NY POST – Aug 17 – At a party, sponsored by the sugar-daddy site SeekingArrangement.com, talking about money and gifts upon first introduction wasn’t taboo; it was expected. ~400 people registered for the mixer. It was a huge turnout, according to SeekingArrangement.com founder and CEO, Brandon Wade, who says that 100K of the current 800K members are based in the NYC area. Wade launched the site in 2006. The site’s seen 20% growth each year, and charges sugar daddies $50 a month to join (for sugar babies, it’s free). There are 10 sugar babies for every sugar daddy. Nearly half of the sugar daddies are married.
HUFFINGTON POST – July 29 – Saddled with piles of student debt and a job-scarce, lackluster economy, current college students and recent graduates are selling themselves to pursue a diploma or pay down their loans. "Over the past few years, the number of college students using our site has exploded," says Brandon Wade, founder of SeekingArrangement.com. Of the site's ~800K members, Wade estimates that 35% are students. Wade rewards students who use a .edu email address to register on Seeking Arrangement by automatically upgrading their free, basic membership to a premium membership, allowing them to send unlimited free messages and granting them exclusive access to the site's cadre of VIP sugar daddies. Married men account for ~40% of the site's sugar daddies. Sugar babies outnumber sugar daddies by a ratio of nearly 10 to 1. Noel Biderman, founder and CEO of Avid Life Media, runs a number of arrangement-seeking sites. On one such site, EstablishedMen.com, Biderman estimates that 47% of its 1.3M members are women currently enrolled in college. And on ArrangementSeekers.com, he says 31% of its 387,000 members are female college students.
GAWKER – Apr 7 – "WhatsYourPrice.comis like eBay for dating," says the site's founder, Brandon Wade. "When you see a hot single you want to date, just make an offer and buy the first date." Wade is also the genius behind sugar daddy dating service SeekingArrangement.com. Obviously, the first question about WhatsYourPrice.com is "How is this not prostitution or escorting?" "This is all about paying for the first date. There is absolutely no sex involved, and except perhaps the chance of sex at some point in the future if you are able to successfully charm and seduce", said the site's spokesperson.
by Adrian Chen The full article was originally published at Gawker, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: I prefer the HowAboutWe concept. Imaginative dating ideas driving connections. But WhatsYourPrice has a niche. Guys who have money, and want to cut to the chase. A date, and less tappity tap online.
PR WEB — Aug 3 – SeekingArrangement.com has released Seeking Arrangement: The Definitive Guide to Sugar Daddy and Mutually Beneficial Relationships. Author Brandon Wade, the founder and CEO of SeekingArrangement says the new book will serve as a guide to anyone curious about or already practicing the sugar lifestyle and the art of negotiating mutually beneficial relationships. Website officials also hope the book will clarify the difference between sugar and prostitution – once and for all. To purchase the book, visit the Sugar Daddy Book website. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB
Basisnote scent matching, Speedate on Android, Craigslist to moderate Adult ads, Kaplan launches Flirt140 Twitter dating service, Spark revenue 20% down, Indian matrimonials to hit $63m in 2011, sugar daddy blackmailing, and Air News Zealands matchmaking flight.
Spark Networks acquires Engage.com. Sugar Daddy sites criticized. New Facebook apps from GenePartner and DateRaters.com. eHarmony lawsuit and Compatible Partners criticism. Matchmakers doing ok according to CNN. Virtual singles marry online, and Courtland Brooks blog launches.
NY TIMES — Apr 10 — Critics say SeekingArrangement.com is at best a convenience store for adulterers and at worst a virtual brothel, but Brandon Wade, Seeking Arrangement’s founder and CEO, is unperturbed by the criticism. “We stress relationships that are mutually beneficial,” he says. “We ask people to really think about what they want in a relationship and what they have to offer." The site now claims more than 300,000 registered members. About 30% of arrangements on the site involve the daddy paying an “allowance,” usually $1000 – $2000 a month, though the site claims some reach $10,000. Sugar relationships amount to prostitution is hotly debated among the site’s members. Some sugar babies insist that wives who stay in miserable marriages for an American Express black card, mansion or country-club membership are more like prostitutes than they are. FULL ARTICLE @ NY TIMES
Mark Brooks: SugarDaddyForMe.com and Sugardaddie.com are the other two leading Sugar Daddy sites. WealthyMen, MillionaireMatch and MillionaireMate (part of the FriendFinder Network) and the newly launched EstablishedMen, are for well healed guys and the women who would like to date them, but not necessarily sugar daddies. I was rather surprised at the kinds of advertisements MillionaireMate.com is running on their home page. These are great ads for the brainless, but hardly on target for their upper echelon target audience.
Still, when I joined Cupid.com in 2004 they were running banner ads for wheelchairs on their home page, among other equally untargeted and inappropriate ads. Showing these kinds off-target and inappropriate banner ads on dating sites just show that the hand's not on the wheel, for that particular site. (Full Disclosure: WealthyMen is a client of Courtland Brooks)
GREENWITCH TIME — Mar 28 — Looking for a sugar baby on SeekingArrangement.com turned out to be a nightmare for one Greenwich man who was blackmailed out of ~$100,000 by a 28-year-old woman he met on the site. "This is the first time we've heard of an extortion plot. We do a lot to prevent something like that happening," said Brandon Wade, the website creator. "We have very clear warnings as to what's legal and things members should or should not do."
The full article was originally published at Greenwich Time, but is no longer available.
PRESS RELEASE — Jan 12 — Finding a 'sugar daddy ' is becoming a popular alternative for many daters in today's ruff economy. "We've seen a significant rise in new memberships says an official at SeekingArrangement.com. About 50%" of their users are married. The ration is 10 women to 1 man.
The full article was originally published at Prudent Press Agency, but is no longer available.
KOMO NEWS — Nov 19 — On SeekingArrangement.com, people are expected to be perfectly blunt. Prospective sugar babies let potential sugar daddies know right up front how much they expect to get — anywhere from $2,000 to upwards of $20,000 per month. The site says it brokers "mutually beneficial relationships," and not only between rich men and younger women, but between rich women and younger men as well.
The full article was originally published at Komo News, but is no longer available.
NY POST – Aug 17 – At a party, sponsored by the sugar-daddy site SeekingArrangement.com, talking about money and gifts upon first introduction wasn’t taboo; it was expected. ~400 people registered for the mixer. It was a huge turnout, according to SeekingArrangement.com founder and CEO, Brandon Wade, who says that 100K of the current 800K members are based in the NYC area. Wade launched the site in 2006. The site’s seen 20% growth each year, and charges sugar daddies $50 a month to join (for sugar babies, it’s free). There are 10 sugar babies for every sugar daddy. Nearly half of the sugar daddies are married.
