Category: All Interviews

Michael Norton, Assistant Professor At Harvard Business School

Posted on September 29, 2009

Head shotOPW INTERVIEW – Sep 29 – Michael Norton is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. In 2008, he co-published the report entitled “People Are Experience Goods: Improving Online Dating with Virtual Dates.” – Jenn Rubin

Mic_35

 Listen to the interview


Mike, the first sentence of your report declares “online dating frequently fails to meet user expectations.” How did you and your team come to this conclusion?
We were trying to figure out what was right and what was wrong with online dating. So, we created our own online dating site called TheMatchUp.Net. Our online daters were probably in their 20s and 30s and mainly from Massachusetts and New York.

We found that people have these really high expectations for online dating – maybe unrealistically high. They thought they would look through these people, find their soul mate, get married and live happily ever after. Then, when they went on dates and those expectations weren’t quite met, they ended up getting disappointed.

Why else were online daters frustrated?
We asked people how happy they were with their online dating experience, as well as if they were looking for a long-term relationship or a short-term hook up. What we found is women who are looking for a short-term hook up and men who are looking for a long-term relationship end up happy with their experiences. Yet those two groups of users are about 5 percent of the population.

It is the huge groups of people that are looking for the opposite that don’t seem to be having as much fun or success on these sites.

Tell me about some of the other interesting findings from the study.
One of the things we found, which was a bit sad, was that online daters thought when they met someone, they would grow to like them more and more as the dating process advanced. In fact, what we show in our data is on average the more you get to know someone, the less you like them. We called another one of our papers “Why Familiarity Breeds Contempt.”

What specific features do you recommend online dating sites implement?
We found that when we sent people on virtual dates before they met in person, they tended to click better when we actually had them meet in person.

We designed virtual dates ourselves. You would have an avatar and wander around a virtual space. Our virtual dates were designed in general to be cheesy first dates, like going to a museum. The two of you could wander around in this space and chat with each other about the artwork or the other people who were also on dates.

The notion was let’s insert a virtual date, where people can learn a little about each other but not have crazy expectations that this person will be the greatest person in the world.

Yet in the report, it states, “Search time invested fails to pay off in a commensurate number of face-to-face encounters.” How is virtual dating a solution to this issue?
One of the tricks with having to meet somebody face to face is how much time it takes. You have to go somewhere. So, you have travel time, and you also have to get ready to go. With virtual dates, we designed ours to be brief, five-minute interactions. The notion was we can give people a lot of flexibility as to when they go on these dates and save them time in case they end up not liking their partner.

In this in-between space, are we really interacting? It’s certainly more so than just exchanging e-mails but clearly much less so than meeting face to face.

Participants in your study reported though spending an average of 5.2 hours per week searching through profiles, along with another 6.7 hours writing and responding to e-mails. Clearly, online dating can be time-consuming process. Does this benefit online dating sites from a business and revenue standpoint?
That speaks to a very tricky aspect of running an online dating company. If you have an online dating service where you find people instantly on Day 1 that are your soul mate, you might not have a sustainable business model. At the same time, if you have people who are on your site for five years and never find somebody that they like, they’re probably going to switch away from your service.

So, there is an interesting middle point at which you want users to be on your site long enough to be able to experience enough people and also ideally to charge enough membership fees that the business is sustainable. Yet you also at some point need to figure out how to meet their needs, so they find someone that they really do click with and then will spread positive word of mouth about your service.

Free sites, paid sites, niche sites – Is there a format that you find to be a notch above the rest?
It’s difficult to say across the board which site is the best as opposed to thinking that there are different people with different relationship needs. These different services can map onto different customer groups in terms of matching what it is they’re looking for.

Do you have future online dating studies planned?
We are not doing any right now. There are people who are looking at funny things like, for example, how honest people are in their dating profiles. There is a finding where the average height of men on online dating sites is above the population, so male online daters slightly lie about their height. However, their weight is exactly what the U.S. population would be. Whereas for female online daters, the height is exactly what the population is, but the weight is thinner than the average person.

Sam Yagan, CEO Of OkCupid

Posted on September 21, 2009

Sam_yagan

OPW INTERVIEW – Sep 21 – Sam Yagan is CEO/Founder of OkCupid.com. Here’s the story of how he started OkCupid, and CrazyBlindDate.com. – Mark Brooks

Mic_35

 Listen to the interview

Sam, you have a history of starting renegade companies. What services that you’ve created in the past are you most proud of?
I started 3 companies in the last 10 years. In each case, I was passionate about bringing a community of people around free products or online services and in particular, products and services which had traditionally been paid for by consumers.

My first company was called SparkNotes and we took the idea of Cliff’s Notes as a line of study guides which have been around for 50 years. My partners and I started SparkNotes back in 1999. We grew it to be the largest brand of study guides on the web. We ended up selling the company to Barnes & Noble and they built it into the largest offline series of study guides as well.

After SparkNotes I teamed up with another friend of mine who had started a company called eDonkey, which was a peer to peer file sharing application, which we grew into the largest file sharing network in the world.

