlike other sites, they allowed full access as if you were a paid subscriber for the duration of your free trial. We still do this.

We have 100,000 actual active members in the last 4/5 months because beyond that we archive people automatically. Other sites say they’ve got 2 million members because they count people who joined in 1999 for a free trial. You should count monthly logins because that is the true representation of how many people are using your site.

You have an interest in Brazil. Tell us more. What sites have you launched in Brazil and how are they going?
My wife is originally Brazilian although she’s been in Canada since 1998. About 5 years ago we decided to open a site in Brazil; my wife speaks Portuguese and knows the culture. But the Brazilian taxation system is medieval and there is so much red tape that we didn’t want to continue. We set it up outside Brazil but Brazilian credit cards can only be used in Brazil.

This is slowly changing as the economy grows. In 4-5 years time Brazil will be #5 in the world for GDP so there is definitely potential. We decided to keep a bank account there and people could pay by printing out a form, going into a bank and doing a transfer. But this is was a big hassle for people and we miss out on impulse buyers. A year ago we decided to operate a free model. We are using Google advertisements but they don’t make us a lot of money.

See all posts on ChristianCafe.com

Interview with Jay Weintraub, CEO of LeadsCon & Daily Deal Summit

Posted on September 14, 2011

OPW INTERVIEW – Sep 14 – Jay Weintraub runs the Daily Deal Summit, which happens next week. I wondered what he thought about FriendFinder's acquisition of the international daily deals service, JigoCity.com. – Mark Brooks

Interview with Gloria Diez, COO of Mamboo, Social Dating Site

Posted on September 8, 2011

OPW INTERVIEW – Sep 8 – Mamba.ru is Russia’s top dating site. They’ve turned their hand to social dating with their international social dating site Mamboo. Here’s our interview with the COO, Gloria Diez. – Mark Brooks

How was Mamboo started?
We already had a sister service, Mamba.ru which is very popular in Russia since 2004. We have the only dating system in the world that keeps users 30 min online per visit. People from other countries contacted us asking for a similar service in their country. We decided it would be a good idea to create an international site.

You define it as social dating site. What is a social dating site? How is it different from an Internet dating site?
I define social dating as any kind of system that allows the members to meet up with other people in a social atmosphere. We like to provide our users with the chance to meet their other half from among the network of friends they have. To find someone who belongs to the same peer/reference group as them and has the same social values. Social aspects are very influential in real life dating so we had to repeat that online.

How do you protect privacy at Mamboo?
We understand users have to feel relaxed to meet new people. We give users options to set up their privacy. They disclose information that they are fine with. We never share our resource data with any 3rd party. 90% of our users confirm they are real people. They send us a message after we send a code to their cell phone so we know its an actual person.

How many active members do you have on Mamboo?
We have 300,000 users. We are growing fast adding 2,000 members a day.
OPW Editor Update: Mamboo is now claiming ~10,000 new members a day.

Are you advertising?
We are starting to advertise. We are also beginning to become incorporated with subscription dating sites. We want to offer a different kind of dating to their users. We have also incorporated our services as a white label provider with other kind of websites such as ICQ.

Mamboo is mostly free; tell us about what you charge for?
Mambo is a free dating site but we do offer other extra premium services such as gifts as part of our upgraded service to help grab the attention of someone who you specially like.

There are a few social dating services but there is one that you have a special interest in, in fact you share an investor, Badoo. How is Mamboo different from Badoo?
The main difference is the social aspect. Badoo is a social network for meeting new people. Mamboo is an online dating service. Mamboo mission is to spread love around the world.

See all posts on Mamboo

Interview With Joe O’Neil, CEO of Integrity ID

Posted on August 30, 2011

OPW INTERVIEW – Aug 30 – Integrity ID is a membership association for people committed to integrity and honesty. We thought this was worthy of further investigation and an interview. – Mark Brooks

What is your founding story?
A couple of years ago I talked to a female friend who was in early 40’s, single, and was having a very difficult time finding quality men. She heard ‘horror’ stories about online dating. That began a process of a lot of research, talking to women about what they were concerned about in online dating and finding a way that could allow people to see that they are safe. That idea of screen in vs. screen out, how to find the good people is the origin of Integrity ID and that led to lots of research and a business model which is very unique.

How unique? What are you doing differently?
Several things. We're not an online dating company or a background checking company. Our members voluntarily make a commitment to integrity and honesty and undergo rigorous background checks so that other people can see that they are safe and then they can identify themselves through their membership number. Other people can easily find out if they are a member of Integrity ID by verify them at integrityid.com.

We 'screen in' vs. 'screen out.' We are not trying to identify the bad people. We are trying to allow the quality people to get seen and noticed and get credibility for that.  We have a very high quality screen. We use the same type of FCRA quality screen that would be used for employment.   We are providing a screen on behalf of those who have concerns on safety and would be interested in engaging with other members.

How would somebody report someone who stated they were married, but were in fact not?
When you become an Integrity ID member you self report your marital status. If we receive a credible report that a person has lied then we will contact them, ask for an explanation and we reserve the right to disqualify their membership based on the fact that there is evidence that they lied about their marital status.

How often do you run the background checks?
We have an initial background screen, when people join, and then we have an algorithm that we developed with our background check service provider to randomly check others through the course of their membership. So people know they’ll be checked initially and that they can be checked at anytime.

What kind of checks do you offer? I imagine there is the basic sex offender check as a basic one, but how involved do you get with the checks?
It’s actually a very extensive check. We create a screen that members must pass through. That includes the pledge of integrity, honesty and respect of others. A rigorous background screen and ongoing membership qualification and submission through additional background checks. Any felonies are a disqualifier for membership. In addition to felonies are misdemeanors that involve violence, fraud, sex offences or drug crimes which would be ground for disqualification or non-qualification for membership.

My understanding of background checks is that the magical piece of information to have is social security number. Do you collect the social security numbers?
We have a preferred vendor. You submit your social security number to them and it’s securely stored there. We never see it. There’s a very high level of security.

How much does it cost?
We charge a onetime application fee of $39.99 and offer memberships for 6, 12 and 24 months. The 24 months membership would be least expensive $199.99, a little over $8 a month. If you want to verify I’m a member it costs nothing’. You pay to join like joining a club.