Online Personals Watch has an interview with Luke Chao, CEO Of Done For You Dating.
There is certainly money to be made saving people a few hours a week of their time, but as with many ideas related to online dating, what seems like a good idea quite often doesn’t translate into a sustainable business. Look at photos and profile writing, those are the closest competitors for member dollars at online dating sites.
If the dates don’t pan out, customers get upset and come to the realization that they do in fact need to be putting in the time and effort themselves. It’s a necessary side-effect of online dating, you give up 5-10 hours a week of your time if you’re truly active.
People respond to messages that catch their eye. How do you think women wade through 100 messages a week? Now you’re paying some random person a lot of money to write your emails for you. The whole value proposition is centered around some random woman named Sue who worked for a hypnotherapist in Canada.
If this Sue person comes up with a foolproof way catch the eye of the reader, it’s just like tweaking home page text for search engine optimization. She has optimized the first few steps of the communication process and is essentially doing arbitration. What if there is a super-amazing woman and Sue knows she never responds to her emails? Does she stop emailing her? Some guy could be missing out on the love of his life because someone doesn’t think they are a good fit or some other reason. Yikes.
Joe the plummer may think that the company representing him writes good-enough emails, but do they? What if the emails aren’t effective? Do these companies do user testing, cataloging different types of emails and seeing which perform the best?
Have these companies even though this stuff through? I’m simply rattling off the first few things that come to mind. The whole process is wrought with impracticalities and issues we haven’t even thought of yet.
Now that there are at least a half-dozen companies trying this marketplace, it’s going to come down to pricing and results. Where is the transparency and accountability coming from?
Best of luck to all of these companies as they continue to outbid each other on search engines. It’s a niche market with some potential to make a few bucks until the big dating companies get smart and remove the friction associated with the browse-communicate-date timeline. The idea of having a personal dating concierge is well-received, yet I think everyone will agree that there is room for considerable improvement.
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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Very insightful article, David. I don’t know too much about what Done For You Dating is doing so I can’t speak for them (based on a recorded interview by Mark Brooks of Online Personals Watch I heard a couple weeks ago so far they seem to only have picked up one client anyway). What I can tell you is that we have been doing user testing since we first started up in June. We are currently tracking 21 variables for every email we send. We have already used this data to draw a number of conclusions that have improved our results and, to be quite frank, are pretty excited about what we will learn from this. I don’t know of anyone who has ever tracked and analyzed thousands of online dating messages so systematically.
I’d like to make a couple points about this statement: “Some guy could be missing out on the love of his life because someone doesn’t think they are a good fit or some other reason.” First of all, only one of our clients thus far has told us that he would even be proactively approaching others online if it weren’t for us. The other 12 have told us they simply don’t have the time for it. Secondly, all of our clients so far have chosen to review all of the candidates we identify for them before the initial contact. Each week or two we provide them with a spreadsheet containing around 50 interesting and they indicate whether or not they would like for us to pursue each one and leave optional comments. When clients leave comments like “Try hard on this one” or “Wow, I’d love to meet her” we know to put a little more time and effort into grabbing her attention and eliciting a response.
I will be the first to admit that there are a lot of issues related with this service that need to be ironed out but so far they haven’t really impacted the user experience. All of our clients so far have been pleased with the results.
Regards,
Scott Valdez
Co-Founder and President
Virtual Dating Assistants LLC
Phone: 1-305-459-3099
Email: scott@virtualdatingassistants.com
Website: http://www.virtualdatingassistants.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/OutsourceDating
Hope you loose the spreadsheet, don’t they log into your site to some sort of dashboard? If not, they should.
I have a problem with guys who “simply don’t have the time for it”. It’s more that they don’t want to change their life to make the time. Feels like an indicator that they won’t have the time afterwards to have a healthy relationship if they are so busy.
I’m not one to shy away from commenting, as you know. Here are my thoughts on the topic:
1) Get help writing your profile to make sure that the best you, but still YOU comes out. Of course, having someone review for “readability” and typos isn’t a bad thing at all.
2) Find a site that allows you to proactively filter your incoming mail. We do it, but I’m not sure how many other sites offer that. That way, instead of having to have a virtual assistant read your mail, you ONLY get emails from people who meet your criteria.
3) If you don’t have time for online dating, don’t bother doing it. Go to a traditional matchmaker. At least there, (supposedly) the matchmaker gets to meet you both and develop a rapport with you and only suggests good matches.
It’s one thing when a woman (or a guy) sits around a table with a few friends and together decide who to write to and who to respond to. But completely stepping out of the equation just seems wrong to me. What’s next? I’ll be sending my dating surrogate on a date, and if he likes you, I’ll go out on a date with you next week?
I await the responses. Thanks for the article as always, Dave. Keep up the great work.
Hi David, we do plan to ‘lose the spreadsheet’ before long… so far Google Documents has worked great for this kind of collaboration so it is not at the top of our priority list. A dashboard would be next the logical move.
