

Review my dating startup: EstablishedMen.com - raja
http://EstablishedMen.com

======
spitfire
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.

~~~
vaksel
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.

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Todd
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".)

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ryanwaggoner
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
You've hit upon the problem.

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

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

------
vaksel

       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
Tucker max was chief consultant.

------
annoyed
'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
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>

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

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

------
sidsavara
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
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.

------
mattmaroon
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.

------
unalone
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.

------
jawngee
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.

------
ashishk
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?

~~~
raja
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).

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

------
villageidiot
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?

~~~
raja
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.

~~~
moe
_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.

------
eventhough
HAHAHAHAHAHA. Love it.

------
hany
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
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!

~~~
Ennis
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

~~~
villageidiot
What do you mean when you suggest hooking into plentyoffish? And why do you
also say they may not like it?

~~~
Ennis
Sorry, forgot about this thread. I mean include their profiles into your
website. They may not like it since you are redirecting potential viewers of
their ads. You guess you can mitigate this by only showing little information
and then redirecting a user to plentyoffish.

