Number 8 on Paul Graham’s Startup Ideas We’d Like to Fund:
Dating. Current dating sites are not the last word. Better ones will appear. But anyone who wants to start a dating startup has to answer two questions: in addition to the usual question about how you’re going to approach dating differently, you have to answer the even more important question of how to overcome the huge chicken and egg problem every dating site faces. A site like Reddit is interesting when there are only 20 users. But no one wants to use a dating site with only 20 users – which of course becomes a self-perpetuating problem. So if you want to do a dating startup, don’t focus on the novel take on dating that you’re going to offer. That’s the easy half. Focus on novel ways to get around the chicken and egg problem.
I spend a fair amount of time helping startup dating and social networking sites go from zero to some number of people larger than zero. There are people out there that are dying to know about new dating sites that cater to their specific needs.
Finding them, speaking to their needs and convincing them to give you their email address is complicated and requires a new approach. Relying on Adwords and PR alone won’t cut it anymore. You have to have a complete marketing plan, milestones and a Plan B before you even get started. Prepare to spend a considerable amount of money as a result to making the wrong decisions. All dating sites go through this. You have to spend money to see what doesn’t work and what does. There is no magic bullet.
Most niche’s are easy to target. Sites with a “unique” feature are tough. Usually the uniqueness exists only in the site owner’s mind. I’ve seen it all and 98% of the paradigm-shifting functionality doesn’t make an impact anywhere near what it takes to get singles to react to your expensive plea for their attention.
Targeting the general population are much more difficult and expensive. Show me the money and I’ll show you the traffic is basically what it comes down to.
Two more quick bits and then I’m off to the mountains for the rest of the week.
Last week I avoided the meltdown the happened with all the new iPhones by sneaking a download of the new iPhone Operating System the day before. Buying and downloading software via iTunes and on the phone is awesome. I’ve been talking to a few companies working on or thinking about iPhone-only social dating applications. One of these is going to take off and get huge market share if they plan out the service smartly. International is where it will take off first, then the US, and on the iPhone first. Us citizens are cave-people when it comes to using mobile phones for anything except calls.
15minuteDate seems to be living in a time warp:
I would like to tell you about a new dating/social networking site we have just launched today (http://www.15minuteDate.com) The website is the first to allow users to be matched up in an anonymous on-line blind date, where they can meet face-to-face! The user can schedule for a time in advance for the time of the blind date and simply login to the website at the pre-arranged time to start the date. The site uses a non-Flash and non-UserPlane based technology which allowes a single Linux server to handle to up tens of thousands of live video conversations between users.
I’ll be back on Monday. August is going to be a very busy month.
