Big week for HowAboutWe. Tonight they are presenting at the 5th anniversary of Web Innovators, run by my VC (Venrock) turned micro-VC investor and neighbor David Beisel. They’re also featured in todays Thrillist and have been spotted in other clued-in Boston publications as part of their entrance into the Boston dating market.
Few can afford to roll out a general-purpose dating site nationwide anymore without at least $5-10 million dollars. HowAboutWe raised $3 million a few weeks ago, and they are smart to go with a phased geographic approach and close-knit small-feeling community instead of trying to blow up big like Zoosk, which grew fast, powered through $30 million in funding and quickly turned into a gigantic generic dating site that throws of a lot of cash but has no soul. I hope HowAboutWe remains small and keeps its soul. Knowing the founders, that won’t be an issue.
They have done some very impressive marketing on the cheap and dating sites should take notice. There’s a reason these guys have $3 million in the bank for marketing. For more background, we wrote about HowAboutWe a while back and even Business Insider covered them, which is huge.
Every VC we’ve spoken to over the past few weeks has heard of the company, and none were dismissive of it.
HowAboutWe might make it to the top 25 site list, or they could burn through their money and flame out in short order. Both have happened to sites in their exact position right now (think Engage.com.). I’m just glad there are still people out there who are trying something new, because browsing static profiles and praying to god that you are good-looking enough to get a response to your cut-and-past email blast across multiple generic dating sites each week is so over.
I predict that HowAboutWe will grow slowly and steadily and then be acquired by the likes of Match. If anything for the talent as opposed to strictly the traffic (see SinglesNet’s acquisition by Match for an example of the opposite).
HowAboutWe.. end this post?
