

Why we dropped out of Yale to start a dating website  - CJM13
http://blog.thislooksfun.com/

======
tryitnow
I tried to think of some constructive criticism (since that's more useful than
"good luck guys!"), but couldn't really figure anything really penetrating,
but here's my best shot at some question to think about, constructive
criticism, etc.

1) how is this different than people just going out to events with friends and
then randomly meeting friends of friends to date? My best guess is that this
is different because there's more of a recognition that people are looking.
How does this change the dynamics?

2) My guess is that this is going to be kind of a platform for matchmakers
too. What, if anything, do they get out of it?

3) Will the businesses hosting/benefiting from the event pay a cut of their
proceeds to TLF?

4) Will people who meet on the site attend the events as pairs? Or will it be
like a singles event? If the latter, then we'll see an "alpha male" problem
where a handful of males will be desired. The betas will drop out and more
importantly many women will be turned off by the competition for a few men.

5) Finally, and most importantly, any play in the dating space is most likely
not going to be a tech play (that's been done - OKCupid and eHarmony among
many others have all sorts of fancy algorithms). Like most social media today,
the business model will stand or fall based on very nuanced understanding of
human nature, in particular very nuanced understanding of male/female romantic
and sexual interactions.

Now, no offense, but when I think of "very nuanced understanding of
male/female romantic and sexual interactions" the image of two college guys
who read HN does not come to mind. Nothing personal, I would apply the same
reasoning to myself (which is one of the reasons I have not started a dating
site). It's just something to be aware of, you're stepping into an area that
is one of the most misunderstand social arenas for our species.

All of the above are just my musings intended to plant some seeds in your
head. I think this is a great idea and you should go for it with gusto.

The only real advice I have: If you don't already have one, get a woman on
your team. Gone are the days where dating sites are just tech/algorithm plays,
like I said above you've got to understand the psychology and there's just no
way to do that with 50% of your target market missing from your founding team.

~~~
JoachimSchipper
This should not be [dead]:

CJM13 11 minutes ago

Thanks a lot, certainly more helpful than a best of luck wish.

1) What we're doing really isn't any different at all than people just going
to events with friends and then meeting potential friends to date. We want to
replicate the way dating works in the real world online. So we are providing
an online platform to generate more of these interactions. There is certainly
the recognition that people are looking for dates so that changes things a
bit.

2)Users will be able to search for dates for themselves or set their friends
up on dates as a matchmaker. We're coming up with ways to incentivize the
matchmakers but for the meantime are hoping users will find the experience of
matchmaking fun. There is concern that the matchmaker will be put in an
awkward situation if the date does not go well for their friend, but that
really isn't any different than setting someone up offline.

3)There is no cost to businesses to use TLF. We help businesses solve the
"butts in seats" problem so they are happy to work with us to arrange a deal
that allows us to have users prepay for their dates.

4)We are starting with singles events.

5)We completely agree. Our focus is on the offline interaction between users.
Our site will only serve as a means for quickly setting up a shared experience
offline. We are actively looking for a woman to bring on board! When
developing the concept we gathered feedback from as many of our girlfriends as
we could.

P.S. Although we may be two college guys who read HN we'd like to think we
have a decent understanding of the fairer sex.

Thanks again!

~~~
bootload
_"... We want to replicate the way dating works in the real world online.
..."_

Isn't the real world process broken? Are you taking into account _"Gutentag
Secord theory?"_ [0]

 _"... the non-committers are out there in growing force. If dating and mating
is in fact a marketplace—and of course it is—today we’re contending with a new
“dating gap,” where marriage-minded women are increasingly confronted with
either deadbeats or players. ..."_ [1]

Are you trying to solve this problem?

[0] Marcia Guttentag, Paul F.Secord ~ [http://www.amazon.com/Too-Many-Women-
Ratio-Question/dp/08039...](http://www.amazon.com/Too-Many-Women-Ratio-
Question/dp/0803919190)

[1] Atlantic, Kate Bolick, _"All the Single Ladies"_ ~
[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-
the-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-single-
ladies/8654/3/)

------
kyledr
Their site <http://thislooksfun.com/> is currently unimpressive. It's
noticeably slow on my broadband connection. Why? Huge background images
changing on a relatively quick timer (sizes as large as 4.5mb, 7.56mb).

