

Ask HN:  Ideas for monetizing a website I am developing? - d4ft

Hi all-<p>I posted this before, but only got one (insightful nonetheless) comment.  So I figured I'd give it one more shot.<p>I currently am working on a site that is similar to one techcrunch posted a few days back. I have a super duper early demo if you want to take look available here:<p>onedatedaily.heroku.com<p>The concept is this: Each day (eventually each hour) a new dater of each sex will be featured on the front page. People will then be able to get some basic information, and if they like the featured dater, they can send them an email through our site. This will likely be form based and require certain elements to reduce spam and stalkers (also we don't reveal the dater's email to avoid stalkers and weirdos). If the dater likes what the person has to say, they can email them back.<p>The question is how to monetize. I have a couple ideas and was wondering what you all thought:<p>1) Force anyone who wishes to email the dater to pay 1$ per email (some of this could be used to "pay" the dater for listing themselves. A kind of incentive to get more daters)<p>2) Graduated scale emailing. The first 50 free, then 1 dollar for the next 50, then 3$ for the next 50 etc.<p>3) Force the featured dater to pay per email from vetted emailers. .10 an email or whatever<p>4) Freemium model -- Get more information and more tools by signing up with us. Email of the day etc.<p>Thanks for looking guys, all suggestions welcome for both monetization and user experience stuff. The UI is pretty suck, but I'm working on it. I think the idea is decent, I'm just sorry I got beat to the punch by that one tech crunch had which looked, tbh, also sucky.
======
ismarc
The problem with monetizing dating-style sites is the same as trying to make
money with health care. Your system is at its best when people have one short
trip and don't come back. This lack of repeat use means that it has to work so
phenominally well that success stories are regularly referring their friends,
or you need a unique method to suck as much money over that time period as you
can (not to sound bad about it, but it's the truth).

The ideal method would be to charge money upon "success", but there's no good
way to measure a successful matchup. Thinking about this...I think a reverse
charge system may work (note, I haven't tried this and if you do go with it,
be prepared for flaming fireball of doom, it's an off-the-cuff, not thought
out idea, just top of the head thing). Most sites seem to either charge a
monthly fee, or they charge for communications. Now, rather than charging
someone money for TRYING to talk to someone, why not charge them based on
people ACTUALLY responding. Say, I have 5 message points. I send a message to
10 people. I still have 5 message points. Let's say 3 respond. I can use a
message point to read each message, or I can just not read it. If I don't have
enough points to read a message, I only see that I received one. Now, this
should only count for messages that are from someone I sent a message to
previously.

This way, initiating contact is free, and responding to initial contact is
free for the contacted. The lack of needing up-front costs to start trying to
meet people is likely to drive people to sending that initial message, and if
they get a response, they now need to spend money to read it...and it really
is a response from the person, so they most likely really want to read it.

------
MykalMorton
I had to find your article, make it free to post to other users, but have two
type of in-box, one for premium users and another for everybody else,

how to make money, if you subscribe monthly you can post to anybody in box and
they will receive it, along with 1000's of others, if you want to be notice
you will be put in the premium box (premium box); charge to add features to
your site like, color, multiple colors and the use of WYSIWYG editor, have
everybody else use a simple editor no frills. If you want to discuss it email
me: mykalmorton at gmail dot com

------
MykalMorton
also like recommendations on linkedin, have people comment on a person, (like
i dated her and she was a real ____* ), a feature,

but don't charge people on sending info,

for example i will not pay $1 to say hi, and if i do, i would just give my
email address out to that person, and you only made $1; thus subscription $.99
month for instant is reasonable, will not hesitate in sign-in up, 1000 ppl a
month = approx $1000

------
MykalMorton
add a feature to sell things, a user, for instant a person wants to sell a
watch a person can, need to make a hybrid of something else, cause dating is
already done.