We ran this company until 2006 and while it was winding down I got back together with my co-founders from SparkNotes and we decided to start OkCupid. We believed that the Match.com business model was not right. They did not really think about modeling online dating to offline dating.

First, we looked at how people go and date in the real world. In the real world dating is social. One girl will call up her girlfriend and say, “Hey, let’s all go out tonight.” They all get dressed up and they never explicitly say, “Hey, we’re looking to get picked up by a guy.” They just tell themselves that they’re going out to have a good time. No one had ever invited me to join Match.com. No one ever said “go to Match.com, you’ll have a great time”. Match.com was a very lonely experience. So our vision from the very beginning was to build an online bar, a place where you go with a bunch of friends, you observe other people and decide which ones seem the most appealing to you. Then you gradually and slowly begin to strike up a conversation with them.

We also take matching very seriously. If your friend tells you he knows a great girl, no matter how much you trust your friend, you’re going to ask him a series of questions before you meet her. We were able to model that process online by having users upload their own questions and then select their own desirability and weight those on a 5 point scale. So each person was customizing their own algorithm based on their preferences.

You have started another site recently called Crazy Blind Date. Can you tell us about how that came around?
The Crazy Blind Date story actually has its roots comingled in the founding of OkCupid itself. In 2002 my partner Chris came up with an idea to create a dating website where there was a blind date button. If you push the button, you are guaranteed to go on a date that night. Of course, the problem with the blind date button is, in order for that to work, you have to have a huge database. We always had this idea of the blind date button in our back pocket. A couple of years ago we started getting serious about it. We had a big enough site that we could make a blind date button work. A blind date button on OkCupid would be great but we thought that launching it as a standalone site would be really flashy and get a lot of press.

What would you say surprised you the most about the way internet daters behave? Have there been any shocking aberrations in human behavior that you really wouldn’t have predicted?
A lot of people look at a profile and they’re immediately looking for negatives. They’re looking for reasons to reject the potential date. In the offline world people tend to be looking for reasons to make it work.

How does OkCupid help people find somebody who is a match that they also have chemistry with?
There are two elements how we handle the chemistry issue. The first is the expectation. We’re not promising that our algorithms are going to look through all the profiles on our site and find the one who is the best for you. We’re trying to facilitate you going on first dates that don’t suck. The second one is the analogy of a bar I was talking about. On OkCupid there is a big opportunity to see someone over a course of time. We allow a lot of ways for you to express yourself.

So there seems to be a bit of a trend recently with free dating sites starting to charge. Isn’t advertising revenue enough?
It’s not about enough. It turns out that there are opportunities to make money off subscription fees and also off advertisement. We’re going to see a convergence of free and paid dating sites. If you’re on a site that allows you to just post a profile and then if you want to communicate you have to pay, you’re on a paid site. And if you can communicate for free, you’re on a free site. We want to be known as a free site, but there are a bunch of things that we can offer our users who are most serious to pay for a better experience and there are things that we can offer them that are premium.

I would love to know what your vision is for the internet dating industry. What is it going to look like in 2015?
We’re going to have one big free site, maybe two, and we’re going to have a solar system of subscription sites all around them. People will still go to e-Harmony for marital, people are still going to go to places for one night stands but there is always going to be this big free site in the middle that everybody feels they have to be on.

See all posts on OkCupid
See all posts on CrazyBlindDate

Ilan Leibovich, COO Of 6rounds

Posted on August 31, 2009

Profile Picture SNW INTERVIEW — Aug 31 — 6rounds, a Webcam-based social networking site, allows users to get together online and play games, watch YouTube videos and even browse Facebook. The site won’t officially be open to the public for another couple months, but Social Networking Watch readers can click here for a special preview of 6rounds’ video chat service. Just enter the code “6snw.”

Social Networking Watch spoke with 6rounds COO Ilan Leibovich about how the Israeli company got started, its white label solutions and what he thinks of other Webcam dating sites, like WooMe and SpeedDate. – Jenn Rubin

Why did you decide to found 6rounds?
We came up with the idea for 6rounds about 1 ½ years ago. We started out doing speed dating sessions for users. As we began developing the program and our platform, we thought about ways for people to meet while they’re waiting for the speed dating sessions. Also, if they met someone that they didn’t really like, they could still do games together, watch videos or just pass the time in the most fun way.

Can you chat with more than one 6rounds member at a time?
It is currently just one-on-one video chats, but we’re developing a wider system that will allow up to six people to talk at the same time. That is why we call it 6rounds, and because Rounds.com wasn’t available.

The site’s name also comes from the Beach Boys lyrics, “Round round, get around.”

How does 6rounds differ from other Webcam dating sites, such as WooMe and SpeedDate?
Both WooMe and SpeedDate are doing a great job. However, our platform is not just focused on dating and on speed dating. It’s also for networking, socializing and meeting friends. That’s why we like to call it a live meeting point.

