BUSINESS INSIDER – May 13 – Christian Wiklund, CEO of Skout, wants to build a global network on the scale of Facebook and Twitter. Skout is adding 40k – 50K new users on the app every day. Dating and flirting only comprises ~20%t of Skout's use cases. Most use it to just meet new friends.
Q: What are you focusing on now?
CW: To build a global network for meeting new people.
Q: Things weren't always doing this well though.
A: It's really in the past year that we've really taken off. A year ago we were signing up 100K per month. Now it's 40-50k users per day.
Q: What are you using the money you've raised for?
A: I don't want to take one market by market, I want to push everything as quick as possible. We need more engineers, iOS developers and back-end developers.
Q: A big focus now seems to be dating. Will that change?
A: Our lates survey found 80% were now using it for finding new friends, 20% for dating. It's a place people go to socialize. Will there be flirting? Yes. Will there be friendships made? Yes.
Q: What's are the goals for this year?
A: Keep pushing the product forward.
Q: Do you still expect to make money if you shift the focus away from dating?
A: Skout is free. We charge for extras such as seeing who checked you out. My bet is that it's still gonna work.
by Matt Lynley
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BUSINESS INSIDER – June 1 – Beri Meric and Phillipp Triebel, cofounders of IvyDate, raised $1.5M in funding from a bunch of angel investors, including some un-named investors that have put money into Spotify, Uber, and Facebook. IvyDate is an exclusive online dating club with an admissions committee that decides who can and who can't be part of the community. 30K people have so far been given the nod.
