
Y Combinator Challenge #8 - Dating - jmorin007
http://astartupaday.wordpress.com/2008/07/30/y-combinator-challenge-8-dating/
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maryrosecook
I think the matchmaker idea is good. Many people have thought, "Man, I just
know that those two of my friends would be great together." And I like the way
you let people sign up their friends.

However, I'm not so sure about the dating on Twitter thing. I think people
want to do their dating in private. This is why dating applications on
Facebook are not doing that great. People have a hard enough time plucking up
the courage to ask out the object of their affection. Letting a bunch of other
people know about it as well would be way too embarassing.

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steveplace
_Man, I just know that those two of my friends would be great together._

I'm still a little skeptical how a web app would replace 2 phone calls and a
blind date. I also have no problem being proven wrong.

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vaksel
because many people don't like going on a blind date, its usually a very
awkward experience. At least this way both people will know what the other one
looks like

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froo
One of the things that I've noticed when researching this myself is that the
majority of the time, people generally dont fill out their profiles too well -
which I would suggest lessens their chances of someone finding them.

Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel regarding dating sites, why not create
a webapp that helps people create good custom profiles for themselves to
increase their chances at finding someone?

Perhaps have it so that it can export the blocks of information which are
customised for the main dating sites - to make it an easier process, and also
allow for data portability across multiple dating sites.

That would be one of the ways I'd approach this kind of problem.

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HeyLaughingBoy
I think help with profiles is an excellent idea. Before I was married (met my
wife on yahoo personals way back when it was still free), I dated a lot of
people I met online and a couple of women showed me the "typical" profile of a
guy who approached them and they were <b>terrible</b>. It was easy to see why
women were turned off. I'm sure if the guys realized how desperate and needy
they came across, they'd be able to do a better job of hooking up.

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froo
exactly

 _It was easy to see why women were turned off. I'm sure if the guys realized
how desperate and needy they came across, they'd be able to do a better job of
hooking up._

I think there is still a stigma attached to online dating that people are
scraping the bottom of the barrel- amongst women especially. In fact, while
researching dating sites (I was thinking about building a competitive dating
site for Australia in 06/07) I've often come across the phrase "I cant believe
I'm doing this" as the first sentence in a female's profile.

You can have the best dating technology in the world, but the reality is that
there are a significant number of people just dont have profiles that are any
good or a real judge of a person's character. I think this problem is
compounded when you consider that often people dont have very descriptive
profiles when writing something about themselves and often write about tastes
that are seemingly universal but non specific. EG, if I wrote I liked movies,
as opposed to writing I liked Tarantino and Kubrick films.

Often I seen profiles (of both men and women, so this problem is not gender
specific) where people are just trying to meet minimum word counts. Any kind
of matching technology based off keyword matching in this kind of situation
simply fails.

I think for a technology like this to have any decent chance, there would need
to be a couple of core components.

1) Point and click profile writing, where people can click on hobbies and it
can attempt to write something for them. You would also have to ensure that
profile's dont look like canned responses.

2) Photo touching up - Often when I've touched up photo's in photoshop for
others, I find myself using the same techniques, with often very similar
settings on the sliders - if there was a way you could automatically detect
and touch up photos, then it would be fantastic. I'm not sure if there are any
sites out there that currently have this feature, but it would make a great
standalone site too, especially with photo sharing sites and social networking
sites being popular.

3) Profile exporting. If I've written a profile for say match.com and I want
to goto eharmony.com, I dont want have to rewrite significant chunks of it to
match the new format, especially given a large number of people have trouble
writing even one profile.

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babul
Perhaps a feature like facial merging (a la
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=260642>) of the couple to show potential
cuteness/ugliness of babies is something to consider.

The crowd then chooses couples, and votes on results, and hence couples are
connected/introduced by crowdsourcing.

hotornot + crowdsourcing + topic of common interest to break the ice.

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froo
I was throwing a concept around with a friend of mine about 2 years ago where
the dating site would learn what type of people you're attracted too when you
click on profile pictures (using some kind of facial recognition technology
presumably) and then be able to suggest profiles you would be potentially
interested in.

The side effect of this would be that shy people could still keep photo's in
private galleries, but still get taken into the overall equation and
potentially matched up with someone who might find them attractive.

Fortunately (or unfortunately? Depends how you look at it I guess) we had no
real interest in starting up a dating site at the end of the day.

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tyohn
I've got it, lets create a virtual experience dating site. That way you never
have to meet the person - you can just do things together from a distance ;)

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river_styx
You could even throw in a free latex keyboard cover as a promotional item.

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VolatileVoid
I posted something similar on my blog.
[http://freememory.org/2008/07/28/lovin-touchin-squeeeezin-
ea...](http://freememory.org/2008/07/28/lovin-touchin-squeeeezin-each-other-
dating-part-ii/)

Very cool idea. :)

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smakz
<http://lkml.org/lkml/2000/8/25/132>

~~~
VolatileVoid
I never claimed not to be lazy. :) And if money were no object (i.e. if I were
a student, or didn't have a family), I would at least take a stab at doing it
myself. But, alas: money is an object, my job is demanding and my family comes
first. (Although I don't deny that I am partially making excuses for myself).

Talk is cheap but life, sadly, isn't.

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smakz
I hear you, please don't take my comment to heart, it was more tongue in
cheek.

And I agree, family is more important but you can use it to your advantage -
get your kids started early. May I suggest some bed time stories?

<http://www.amazon.com/dp/0201485419>

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soundsop
I think the idea of bootstrapping a dating site by encouraging matchmakers to
come to the site might be on to something.

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Alex3917
What would happen if you paid matchmakers a percentage of the advertising
revenues so they could work full-time like head hunters?

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soundsop
That would be interesting.

It hinges on whether matchmakers can work their magic only on people they
actually know (which limits the number of people they could match up), or if
they could do it simply by looking at profiles of people they don't know
personally.

Even the most outgoing people I know have less than 1,000 friends on Facebook.
How many matches could they possibly mine from that group?

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Alex3917
Well if you actually had people with skin in the game, they have an incentive
to make it work. This could mean calling people on the phone, going to visit
them in person, etc. And in general I bet a really talented matchmaker could
get someone to be a lot more candid than they'd otherwise be on a publicly
visible profile. It's like a cap-and-trade system; by offering up a pot of
gold to the winners you spur massive amounts of innovation. For example, if a
matchmaker could increase his success rates by offering up dating tips and
personal grooming advice then there would be a system in place promising him a
pot of gold for doing it.

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joshwa
What about an aftermarket for profiles on failed dating sites? Or even ones
that haven't failed yet.

Dating profile portability? Dating site messaging federation? Pay per message
that crosses networks?

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rokhayakebe
I think what you have described is a SRSN "Simplified Registration for any
Social Network" based on Twitter.

Otherwise I do not really see what makes it so different from the other Me-too
dating sites.

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time_management
Dating problems are like depression in that the symptoms are familiar--
sentiments like "all the good ones are taken"-- but the causes are varied and
numerous. No single cure is going to work for everyone, or even a large subset
of the population.

Gender balance is the biggest problem with dating sites. Women get flooded
with spam winks/emails and get bored sifting through the haystack of low-
quality leads. Men have no way of standing out amid the spam and get very
little attention.

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pfedor
My experience with dating sites is from a few years ago and not very
extensive, but I disagree that men have no way of standing out. I'd say that a
well-formed, a few paragraphs long, somewhat targeted (i.e., making references
to the things in the woman's profile) and not openly desperate message gives
you a very good chance of getting a reply. It's true women get a lot of
attention but it's mostly trash. I think it's best to focus on profiles
without photos.

