USA TODAY – May 20 - Match.com and Three Day Rule announce partnership to get Match into high-dollar matchmaking. eHarmony launched eH+ ($5k service) matchmaking in Jan. "They've got very significant market shares. Between them, they own the industry, and where do they go from there?" dating industry analyst Mark Brooks says. "They have two problems — a limited number of people left to reach and a limited price point."
Matchmaking has exploded in the past few years. Bravo's The Millionaire Matchmaker and other copycats have targeted the professional who has plenty of money but not enough time to hunt for a relationship. Traditional dating sites, which have millions of daters, haven't tried to reach this profitable market until now. Match.com gets a cut from each customer at Three Day Rule, says Sam Yagan, CEO of Match Group. Three Day Rule has matchmakers in New York, L.A., Chicago and San Francisco and will add matchmakers in Dallas, Boston and Washington by the end of the year. Six months costs $5k.
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.
NEW YORKER – Feb 27 – Blendr is a location-based dating apps for straight people. It was created by the same folks who made Grindr, the hookup app that has 4.5M users. The founders weren’t willing to disclose the number of Blendr users. When it comes to apps, men tend to be more willing to use location-based dating features. Women are different. Women may initiate contact less frequently, but they are comfortable reaching out first if they see a profile that appeals to them. Maybe the real failure is that no one has built an app that women want to use. On Check Him Out, women are “shoppers” and men are “products.” Only women can initiate contact, though men can “favorite” profiles. The site claims that 59% of the users are women. Women want authenticity, privacy, a more controlled environment, and a quick path to a safe, easy offline meeting. Coffee Meets Bagel, founded by three sisters, sends you a match and then sets a deadline by which you have to either “like” or “pass.” Three Day Rule caters to women who are searching for Mr. Right as opposed to Mr. Right Now. It functions as an intermediary. It shows just a few carefully selected matches at a time—bypassing the deluge problem, and saving busy professionals from scrolling through pages and pages of profiles. The site is still in beta mode and not open to the general public, and will eventually be for paying users only.
by Ann Friedman The full article was originally published at New Yorker, but is no longer available.
You’re the co-founder and were the first GM of Match.com. How did you get involved with Match and what’s your side of the founding story? Gary and I are good friends, and we were back then. Gary was looking for somebody to run Match.com. We connected at our reunion and he told me he wanted somebody who really knew how to market women. He thought it was important to get women to Match.com so men would follow.
Gary’s idea was to charge per email or contact. I pushed forward the membership model and of course that’s the model in most online dating sites.
The other important thing was giving people advice on how to use the site better. A lot of people didn’t get that we were creating, not just personals online, but that we were really inventing something. This was back in 1995, before anyone knew about social networking.
What were the companies back them? Webpersonals.com, matchmaker.com and Match.com? There were a few but they weren’t sophisticated about the marketing and customer acquisitions. They didn’t work with any partnerships and I don’t think they thought about targeting women. We were doing really well at attracting women and keeping them.
On that point you went on after Match.com to work as VP of Women.com. What do women want from idating that many dating sites are missing? Safety, anonymity and fun is really important . If you take care of this, you’re going to do well. Any respectable dating site gives you enough control to control pics, messages, blocking and filtering etc. I also think that people need more specialized advice.
You are involved with two Internet dating start-ups. Could you tell us about those? The first one is TheComplete.me and I think it’s very unique and very exciting because it really talks about your social graph on Facebook. The other start-up I’m involved in is “Three Day Rule”. It’s a completely different approach although it shares that social aspect. It’s based in LA and focuses on high end events.
USA TODAY – May 20 - Match.com and Three Day Rule announce partnership to get Match into high-dollar matchmaking. eHarmony launched eH+ ($5k service) matchmaking in Jan. "They've got very significant market shares. Between them, they own the industry, and where do they go from there?" dating industry analyst Mark Brooks says. "They have two problems — a limited number of people left to reach and a limited price point." 