Spark Networks, Inc. (AMEX:LOV – News), a leading provider of online personals services, announced today that the Special Committee of the Board of Directors of the Company has unanimously rejected the March 2, 2010 proposal by Great Hill Equity Partners III, LP and certain of its affiliates (“Great Hill”) to purchase all of the outstanding shares of common stock of the Company not owned by Great Hill for $3.10 per share and will continue to consider all other strategic alternatives available to the Company. Via Yahoo Finance.
Off the top of my head I’d say some of the strategic alternatives are to consolidate or sell the weak properties, staff reduction and replacement, improve the quality of the services overall, improve landing page conversions, parter with companies who can offer revenue-generating features, inject a little personality into the brands, do something (anything really) new and interesting with marketing and hire some consultants to help with strategy.
What about raising some money and acquiring Yahoo Personals? I talked to someone who knows all about the deals Yahoo has been looking at. Once the valuation came back down to earth, that could be interesting. How about identifying the people in the organization who are not making amazing things happen every day and replacing them with people who are ready to take on the challenge of making Spark Networks the top-notch dating brand it deserves to be? What could they do with Plenty OfFish? How about buying up a few adult dating sites, or datehookup, or focusing on religious niches? Have they talked to Zoosk? What about buying Thread or Gelato and getting into the social dating space?
There are so many remarkable things that could be done with Spark Networks. I talk to people about this often, and while some of the above ideas are far-fetched, the idea is to brainstorm and come up with a number of potential opportunities and think them through. Otherwise, it’s JDate and not much else going on, in which case they are in a lot more trouble than they think they are right now.
Come on Spark, do something!