Can other Web sites integrate your platform?
6rounds is built on a platform called Gixoo. It can be a full-blown, white label solution, including different designs, different features and so on.

Just in the trial stage, 6rounds has already lured members from around the world. Were you purposely pursuing an international audience?
There was a piece about us on CNN Spanish, and afterward, a lot of people from Latin America came to the site. We’ve had articles on TechCrunch and a few other blogs. Those articles had an invitation code for readers to come to the site and try out 6rounds. So, I’m guessing people are trying it currently from everywhere.

You and CEO Dany Fishel received $150,000 from friends and family in order to start 6rounds back in February 2008. Today, the company has raised $1 million in seed investments. Who are some of your backers?
We got $350,000 in October 2008 from a company called Startup Factory, which is an angel group based here in Israel. It has about 50 members, and each of them put a little cash into the company. We just recently closed a round of $1 million from a group called Rhodium, which is also in Israel, and a U.S.-based private equity fund. A few other angels, whose names probably mean more to the Israeli crowd, are Zeev Bregman, Ivan Ferrer and Uri Shinar.

How will the site make money?
The Web site is free, and we won’t charge people for using it. However, users can pay to personalize and customize the chat rooms. For instance, during a round, members can purchase certain activities and backgrounds. We’re also thinking of having advertising during the rounds, as well as sponsored games, activities, gifts and so on.

Tell me a little bit about the 6rounds team.
We currently have eight people based here in Israel. Dany and I are the only people who are not developers.

Any plans to expand into the mobile market?
Of course. We’re thinking about creating an application for the iPhone, but it is something we’re planning probably for late 2010.

Besides the official launch, what are your plans for the site in the coming year?
We’re planning Facebook and MySpace applications, as well as Firefox plugins. We want people to be able to enjoy our video experience platform from everywhere across the Web, from their favorite social networks to their favorite applications and even their personal blogs. Our ultimate goal is to offer a wide platform for sharing experiences in a live atmosphere.

Ted Verani, SVP Sales & Marketing At Jumbuck

Posted on August 26, 2009

Jumbuck logo OPW INTERVIEW — Aug 26 — Jumbuck powers some of the top mobile chat and mobile dating services on the planet. Here’s our interview with Ted Verani, the SVP Sales and Marketing at Jumbuck. – Mark Brooks

How was the company started?
The company was started in 2000 by Adrian Risch, who is our CEO. It was around the time mobile data was taking off. He created one of the earliest mobile chat services.

What are your main products?
Power Chat is our biggest original product, and it’s a mobile-only service. All these users are connected globally. Overall, we have three main products – Power Chat, Fast Flirting and Mobilove.

With Power Chat, you enter into a chat room. There is a list of users who are online. You can watch them communicate and jump in at any time. People can chat about anything, but the reality is most are flirting. There is also a one-to-one messaging option.

Fast Flirting is a live service, too. You see a list of people who are online. You can check out profiles and photos. Then, you invite someone into a flirt request. If both people opt in, they can have a timed, 10-minute flirt session.

Mobilove is our more classic dating product. It would perhaps be more closely aligned with your traditional mobile dating or online dating services.

Do you think a lot of your users are using Internet dating services, as well?
No, I think the demographic of our users are younger. They’re using it for fun, flirting and entertainment but not for finding a partner or getting married.

How does the service make money?
Power Chat is $2 a month, Fast Flirting is $3 a month and Mobi Love is $4.99 a month, which also includes premium alerts. You can get alerts to find out when someone is online now or when you have a message in your inbox.

Do you have any applications that use location-based services (LBS)?
We don’t do true LVS in the sense of geo-coded targets, but we do use proximity. In this case, we would use zip codes. Even some of our chat rooms, you can go into a specific geographic room, like the West.

Is that mainly because of the carriers concerns over liability to LBS?
Partially, it was how it was designed in the beginning.

I think LBS is great for social networks that are more friend managers. You already know this person in an offline sense. You want to keep track of them and their activities. However, I think with dating products you have to be a little more cautious. At most you would want to use proximity for someone nearby rather than giving them your actual location.

Still, there is lots of excitement and enthusiasm right now for LBS as it is beginning to open up. Originally, carriers would have to give you the LBS information. Now, with devices like the iPhone and other smart phones, you can get the coordinates right in the phone.

I’ve heard iPhone applications monetizes far better than any other platform. How do you think the iPhone is changing the game?
It certainly has changed the game from the standpoint of they made an amazing device, and it has raised the bar for how other handset manufacturers need to respond. So, you’re seeing more and more phones coming out. You also see a change in how carriers are going to monetize and work with content providers.

With the iPhone, they’ve now opened up to smaller developers who have creative ideas. Apple probably approves 96 percent of the apps provided to them.

So it’s created a challenge from the content provider’s point of view in terms of discoverability and getting your application noticed. However, they have certainly changed the market in terms of customers wanting to consume content and data.

Now, the carriers have realized that offering up the likes of MySpace, Facebook and other social networks on their phones improves their retention. Have there been any other points of realization on Internet dating side of the house – the chat and flirt?
They love us, because we do consume quite a bit of data. We do probably a billion page views a month worldwide, so that’s quite a bit of traffic.