Extremely busy people want sex, love and relationships just like everyone else and its not really our job to tell them to achieve a better work/life balance. We have kindly refused to service an attorney that told us he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to make time for the dates once we had women agree to meet him but as long as prospective clients have the time to make it to the dates we will take them on board. And one thing to keep in mind that may or may not make your stomach turn… some of our clients are not necessarily looking for a healthy long-term relationship (think casual encounters).
Anyway, I’ve been there and I understand what its like to work 80+ hours per week and not want to lose sleep and workout time at the gym over trying to meet women online. Most of the people that can’t understand that are not a member of our target market anyway…
Hi Ross, regarding your comment about going to a traditional matchmaker, there are a couple problems with that: First, matchmakers have a more limited candidate pool in terms of size and geographic location. That means less options for the client, plus matchmakers are generally much more expensive. The second reason is actually more important to understand… almost all people that go to matchmakers are looking for a serious relationship and a very large percent (if anyone knows this figure it would be much appreciated) are openly looking to tie the knot. During the initial telephone interview, we always ask the client to tell us what they are looking for on a scale of one to ten, one being casual encounters and ten being marriage. So far the average response is right around five. Almost all of the responses have been in the four to six range. I would venture to say that guys who are not looking for anything serious would be at the wrong place if they stepped into a matchmaker’s office.
Our clients don’t really ‘step out of the equation’. They review their profile and have the option to make edits or suggestions. They review initial contact examples to make sure we will be properly representing their writing style and personality. They review all the candidates/matches we select and review many of the correspondences before they are sent off. When a client-approved candidate poses a question and we don’t know the answer, the client provides us with the information we need to provide an accurate response. They are involved! Surprisingly, although we really try to give our clients the opportunity to be as uninvolved in the process as possible, most of them have chosen to stay fairly involved…
Scott,
Thanks for the response. You’ve definitely made some interesting points. If you’re saying that most of your clients average a 5 on the “seriousness” scale, I have a greater understanding as to why they’d be more likely to use a service like yours instead of a) doing it themselves completely or b) using a matchmaker.
I truly wish you and your customers much success.
So what does Joe do with the plums, exactly? Plant them? Pick them? Juggle them 5 at a time?
Is there a dating site that has an open standard like Facebook or Twitter which allows developers to build applications to improve the user experience? Just a thought.
Much of your success with online dating hinges on the site you choose. Check out a couple different sites and see which feels right.
Thanks for the best wishes, Ross.
jewish dating, are you Laurie Davis or acting on behalf of her company in some way? If not, you should have definitely cited the source of the information you copied and pasted: http://theguyds.com/category/internet-dating/ … or at least have presented it in your own words ;)
Cheers,
Scott
Scott, Thank you! No, Jewish Dating is not acting on behalf of my company or related to me in any way.
While I’m here though, I’d love to add to the topic at hand. :) My service is different but similar. My clients control their own dating accounts, and I help them become more successful online daters. Success differs for the individual; some are looking for love and some just want to casually date. I take a branding campaign approach – who is your target demographic, how can we best attract them by staying true to yourself, and what aspects of your unique individuality should we focus on in your profile.
Online dating begins with the profile (since it is your first impression, after all), but I do often write emails for clients as well. The client is very active in the process. They supply a list of matches that they would like to reach out to with any notes that are applicable (i.e. \I’ve taken vacations on the Cape since I was a child too. My family has a house there.\) and I do the dirty work for them. I read the matches’ profile and craft the perfect email. These emails are sent to my client to review and send out. This way, the client ultimately maintains control of the content. Generally, my clients feel comfortable writing their own emails once contact is made. Before they send the email, I often review it, giving them advice and tweaking as needed.
My clients are very involved, but my services take the intimidation out of online dating. I focus on helping them work smarter and hit their target dating demographic.
Best,
Laurie Davis
Founder, eFlirt expert.
781.603.6703
Laurie@eFlirtexpert.com
Website: http://www.eFlirtexpert.com
Blog: http://www.eflirtexpert.blogspot.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/eFlirtexpert
FaceBook: http://facebook.com/eFlirtexpert
Good catch Scott!
Sam Title
Chief Executive Dating Guyd
The Guyds
Online Dating Assistant LLC (OnlineDatingAssistant.com) is a company that provides outstanding and professional online dating assistance. Online Dating Assistant LLC services include coaching, profile writing, and COMPLETE OUTSOURCING of your online dating profile for a VERY affordable price! Check out http://www.onlinedatingassistant.com !
Great work done by author for providing this informative post.
Thanks
Hi Nice post, Great tips about Online Dating Assistant . Thanks for share.
A new website has just been launched that offers affordable virtual dating and makeover experiences – http://www.datingframed.com
I agree, its never a good idea to hire a virtual dating assistant. Matchmaking is a personal thing to be dealt with care.