Comments on: The Economics of Online Dating Innovation

By: Brandon Wade

Brandon Wade — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 00:45:03 +0000

Markus, point taken! Anyways, I think you have done a great job. I’d love to hook up with you to discuss some other ideas. I’ll write you an email separately…

By: Markus

Markus — Sat, 19 May 2007 22:50:54 +0000

Brandon, I was thinking more along the lines of mass market paid dating services like True, match yahoo etc. There is always a lot of room for niche sites because the market is so fragmented.

By: Sugar Daddy - Brandon Wade

Sugar Daddy - Brandon Wade — Sat, 19 May 2007 06:13:29 +0000

Markus,

I have to respectfully disagree with your statement that “paid dating sites are dead”. Bill, you are definately right in your assessment.

Just because free dating sites are successful does not mean new entrants to the paid dating arena cannot exist. For one, I launched SeekingArrangement.com near the end of 2006, and it was profitable in the first month. If you are able to create a niche dating website and clearly communicate the purpose of the site (in the case of SeekingArrangement.com — it’s about Sugar Daddy dating and Mutually Beneficial Relationships), you can be very successful.

I just launched my second site — SeekingMillionaire.com (Millionaire dating) this past month, and it is also profitable in its first month, and looks like it will be on track to follow the growth of SeekingArrangement.

Markus, I respect what you did with PlentyofFish, and hope I will get to meet you someday in person. Like you, I was able to launch both dating sites with minimal investments. I did most of the development, so most of the initial investments went into the hosting and some initial marketing.

By: Bill

Bill — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 23:36:02 +0000

Hi,

Just to give my 10 cents worth, I think that paying websites will continue to thrive in NICHE markets. If you try creating a free website to compete with match.com, eharmony or true, you will probably fail because you would have pay people to join your site, not the other way around. However, if you try to create a “community” of folks with similar interests, you may find that it becomes an attractive alternative to general networking websites like Myspace, where you often dont have anything in common even with people on your friends list. My opinion is the future of dating/networking sites will move to somthing more tailored for the individual, as opposed to the general all-inclusive sites that dominate the market today. If you can find the right niche, you should be able to charge a nominal monthly fee.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 03:08:20 +0000

Disagree about paid dating being dead for new entrants. I started my site not long ago with no cash, no resources. But i have grown it into a decent sized site making more than enough to live comfortably on. How? By building a loyal community, monitoring posts and fraudsters, listening to members, sticking with it. Sure it’s not a match.com or anything – and probably never will be. But I will grow it as big as I can with what I have available to me.

By: bw

bw — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 12:35:52 +0000

I would that agree that one can no longer launch a cookie-cutter paid dating site and expect to get rich even if they have the funding (though I think True’s failings are due more to incompetence of management than anything else). However, I still feel that there is still opportunity in paid dating for someone with some original ideas and some creativity.

As for free sites, I don’t doubt that you are correct in your assessment of the perception of many VCs out there, but do you really believe it? I mean, I’m sure you yourself have gotten your share of offers from VCs and as far as I am aware haven’t taken any of them up on them. Though, maybe you are just waiting for the right offer… Personally, I think history has shown that reality rarely ever equals the perceptions of most VCs at the time.

By: markus

markus — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 07:40:01 +0000

I only said paid dating was dead for new enterants. Look at true.com they are spending 40 million a year and going nowhere fast. Match.com and yahoo have a massive network of 100 million users they can recruit at no cost. All major sources of traffic are locked into exclusive deads. What chance does a new paid dating service have?

As for free sites, none of them have a proper management team/funding. But like i said before its only a matter of time till VC’s drop 10 to 20 million on a startup to take over the space. Seems to be a common perception out there that they can take a free site and run it up and then pawn it off on someone like fox for a few hundred million.

By: bw

bw — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 05:23:36 +0000

You have to give Markus credit, he is always on message. I wonder though, if paid dating is dead, why aren’t there more successful free dating sites?

By: markus

markus — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 04:26:59 +0000

I spent 11 grand in my first year, mostly on software,hardware, zipcodes etc and stupid things like link buying. I ran the site off my home machine for the first 8 months and then I bought a server and moved to a hosting facility. People in the industry would laugh and scoff at the idea that my site would ever go anywhere..

Today, i’ve got 600,000 visitors a day making my site the 3rd largest in north america. The site is still a one person company and people still scoff. I certainly didn’t spend 3 to 5 million getting there either. Then again why would anyone create a paid dating site these days, you have no chance of making money.

By: John Engstrom

John Engstrom — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 02:30:53 +0000

I agree with you Dave. In NYC I’m certain $3M-$5M is necessary to grab 100,000 paying subscribers. I’ve thought about this skype but honestly the women here in new york are completely uninterested in that software. Instead I’m working with Avaya to leverage their amazing phone system to provide blind conference calling services and voice mailboxes that link to the web. Women here want to use a real phone, not skype. When I explain the process of using skype to a non-skype-user they roll their eyes. When I tell them they can use their existing phone they say “I’d use that.” Q.E.D.