How easy is it working with the carriers?
Working with carriers is great, and it’s challenging. We have obviously a unique advantage. We’ve been around since 2004 and having really created arguably the largest mobile social networking application. We work with about 80 plus carriers worldwide.

We can talk about iPhone and other ways to get in the market. However, working with wireless carriers is going to be the surest way to get your application in front of as many eyeballs as possible.

Anupam G. Mittal, Founder & CEO Of Shaadi.com

Posted on August 11, 2009

Image001use OPW INTERVIEW — Aug 11 – In the USA and Europe, internet dating sites help users hookup, find compatible partners and meet up. In India, matrimonials sites help users and their parents list themselves and their respective children’s details and advertise them as being available for marriage. Its a different mindset and methodology and Shaadi.com leads the rankings as the top matrimonials service in India (along with Bharat Matrimony). We interviewed he the founder and chief, Anupam Mittal. – Mark Brooks

What is Shaadi’s founding story?
It goes back to 1996/97. I used to live and work in the U.S. then I took a sabbatical for a couple of months and went back to India. Frankly, I was just bored. I wanted to do something, so I got together with 3 or 4 people and we started playing around with websites and tinkering on the Internet. One day I met a traditional matchmaker. In India, as you know, you don’t marry one person, you marry a family. So these matchmakers go from home to home, build relationships with families and try to make a match within their network. I was really intrigued about his business. I asked him: “How many people do you have in your network?” He said: “About 50 or 60”. So it occurred to me that if one chose this route to get married, then it was awfully limiting in terms of who you could marry. So one thing led to another and we thought, why not take this concept and put it on the Internet and that’s how Shaadi.com was born.

How would you say Shaadi is different from the likes of Match.com?
Shaadi.com is more a matrimonial platform. Match.com, for example, would never be able to justify providing all the various different fields that we do that are very important from a matrimonial perspective. For example, community and sub community or references, which is allowing people to call other people and do reference checks.

How does it work from the user perspective?
It depends on how involved you are as a user. Once you sign up we can find out, based on your activity, how involved you are as a user and what you are really looking for from Shaadi.com. One scenario would be where we don’t interact with you in the real world at all. We simply let you experience the site because you know exactly what you’re doing. The other extreme is that we call you and have you walk into a Shaadi.com center. We have about 75 Shaadi centers across India and one in Canada now. These are real world matchmaking centers.

In terms of pricing is there a big difference between somebody who uses just the online piece and the user who wants to use the matchmaking service?
There is a significant difference. In U.S. the pricing is different. We start at about $54 for 3 months, then it could go up to $300 if our members require phone assistance. In India, the price ranges from $40 to $400 because we offer the real world service there through the matchmaking centers.

How is the down economy effecting business?
Different markets are responding differently. Our Indian market has been growing stronger and stronger ever since the recession hit. However, if you look at the UK market, in September we saw a dramatic fall. But that lasted only about 2 months and since then it’s come back pretty well. So overall, we don’t see any impact because the growth in India and the growth in other markets more than compensate for the slight drop we had in the UK.

Facebook is growing quite quickly in India against the likes of Orkut. Do you see the social networks like Facebook and Orkut posing a threat to Shaadi or is there an opportunity in there?
This is a question that kept me awake a couple of years back. I used to ask myself, “Will social networks make sites like Shaadi irrelevant?” Now I know that it’s not going to happen. Over the years we have developed the site in such a way that it offers features and things that are very relevant to matrimony and marriage which Facebook or Orkut could never replicate. Their purpose of being is not to get people married but to connect them. So I see it more as an opportunity and in the next few months we will figure out how to use Facebook to make a big difference for our purposes.

You have other businesses beyond the matrimonial area. Could you tell me more about those businesses you’re involved in?
After starting Shaadi.com, I founded a couple of more businesses and over time we ended up as a group of businesses called The People Group. There are 2 primary focus areas. One is Shaadi.com which is matrimonial, of course, and the other is online real estate, Makaan.com which in Indian means home. That is something we started almost 3 years back now and it’s tracking pretty well. We also own another company, called Mauj Mobile, which is a mobile company for entertainment, mobile value added services technology and service management where we help operators generate higher revenues. Finally, there is People Pictures which is a film production company.

Where would you like to see Shaadi by the end of 2010?
India is a very complex country. You’ve got several languages, thousands of dialects, many states. India in a way is like Europe; you go south and it’s a completely different culture and within the south as well there are 4 states which have completely different ways of matchmaking and completely different requirements. So our biggest challenge is how to use the power of the Internet to be everything to everyone. That involves building a technology platform that has extreme customer segmentation based product features and the packaging that becomes very relevant to the member. If we can crack that, then I would like to use the same for the non-Indian market and expand to other cultures and communities that are culturally aligned or similar to the Indian culture.