It's just an email gathering page, but a few minutes spent in an image editing
program would give a much better first impression.

~~~
pork
You dont need an image editing program, just imagemagick:

> convert a.jpg -strip -quality 60 a.jpg

~~~
kyledr
The images need cropping/resizing, but yes, imagemagick could do it.

------
jemka
>“Current dating sites suck … an undergrad could build something better as a
class project.” ~Paul Graham from his essay, How To Start a Startup

>we decided to take PG’s advice a bit further and take time off of school.

A lot has changed in the online dating world. Hopefully they have a better
argument than a 6 year old quote from one person, albeit being from PG.

~~~
steve-howard
I imagine that "dating sites suck" is a way of saying "it's really hard to
make a dating site that works for people." Sure, lots has changed in the
dating world, but I would not be surprised if there is substantial room for
improvement for a long time to come.

~~~
CJM13
There is definitely room for a ton of innovation and improvement in the online
dating industry. Online dating isn't going anywhere and will continue to grow.
Social networks and dating sites can be a great way to meet new people. We
want to limit the online interaction and have people share an offline
experience together as soon as possible. The artificial contact that current
online dating platforms provide cannot replace the interpersonal connection
that happens in the real life.

------
ilamparithi
"Current dating sites are not the last word. Better ones will appear. But
anyone who wants to start a dating startup has to answer two questions: in
addition to the usual question about how you're going to approach dating
differently, you have to answer the even more important question of how to
overcome the huge chicken and egg problem every dating site faces. A site like
Reddit is interesting when there are only 20 users. But 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."

From <http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html>

------
daimyoyo
When you read about most founders who dropped out, they already had
significant traction before making the leap. In my honest opinion you
shouldn't drop out of college until you have a finished product(even if it's
only a MVP) with traction and can show that this is a better alternative.
Obviously you're free to do whatever you want but from an impartial observers
perspective, this move seems unecessarily risky until you have a finished
product, and enough users to prove it's viability.

------
helipad
Dating sites don't inherently suck.

OKCupid is actually an amazing website. The problem, as always, is there will
always, always be more men seeking women.

I'd like to see what would happen if a dating site somehow tried to keep the
ratio of men to women more appealing to both sexes.

~~~
noodle
> The problem, as always, is there will always, always be more men seeking
> women.

i don't think this is the case, exactly. after talking to people about it, the
issue seems to be that men are just more aggressive about it, which turns away
a significant segment of women. the women are out there, some just don't like
putting up with the crap they get on dating sites.

~~~
michaelchisari
_the issue seems to be that men are just more aggressive about it_

If that's the case, then it would be interesting if a site like OKCupid had a
limit on the number of emails per day a straight guy could send to a straight
woman. Say, only one every few days. That would require male users to think
very carefully about who they email.

It's an arbitrary thing, but it would be interesting to see how the dynamic
changes.

~~~
noodle
agreed. i've always thought that an interesting idea to try would be to create
a (mostly) zero sum dating system where you have to respond to people in order
to initiate conversations with others.

it de-incentivizes sending rapid-fire copy/pasted messages as well as
completely ignoring messages. levels things out a bit.

~~~
michaelchisari
That kind of reminds me of Slashdot's Karma system. I think it would work, I
think the concept would have to be weighted towards dating, but not 100% a
dating site. Something that's as much about being social as it is finding a
partner. So maybe encourage people to email people they find interested on a
"just-friends" basis.

Maybe instead of marking your profile with your intentions, you mark each
individual email, ie, "New Friends", "Short-Term Dating", "Activity Partner".

I'm just spitballing here.

------
vaksel
dating is really a niche that's more or less guaranteed slow growth, taking
time off from school to pursue something this generic doesn't strike me as
smart...since you'll spend a ton of time waiting for your user numbers to
climb.

~~~
dmix
That's a bit of a fallacy to assume that more time = more users.

User growth doesn't happen by itself because you have a product out (outside
of the rare viral hit).

It takes months of hard work and focus to build a user base.

~~~
jsavimbi
months of hard work that should be spent hitting the books, learning something
about the world and gaining the experience required in order to properly
provide a solution for educated and experienced people over the age of thirty
who can spot an immature product with their laptop closed.

I'm not saying there isn't a market for lbs dating sites, what I am saying
that from what I'm reading it appears that a couple of intelligent people are
dropping out of school at a young age to pursue what amounts to some low-
hanging fruit.

~~~
BadCookie
Low-hanging fruit would be a good thing to pursue. Did you mean the opposite?

