Review my dating startup: EstablishedMen.com

by raja • 17 years ago

21 33 17 years ago

ashishk2• 17 years ago

love the ui. really interesting space. have you worked at a dating startup before? are you guys funded? are you planning to charge for premium services?

raja2• 17 years ago

Yeah, we acquired a few dating sites that we have grown. We are privately funded as an acquisition vehicle but EstablishedMen is our first foray into organic incubation. We are charging for premium services (currently just a single package at $49/month usd with the ability for price variation by region).

ashishk2• 17 years ago

what are the other properties? largely direct marketing plays im guessing?

hany• 17 years ago

This is one of the fastest, well designed dating sites I've ever seen. The interface is slick and simple. Searching for users is very intuitive.

jonas_b• 17 years ago

Did you create this account just to comment on this thread?

Considering the biased tone of your post, this sounds a bit too good to be true.

If you're not connected to the OP in any way and just liked his site, I apologise!

Radix• 17 years ago

Amusing, perhaps this is an attempt to seed the site with new users.

moe2• 17 years ago

Obviously just a failed attempt at self-promotion.

Unless you want to believe that Hany discovered this story, jumped through their registration hoop, was impressed by the UI and signed up with HN to post an appraisal - all of that in only 8 minutes after the story was posted.

Come on raja, you can do better than that...

Oh and btw, I flagged the story for that crap. Pull your PR-stunts elsewhere.

Ennis2• 17 years ago

Not a very inciteful comment jonas_b.

I like your site design. I like having the perfect princess in the search. I was expecting from the domain name that it would only be able to search for men.

I like how it automatically knew to put Waterloo as the city.

Some things to improve:

* Show results first.

* You need to be useful to the user first. If you can do it without asking for anything in return then even better.

* Take the drop.io model. Upload and go...no user info required unless they want to offer it.

* Get rid of the sign up. You want to make money 2nd and get users first. So no signup. Make it free then add value added services to service your members.

* Make it even more niche. Up to you how to do this.

* Focus on only a few major cities. Make it clear where you operate.

* Hook into other services - plentyoffish. They may not like this. But do it then deal with it. Afterall both you and they get exposure. Don't steal their users though. Remember your goal is to be useful to the user not yourself.

* If their match is somewhere else lead them there. Offer them to give you their email and you can help them more in the future.

Good luck

spitfire• 17 years ago

You want me to sign up just to see if there are any results in my town? No.

Also, by the very name of your site you are likely to discourage the exact demographic you seek from joining. If I'm an established man, am I going to go to a site that will surely attract gold diggers? I can join the local city club for that.

Read up on the habits of the well off and be a little more subtle about it. oh and private jets are passé these days.

potatolicious• 17 years ago

Second the sign up bit. You have no credibility nor clout as a new service, your users will bail as soon as they see a sign up. At the very least tease them with sample searches.

vaksel2• 17 years ago

my guess is that the site has 0 users, so they do the registration bit, to build their membership.

since these guys sound like the MBA types, like everyone mentioned, my guess is that their business plan goes like this:

Year 1: Get driveby registrations, who driveby, register, find out the site is crap, and leave.

Year 2: Open up search results, so that users driveby, find a few results, register, find out they didn't get a response, and leave.

Year 3: Have the core group of users, who use the site and actually have results. Start charging $49.99 for something.

Year 4: Become profitable

Year 5: Sell for billions, make profile on the site, and try to get laid.

villageidiot2• 17 years ago

Mr G made an insightful comment regarding the problem of getting off the ground with a dating startup: ". . . 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."

Did you get around the chicken and egg problem?

raja2• 17 years ago

One way around the problem is to create a site where dating is a natural byproduct - HotOrNot does this well as that the social (or selfishly compelling) aspect of uploading a photo and obtaining public opinion has a very good tie in with boosting esteem and meeting people, which happens to be the revenue component. With EstablishedMen, we have a family of sister dating sites that could feed users. Also, we have raised significant capital and have had good success with our other dating properties of converting users via offline and online ad spends.

moe2• 17 years ago

With EstablishedMen, we have a family of sister dating sites that could feed users. Also, we have raised significant capital and have had good success with our other dating properties of converting users via offline and online ad spends.

Sorry, when I read sentences like that then I can only say: Instant MBA failure.

You're apparently trying to "produce" a dating site like others produce tin food. It doesn't work like that. You don't pour money into a few developers, stir, feed users until boiling - then serve with a strawberry for guaranteed hot exit.

I don't see a site that would create dating as a natural byproduct. I see only the byproduct - and a pretty bad one at that, for all the problems that others have already mentioned.

sidsavara• 17 years ago

Have you guys heard of http://www.sugardaddyforme.com/ and is this a competitor to them?