See all posts on Shaadi

Josh Meyers, CEO Of PeopleMedia

Posted on July 31, 2009

Peoplemedia logo OPW INTERVIEW — July 31 — People Media, formerly Zencon Media, is a major niche network. IAC/Match now has them under their wing. An interesting move indeed. Here’s our interview with the CEO of People Media, Joshua Meyers. – Mark Brooks

What is the founding story of PeopleMedia?
PeopleMedia was founded in 2002. BlackPeopleMeet.com was the very first site they launched. A lot of people were signing up without doing any marketing at all so PeopleMedia started creating additional sites.

In 2007, the company was acquired by American Capital which is a very large private equity firm and that was when I was brought in as a CEO to run the company. We opened a Los Angeles office and hired a number of professionals from different corners of the Internet space. Actually, we hired very few people from the dating space; we’ve hired people mostly from online marketing and we built the number one provider of targeted online dating communities.

How many dating sites are in the fold?
We have 27 sites in total. SeniorPeopleMeet.com, BlackPeopleMeet.com, SingleParentMeet.com, and BBPeopleMeet.com are some of the largest and fastest growing sites in our portfolio.

How many people are working for the company?
We have between 40 and 50 employees and roughly half of those are in customer service and editorial departments where they do profile review and respond to customers and help them with their needs or questions.

Now, one could argue that the perfect model for the perfect Internet dating company would be one Internet dating company that has all the singles on the planet on it. Why then is PeopleMedia such a good model? Why does it work?
I think both are good models and certainly a large, very significant scale dating site would be a very valuable service. As you know, we were recently acquired by Match.com and they run arguably the largest service of such kind.

Our sites are very valuable because they offer an alternative. Users are looking for alternatives, they may join more than one dating site. So they can join the largest and also the most focused. We focus on critical relationship factors which typically are ethnicity, religion, lifestyle or life stage and these are factors that really matter when it comes to finding your mate. People who want to belong to a community of like members. So it’s a very different experience. It’s a little more of a private club in terms of the exclusivity and you’re going to be contacted by people who are like minded.

You were acquired by IAC and Match. Could you remind us what the terms of the deal were?
We were acquired by IAC and Match.com for $80 million in cash and the deal was announced on July 7th.

Are there any additional public revenue numbers that are available?
PeopleMedia has $11.6 million of EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) in 2008 and we continue to experience pretty significant growth. We show a 55% year over year increase in our unique visitors according to Comscore April 2009 data. According to our own internal numbers, we have 4 million unique visitors per month and 550 million page views per month.

This is the biggest acquisition of its kind with a large generic site acquiring a niche network but it’s not the first one. The first large scale acquisition was Spark Networks buying the Mingle Match network. How would you say this deal is different? Why did Match buy PeopleMedia?

PeopleMedia is at a very significant scale, I think a far larger scale than other companies in the space. We have 255,000 paying subscribers. We combined the leading company in the targeted dating space, which is PeopleMedia, with the leading company in the general dating space, which is Match.com.

You have 27 communities within PeopleMedia. But as you’re looking at new communities, prospective new areas; what are the top 3 factors you would consider the most important for success?

First I want to say that we’re not necessarily seeing our most significant opportunity as adding new categories, although there are a few things in the works. I think our primary focus is on the communities we’re already serving. I would really boil it down to 2 factors.

One is what I call the gravity of that particular target. You can create a lot of different dating sites, you can come up with a lot of different ideas but if they don’t have that gravitational pull for people they’re not going to be successful. Then the second is really a scale or the size of that community.

What does the future hold for PeopleMedia? Where would you like the company to be in 2 years time?
We will continue to see success stories rolling in from our sites and from our members who are finding the loves of their lives. We are excited to continue to grow our marketing presence both online as well as offline and also in combination with Match.com.

For example, there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of seniors on Match.com and I would estimate that only a small percentage of those seniors know about SeniorPeopleMeet.com. So you can see what a significant opportunity there is for us to introduce SeniorPeopleMeet.com and our other communities to singles who are on Match.com.

See all posts on People Media

Luke Chao, CEO Of Done For You Dating

Posted on July 25, 2009

Luke chao OPW INTERVIEW — July 25 — When users sign up for internet dating sites, I don’t think they realise that its not ‘instant gratification.’ They have to invest time into the internet dating process. Done For You Dating takes the time investment away from end users. Agents pose as users. Its a little controversial to say the least. Here’s my interview with the CEO and Founder, Luke Chao. Your comments please… – Mark Brooks

Why did you start Done For You Dating?
I’ve had a hypnotherapy center in Toronto for the past 3 years. It takes up a lot of my time. So I said to my secretary Sue one day, “Why don’t you write a profile for me on LavaLife?” because I bought a lot of credits and I’ve had them sitting in the account for about half a year and never did anything with them. She wrote the profile and asking me, “What do I do next?” I said, “Why don’t you find some women who match these criteria and write to them?” It got to the point where we had a lot of back and forth conversations about what I was looking for and she was able to represent me very well. 