~~~
jsavimbi
That's insane. Who told you that?

------
carbocation
The title is alarming: "Why we dropped out of Yale to start a dating website"

But the first paragraph is less concerning: "... taking time off from school
to build and grow our company"

Yale is generous in terms of granting leaves of absence, so the knowledge that
you're not actually dropping out really changes my view of your decision (for
the better). You'd be crazy to _drop out of Yale_ for an idea with no
traction. To take a semester, or possibly a year, for the same? That's a much
less drastic proposition.

~~~
CJM13
We are very fortunate that Yale makes the process of taking time off so easy.
I emailed my Dean the day before registration and didn't need to do anything
else. We do plan on going back and graduating.

~~~
gujk
So this article post was libkbait. Gotcha.

------
jcfrei
wishing you guys all the best - but you've probably picked one of the most
difficult business models imaginable. building a user base for a dating site
is even harder than building a new social network and competing against giants
like match.com is gonna be _very_ difficult. my advice; try to appeal to a
niche segment - don't target the masses. as far as I can tell online dating
sites aren't broken, it's in most cases just a lemons market.

~~~
CJM13
Thanks for the comment/advice!

------
MatthewB
I had this exact same idea about 8 months ago - connecting singles around
events. I was a little more focused on bringing local businesses into the mix
to promote the events though. I thought through it quite and bit and my
conclusion was that it doesn't really differ much from a singles night.

An app that made facilitating a singles night easier is a pretty solid idea,
however, selling it as a dating website is not the right way to go in my
opinion.

The main demographic for dating websites has always been men. The problem with
trying to put together a singles night is that the main value proposition
(women) is difficult to come by with an online dating website.

Additionally, a lot of people who try dating websites are there for a few main
reasons: 1) they are too busy to go out and meet people 2) they are too shy to
go out to meet people. Either way, this solution doesn't solve those problems.

I actually built out a good portion of the backend of this product but have
since pivoted into something different. They also will run into the chicken
and egg issue, although with a little facebook marketing that's pretty easy to
solve.

~~~
CJM13
We appreciate the feedback! Like every dating site we will have to address the
chicken and egg problem of getting a solid user base (particularly women).
However we are working on some clever ways to attract women to the site. More
specifically we are developing a matchmaking component which will allow users
to pick out dates for their friends and decide not only who their friend goes
out with but also what they do.

Thanks for the comment!

~~~
commanda
Is it true that there is a dearth of women in online dating sites in general?
If so, where did you see that info? Or is that an assumption you're working
from based on the gender ratio in bars/clubs?

------
tomkinstinch
Just some feedback: I didn't see an easy link to your main page on the blog
(not in the header, sidebar, or footer). There were plenty in the body text,
but I didn't look there first for a link.

In signing up, I also had to re-enter my email address after the first
username I tried was taken. You could repopulate the email address field based
on the prior submission in the event that a username is unavailable.

As others have said, the background images on the splash page are huge. Even
on my 15Mb connection I had to wait a moment for them to load.

------
jeffchuber
Be sure to get a fantastic front-end engineer/designer on board. It strikes me
the online dating space more needs better design than algorithms. (even
OKcupid is just OK. pun intended)

------
bravenewdude
Do you know about the Yale Entrepreneurship Institute's incubator program.
Just do the summer incubation program, and see what happens. Dropping out is
risky.

------
PureSin
Hi, just signed up to try your website.

2 comments: 1) the text box does not display underscore (_). A lot of emails
contains _ character, so it could confuse ppl.

2) You should implement a 404 page. instead of the current error page when you
go to thislooksgood.com/[xx]

------
true_religion
Here's an idea:

The current problem with dating sites is poor response rates from women.

Many sites have tried to solve it by scoring candidates and only letting you
see candidates that meet criteria---i.e. reduce messages sent, and boost
chances of being a match.

Why don't we instead treat it like a SPAM problem. Only show people the type
of messages that they've responded to in the past. Don't necessarily believe
what they say about what they like, trust their _revealed preference_.

~~~
khill
Or why not create a dating site which only allows women to contact men?

