It’s time for a quick hello to new readers and an introduction. My name is Dave Evans and I have been writing about the business of online dating at Online Dating Insider since 2002.
I have been a consultant my entire career. Back in the early 90’s I worked with the team that uploaded the first paid banner ads onto the Internet and was the technical-creative lead on a project where the king of Sweden raised the price of stamps and we took that money and built an open version of America Online for the country of Sweden. That was the largest website in Europe for a while.
At an ad agency in New York I cut my teeth building many corporate and consumer product websites along with a number of fun side projects. A friend of mine built the orignal sixdegrees, which is the progenitor to Facebook. I had a friend build a blogging tool back then, but we didn’t know what to call it at the time. I’ve worked with brilliant people at a boutique management consulting company doing things like helping AT&T figure out where to lay fiber optic cable, urban wifi strategy, mobile handset technology licensing, company acquisition due diligence and too much more to list here.
Nailing down a typical day for me is difficult. I could be handing out business cards at the Mandalay Bay pool in Vegas, appearing on ABC dating shows, brokering commercial deals, doing cable, radio and print interviews. Or I’m working with early and growth stage investors requiring an overview of opportunities in the dating space (this afternoon in fact.) Lately I’ve been working with Hollywood to bring television-based dating reality shows to the web.
One of my best work stories is when I was paid in chicken eggs and goat milk for fixing a computer when I was living on the beach in Bali for a few months.
Speaking of beaches, In 2004 I sat on the beach and read 3,000 personal ads and quickly figured out that people make the same handful of mistakes on their profiles. To remedy this, I started a company called Profile Doctor, which automated the process of improving the quality of personal ads. This led to several years of consulting and advising some of the largest, most innovative dating sites, both established and scrappy startups alike.
I spend a lot of time helping vendors parter with dating sites, product development, fundraising and keeping up with online dating industry news. When I’m not doing that, I’m blogging about the business of online dating, talking to the press and talking to dating sites about ways I can help them attract, convert and retain members.
I am also interested in identity, the social graph, mobile and hyper-personalization (advertising, dynamic websites and location-based services.)
In general, I’ve found that marketing people think I’m an IT guy and developers think I’m in marketing. I sell myself as a trusted advisor and strategist, with emphasis on startups, developing businesses and marketing.
This blog is an integral part of Digicraft, where I provide consulting and advisory services to the online dating industry (among other things). 100 million singles in the US. Only 30 million even try online dating each month. There is an enormous untapped market that dating sites are missing out on. If you work for a dating site looking to increase traffic, are thinking about deploying social dating features, need general advisory services or assistance with leading-edge marketing strategies, don’t be shy, contact me. I’m always available to spend some time on the phone to see if there is an opportunity to work together.