It worked for me and I realized that there have to be other people who could benefit from the same service. So in April of this year I registered the domain. I started representing some friends of mine to see how it works. Because it worked for my friends as well, I then decided to launch Done For You Dating. So far the service is very new and we just started advertising on a prominent website.

How does the service work from the user perspective?
It’s not quite a matchmaker service and not quite a secretary or virtual assistant. It is something that is so new to people that they have to understand what it is about.

When people decide they want to sign up for the service, we spend about 1 to 2 hours talking with them and asking them questions about their tastes in music, film, food, places they’ve been, etc. Sue picks up the phone and she role plays a date with them which ensures an easy transition from online to offline.

After the profile is set up, we begin to send out messages on behalf of the client. Those messages are initially screened by the client and then after the client says, Okay, you can represent me well”, then we represent them like Sue represents me. We send the client photos and a profile of a woman he might be interested in. If the client says yes and the woman says “Yes, let’s meet up”, then we bill the client for the work we did and they take it from there.

I love the fact that you do the screening of the communication. There are a lot of people out there that don’t have time and they just want to go out and date. They want to use Internet dating because it’s really a value and a lot less expensive than a matchmaker. But my concern with the service is misrepresentation. When you did this with your secretary, at what stage did you let the dates know that this wasn’t you? Or did you at all?
I didn’t, actually. My philosophy is that in this case the end justifies the means. Of course, I make sure that everything that Sue sends out represents me accurately and fairly. We don’t have anybody in house right now who specialized in coaching men in dating. Sue is a young woman and she can play the role of a date and provide critiques and feedback to the client. So that is the service we offer right now. But definitely in the future, if we can also help the client be a better date then I think it will benefit both the client and the women that they meet.

What is the cost now? What kind of pricing do you think you’re going to be charging in a few months time once you’ve got the service really up and running?
Right now the most important thing is that we get clients. Until the end of July, there is no set up fee. It means we set up the profile, interview the client, we begin to find matches at no cost. We get paid when we present the match to the client and the client says, “Yes, I like her and want to go out with her.”

What do you have in mind for that, how much?
$200 to $300 for the profile writing, photo retouching services and getting to know the client. Then after that it’s $247 US per date. If the client just wants the phone number and take it from there then it’s $197. But those prices are based on the time it takes to set up a date.

Have you had any difficulties so far with working with the dating sites? How would you like to work with them?
There is one dating site we’re working with right now. I first contacted them because I wanted to advertise on the site. I told them about the service and asked if they were okay with this. They said “Yes, absolutely”. I described it as beneficial. Our service keeps people on the sites. Also the quality of the profiles, pictures and the messages improve as a result of the service.

See all posts on Done For You Dating

Stephen Stokols, co-Founder And CEO Of WooMe

Posted on July 20, 2009
Stephen Stokols

OPW INTERVIEW — July 20 — Stephen Stokols is the CEO and Founder of WooMe.com, a next generation dating site that offers webcam based speeddating online. Since starting he’s provided 15 million live introductions, has 2 million users and ~10,000 new users sign up each day. WooMe has 4 million visitors / month and 3000 new videos are rendered on WooMe.tv each day. – Mark Brooks

What is the founding story?
WooMe was started about 2 years ago. The idea came from my sister. She and her friends had been out speed dating and they came back home and were talking about how fun speed dating was and how cool it would be if it was online. So that is where the initial idea came into play.

I had been working with a lot of voice and video technologies in the telecom arena and had been looking for a killer application that would leverage in browser voice and video the way YouTube has leveraged in browser video streaming and the two came together. At that point we started working and less than 2 years later we exploded and we’re here today.

Can you walk us through the user experience? What happens when you join WooMe?
A user hits the site and can either browser profiles, watch real live video of others, or start meeting people live. To partake in live introductions, There are tens of thousands of user generated speed dating sessions starting every minute. Users can either create their own session around any interest they want or they can browse existing sessions.

Once the session starts, they will talk to 3 people one-on-one via voice and video for a minute each. At the end of the session they can say who they want to add as a friend and who they don’t. If both parties want to add each other as a friend then it’s a match and they can then message and/or talk with no time limits.

This isn’t an entirely new concept because there are a couple of companies that have been doing this for a while. There is a company called Webdate that has been around and offering webcam-based dating online. Then Match.com tried it in 2004. What do you think that you’ve got right with WooMe that has helped it grow and what perhaps they didn’t get right?
The technology evolved over the last few years to the point where you can offer high quality video communication without a download. So when companies like Match tried this years ago, it required a client download making for a very clunky user experience. We have also broadened the concept to include casual introductions around all topics while letting users post their meetings on WooMe.tv as well. Also, we were fortunate enough to come out and launch in Techcrunch40 and get a bit of PR around the launch, generate some noise and build a critical mass.

This concept really does not work unless you have a couple of thousand users online at the same time. It is kind of like a bar. If you walk into a bar and it’s empty, you leave.

How are you different from SpeedDate?
SpeedDate came out with a different type of product. They’ve gone down the Facebook direction, so at this point they’re solely a Facebook app company and focused on a very narrow set of functionality.