One of the guys I worked with knew the guy who ran that site. I thought it was a pretty funny name and concept, yours sounds much more refined. Took a quick peek at it, can't really give feedback since I'm at work but upvoted and may take a look later =)

Everest• 17 years ago

I'm not sure if it was sugardaddyforme or sugardaddie.com but I was reading about a site where they verify your income to make sure that you are truly a "wealthy man" Apparently, it was the only dating site where the number of female users greatly outnumbers the men.

An even more ridiculous site is ashleymadison.com. Its also done quite well.

autarch• 17 years ago

Wow, cynical and offensive. I think it's a winner.

annoyed• 17 years ago

'Your match is just a click away' should be changed to 'Your match is just a registration away'

text does't show up properly in the chrome browser

how about some teaser listings?

nice layout and design

metachris• 17 years ago

i like the design too, although it's a bit cluttered with unnecessary stuff. i've removed a couple of things and think it might look a bit more clean

http://4feets.com/img/establishedmen2.png

eventhough• 17 years ago

HAHAHAHAHAHA. Love it.

unalone• 17 years ago

I think the concept is sickening. I doubt you'll find the classy people you're looking for: more likely you'll find yourself attracting the desperate and the depraved.

It's a pretty nice design. A little bit overcolorful: trim down on the blues and greens up top, it seems a little bit like confetti. But overall, very good. If all you care about is getting people to hand you money, your design isn't going to be what turns people away.

mattmaroon• 17 years ago

I assume you mean more the site than our thoughts on any sort of moral issues. The graphic design is great, and the app is responsive, both of which are unusual for a free dating site.

I think you force the signup box too early. Show me some matches in my area and get me hooked. Give guys a few pictures of pretty girls nearby and they'll give you any info you ask for.

ryanwaggoner2• 17 years ago

This is probably simultaneously one of the funniest and most offensive startup review requests I've seen on HN.

The best part is that the site is really well done from what I gathered with a cursory glance. The main issue I see is that it's basically built to attract gold-digging whores, which is fine, but why would any "established men" pay for this? I would imagine they have no trouble finding these kinds of women in real life.

Dilpil• 17 years ago

You've hit upon the problem.

The real niche here is "Rich but extremely socially inept men, slightly ugly but still shallow gold diggers".

ryanwaggoner2• 17 years ago

So basically the exact opposite of the picture of the couple on the site.

yummyfajitas• 17 years ago

I know a couple of "established men" who find their golddiggers on the internet. Think "rich guy in south jersey/upstate NY", not "rich guy in NYC".

Another problem I see is that many golddiggers try to market themselves as nice girls (and perhaps even perceive themselves as such) [1]. Going to a site like this kind of makes things more explicit than the participants want it to be, no?

[1] Men tend to be more honest with themselves in such matters, probably because self-deluding men never get laid.

Todd• 17 years ago

Nice design. I've recently built a more general dating site and I see in your site many of the issues that I've been dealing with.

The chicken and egg problem is the biggest. Until you reach "critical mass", whatever that is (1k, 10k, 100k), it is difficult to open the kimono and give potential new users a peek. That can definitely drive away traffic.

OTOH, you need more for people to go on. You need some sort of hook. In my case, I took multiple screenshots from key areas of the site and assembled a tour.

You guys sound pretty seasoned, so I'm sure this isn't news to you--just an idea. There are many ideas around conversion and most of them just take time.

The other issue that was a big surprise for me is the sheer number of scammers out there. I'm spending more time building features into the backend for identifying scammers than anything else these days (still early days yet). Aside from the IP geolocation technique, email addresses posted in their profile text, and the unique form of bad English grammar from the West Coast of Africa, I'd be curious to know how you identify them. The target demographic of your site is bound to attract a disproportionate number. (BTW, for the uninitiated, geolocation only works for the amateurs logging in from a cybercafe in Lagos--most of them know how to use proxies and emerge in places like Michigan or Colorado. Typical bad grammar: "I will like to know more about you".)

vaksel2• 17 years ago

   Room service gets tiring when you travel as much as I do. With Established Men, 
   I look forward to beautiful girls on every trip.

Who talks like that? Seriously if you are going to fake reviews, at least make them sound real.

trapper• 17 years ago

Tucker max was chief consultant.

menloparkbum• 17 years ago

This site seems like a thinly veiled escort site. Is that the intention?

jawngee• 17 years ago

No asian women. Count me out.

Design is nice.

Overall, the whole thing is corny. I'm sure there is a market for it, but as someone who is a prolific member of other dating sites, nothing about it is interesting.

Why would I, as an established man, want to be harangued by a bunch of gold diggers? I can't figure that out.

Review my dating startup: EstablishedMen.com

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