By creating a one-way dating channel, you can filter out a lot of the behavior
which drives women away from sites. Make it a virtual Sadie Hawkins dance.

~~~
jaredsohn
FYI, this has been done: <http://www.herway.com/>. No idea how successful it
has been.

------
rayk
Developing this space as a college undergrad means you should be able to do
some things really well. Event planning, for one, seems like something people
in their mid or early-twenties could disrupt. It'll be interesting to see how
your perspective translates to older users. Especially because you can't
dogfood a dating site (even OkCupid's founders never used it).

Good luck!

~~~
CJM13
Thanks for the comment! We're gathering a lot of different events that cover a
variety of interests, so we're hoping that we will have something to offer for
everyone.

------
jorkos
\- take out 'revolutionizing' verbiage \- describe benefits in a few sentences
\- offer something concrete for signup \- address page load issues

------
knuspermuesli
How is this really different than HowAboutWe?

~~~
GGNH
We differ from HowAboutWe in that we're going to offer prearranged events for
our users. We want them to avoid decision paralysis when picking a date or
date idea, so we give them something fun, tested, and popular to try while
meeting someone new who wants to do the same thing.

------
adrianwaj
I think it'd be smarter to put groups of people together and send them to
events or create events for it. So long as the ratios are even, or could be
set. The advantage of groups is that it's not a make or break situation, like
a 1-on-1. And groups of friends can be matched with other groups of friends.

------
BlackJack
My suitemates and I (BR '14) were talking about what it would be like to drop
out of Yale. We realized that the school would pretty much take you back
whenever as long as you were doing something cool in the spare time. That's a
really nice "psuedo-assurance" to have imo.

Best of luck fellas!

~~~
jluan
I have to disagree on this one -- Yale's policy actually really sucks. I am
currently taking time off, and was told that not only must I take course
credits from an outside school to get readmitted from a personal withdrawal,
but also have to go through an abridged re-application process. A lot of time
commitments and question marks there.

------
breathesalt
_...teach ourselves how to code_

How are you guys going about doing this?

~~~
CJM13
Friends of ours started an open lecture/workshop series called HackYale.
Besides that there are a ton of great resources on the web. My best advice
would be to just start building something and practicing a lot. Tutorials and
classes are a great place to start but there is no substitute for actually
starting a project from scratch and figuring things out as you go along.

Let me know if you have any more questions!

~~~
breathesalt
Thanks for responding, I ask because I'm currently mentoring a friend who's
trying to learn and I'm curious to see what works for others. When I was
learning programming I did more or less the same thing, but also found
choosing the right technical books to be instrumental.

~~~
CJM13
What books do you recommend in particular?

Thanks

------
engtech
I couldn't find a way to comment on the blog post or a way to contact the
author:

"Diving into online dating - it’s not a zero sum game

Online dating is hear to stay,"

typo, should be "here to stay"

~~~
CJM13
Fixed! Thanks! You can email us at Chris@thislooksfun.com or
Greg@thislooksfun.com

------
dustineichler
College is one of the best times of your lives. Don't drop out, I'm glad
you're only taking leave. Work will be waiting for you when you're done, I
promise.

------
rsheth
guys - your "tweet this" link is broken. Once I sign up thro the pop up, it
goes to a dead page. Look fw to it though.

------
damonpace
Good luck guys...don't let all the negative comments get you down. Power
through and stay on task.

~~~
GGNH
Thanks. We really think that you have to be an unflinching optimist to be an
entrepreneur!

------
jluan
Were you guys onstage for Office Hours at Startup School?

~~~
CJM13
No, that wasn't us, just proves that this is an exciting time for this
industry

~~~
bomatson
Good luck!

------
kqueue
reminds me of <http://chirpme.com/>

------
startupcto
Stay in school.. I can't imagine why you guys are dropping out of school to
"start a dating website". That said, good luck and I'm sure will learn a lot.

~~~
crazygringo
I agree. I went to Yale and wouldn't trade those semesters for anything.
You've got your whole life to start a company, but the opportunities you get
to build yourself at a place like Yale don't often come up again.

And especially for another dating site -- this is a market that many smart
people have spent a lot of time thinking about, and unless you have something
truly revolutionary which is hard to replicate, the odds seem stacked against
you.

But again, best of luck. And think about using Yale resources as well like
YES, your summers, etc.

------
georgieporgie
Facebook was the ultimate online dating site, until they removed/restricted
the search-within-network feature.