What are your plans for mobile dating? Do you think you’ll ever include location based services?
Hopefully that’s where things will go. Video cameras are less ubiquitous in the mobile world so we’ll have to down play the video element and play up chat and voice. We’ll allow people to message each other and be able to talk live via the mobile app and from there you raise a good point around location based service. Getting mass on the location services is the key to its success. If you have zero people within 5 miles it is not nearly as interesting as having 300 people within 5 miles of you.

Are there any particular user behaviors that really surprised you?
We learned that males are far more comfortable than females when it comes to webcam. 95% of males on our site have cameras; whereas maybe 55 or 60% of females have cameras.

How do you police the community? Is it simply user flagging?
It is a huge challenge. The bigger we get the more policing is required. In the early days we did it manually with a couple of people who were on the site. We recently had to put in some automated tools. It is a huge issue trying to keep the site clean, especially when you introduce cams; just the word cam attracts a certain subset of people that we don’t want on the site.

People on the site can block users and if somebody gets blocked twice, that persons will be suspended. Also, if we see somebody scamming people with a bunch of friend requests or we see porn photos, for example, we automatically ban those users.

Do you have any plans of licensing out the technology to other dating sites or other sites at all?
Yeah, we have an API called “WooMe Anywhere” where you can leverage our technology on an external platform. We are now in the implementation phase with a couple of sites globally that will use it. So on a profile, there will be a button that says “meet me now” and if you hit that button you can have a 1 to 3 minute live introduction with that user. That is something we’ll do more aggressively with the domestic dating sites and other partners in the near future.

See all posts on WooMe

Greg Arnot, CEO Of Kalerion

Posted on July 4, 2009

Greg_a4 OPW INTERVIEW — July 4 — Greg Arnot is he’s the CEO of Kalerion Computing and also runs a product called Jivebug.com. Jivebug has been recently launched on Facebook so everyone, everywhere has the ability to know when their Facebook buddies are around. – Mark Brooks

How long has Kalerion Computing been around and what does Kalerion do?
We founded the company in 2004 and we’ve been doing a lot of good engineering work since then. We’re kind of a dating site with a difference. We’re using peoples’ mobile handsets to put them in touch with other people. So if I get close to somebody who is also in the community, my phone beeps.

And this is on a mobile phone as opposed to a land based phone?
Yes, it wouldn’t go very far with a land based handset. The communication protocol that we use for one phone to identify another is Bluetooth.

In order for those 2 phones to communicate, do both of those phones need to be registered within the network?
Yes, they need to be part of the network and they would typically need to have our mobile client running, but not necessarily. We also have a kind of clientless support for phones by changing the friendly Bluetooth of the user’s device to something recognizable to our mobile client. That way we are able to give a similar suite of functionality to somebody with a mobile phone that is not necessarily running our mobile software.

We have just launched a new functionality for Facebook. Somebody on Facebook can install our mobile application and be alerted or warned proactively when they come close to somebody else from Facebook. Let’s say I’ve got hundreds of friends on Facebook that I’ve never met. My phone beeps when one of my friends is close to me. I can send him a message or I can go over and start talking to him.

And more interestingly… if 2 people are on Facebook and they’re not friends, then in that case we apply a dating criterion. The resulting alert in that case would be anonymous.

But if I was at a party with all my friends that signed up to your system, my phone is going to go crazy then?
We would love that to be the case. Most dating attempts around proximity alerts have failed miserably because they didn’t do enough to foster proximity. There are only 1 or 2 mobile dating applications in the world that can do multiple simultaneous Bluetooth detections in a multi-threaded Java client and not crash the phone. Ours is one of them.

So our application can be simultaneously queuing up multiple incoming alerts for different people whether they are friends on Facebook or simply available singles.

So this is Jivebug™?
Yes, that’s the product you install on your phone. At the moment our application has a different name on Facebook but when it goes live in May it will be called Jivebug.

What is your background? How did you end up learning all this stuff?
I was in international marketing for about 13 years before I decided to get into dating. I came to Spain and when I went to parties, I was surrounded by beautiful women and I didn’t know which girls were single. Then even if you knew…how do you make the approach? How do you go over there and make that first introduction? So that’s how I got into it and started Jivebug.

How did you learn all those technical skills?
I was trained as an electronics engineer but I don’t program. I’ve learned this by having very good people working for us.

Are you looking to work with some of the other dating companies?
If you look at some of the success of the dating companies that have launched recently on Facebook, we think there is a lot of potential to grow with relatively little outlay in marketing dollars. That is an avenue that is interesting to us.

In terms of collaborating with the likes of the big players, I really don’t think that they believe we’re a threat yet. If we ever become a threat, maybe they’ll want to talk to us. We certainly are open.

How does the revenue model work for this kind of system with blue dating as you call it?
At the moment it’s pretty much free. We offer as much as we can for free and the basic currency of communicating with someone over the website is going to be free because we’re so closely matched to what Facebook is doing.

In the future, we’re going to be offering premium services. One part of our business is based on key learnings from the parties we’ve thrown; we know that girls in particular don’t like to meet the person the same night. So there is a “morning after effect” where people come to our website the next day to make contact with the person they met the night before and that’s an opportunity for us. So most of the time communication is free but in certain cases you might just have to pay.

Shayan Zadeh And Alex Mehr, Zoosk Co-founders

Posted on June 19, 2009

Shayanalex OPW INTERVIEW — June 18 — Zoosk is doing very well and are running primarily on Facebook, MySpace and Bebo. They just raised $6 million in a 3rd round.  Here’s our interview with the founders, Shayan Zadeh and Alex Mehr. – Mark Brooks

What is your founding story?
Alex: Shayan and I were brainstorming different online dating ideas four or five years ago. At that point, we didn’t see the entry point. When Facebook opened their platform we started a few applications on Facebook. The one that became really successful was our online dating application. We build on that and developed Zoosk over time. Zoosk was launched in December 2007.

How does Zoosk work?
Shayan: To use Zoosk you can simply find it on Facebook and get started within minutes versus hours of filling up questionnaires and signing up on 3rd party independent sites. From there on it’s very similar to the experience people are familiar with. We are just trying to make it a little more fun and a lot less pressure.

How much information do you pluck from Facebook to fill into the profile?
Shayan: Users fill out their profiles themselves directly. We help them in the process by pre-filling some sections and they can choose to keep some of them or change them entirely. A lot of users want to have different personas. They don’t want their personas they set up for their friends to be exactly the same as they set up for online dating.

Do you allow videos?
Alex: Not at this point.

Talking of videos, congratulations on your recent round of funding. I see you’re a rather reserved bunch from the video you put up on Facebook.
Alex: Very much so.

That was like a hell of a party. Is your ‘awesomeness undeniable’ at this stage?
Alex: I think our numbers and our growth curve speak for themselves. Facebook users have shown time and time again that awesome stuff works on Facebook. Things that are not awesome don’t survive.

You’re also on MySpace and Bebo. How much would you say your traffic come from Facebook versus the likes of MySpace and Bebo?
Alex: Facebook is the largest component of it but Bebo, Hi5, MySpace, Friendster and Hyves are not negligible, they’re just smaller than Facebook.

What else would you say that you do is different from the rest of the industry?
Alex: We want to be as simple as iPhone or iPod’s interface, just a few buttons, very straightforward. The user can be matched within seconds after adding the Zoosk application.

Shayan: Another big differentiator is the users that actually make up the site and that’s what a dating community is all about. We have been fortunate enough to reach an audience that previously has been harder for online dating to cater too. 65% of our users are below 30 and 90% of our users are younger than 40 years old. It’s just a different thing that they’re looking for. Success is not defined as I want get married in 6 months. It’s defined as I want to meet great people that I can share stories and life with.

How would you say social dating and pure internet dating are distinct from each other?
Alex: On traditional online dating it’s just like walking into a bar alone. Social dating is like going to a bar with your friends and having fun. The circle of friends that are accessible to you through Facebook and other social networks, enriches the dating experience, it makes it more fun and more interactive.

What your users are saying?
Shayan: We get fascinating stories from our users from all walks of life. We have gone from zero users in December 2007 to over 30 million right now. That unprecedented growth is a testament to how people are responding to this and spreading the word for us through social networks.

How much do you charge?
Alex: $25 a month in US and then we have 3 and 6 month discounted plans.

Shayan: We are one of the few freemium dating sites. Unlike a lot of dating sites where you have members who can’t respond because they’re not paying, Zoosk’s users can respond even if they’re not paying members. There are certain privileges that require the premium membership. For example: initiating conversations, knowing who has contacted you or who has looked at your profile.

As you were looking at the industry and learning about other dating sites, were there any particular sites that inspired you?
Shayan: We have taken bits and pieces from all over the industry and not just from online dating sites but social networks as well. Zoosk is a marriage between a social network and a traditional online dating site. We have taken ideas and inspiration from the likes of Facebook, and we have also looked at market leaders like Match and Meetic.

How do you think the industry is going to shake out in the next 2 or 3 years?
Alex: Pretty soon, over the next few years, you will see that there won’t be any successful or growing online dating site that is a standalone. Everything is going to be dissolved into the new social operating system such as Facebook.

What would your advice be to the CEO of Spark Networks or Match.com?
Alex: My advice is to continue doing what they’re doing because we don’t want any competition.

Congratulations again on the recent $6 million raise. What are you going to spend it on?
Shayan: The main purpose of the funding is to further accelerate the growth for Zoosk and grab even more market share in the countries we are actively growing right now.

How are you getting on with the Brits?
Shayan: They love us. 1 out of 20 single people in the UK have been on Zoosk already.

How are the revenues looking at this stage? Are you able to disclose any revenue?
Shayan: We are not talking about exact numbers yet but what we can tell you that we’ve already surpassed revenues of multiple publicly traded online dating companies in the US.