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Ask HN: Evaluate my start-up idea - A new take on dating

10 points by bmr ↗ HN
Inspired by PG's list of start-ups he'd like to fund

A cursory Google reveals no one doing this, but I reserve the right to be wrong.

Instead of a "profile-centric" dating site, i.e. a site that essentially just displays/matches profiles, then leaves it up to the users to arrange meetings, I'd like to create a "date-centric" dating site.

The site would have specific, pre-fabricated dates. For example, if you were in LA (as I am), one date might be "Friday at 6PM: A stroll through Universal City walk and drinks at Saddle Ranch (don't forget to ride the bull!)" Another could be "Sunday at 9AM: A morning hike to the Hollywood sign followed by pancakes at Roscoes."

The dates would fill up on a first-come, first-served basis (think poker sit-n-go's).

As you can see, the idea is to be a little less focused on creating perfect matches and a little more focused on creating fun dates.

To that end, many of the dates could be double or even triple dates. A group of two or three guys (or gals) could sign up for something they always wanted to do and have a few members of the opposite (or same) sex show up to join them.

Perhaps profiles could put some limits on the type of person one would like to date (age, hobbies, etc.) but overall, the dates themselves would probably be a pretty good filter. The type of person that shows up for the "sushi and night club" date is likely different from the person who shows up for the "hiking and picnic" date.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

10 comments

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inklesspen
Like you, I also read PG's list of startups he'd like to fund. The "dating" item ends with this: "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."

I'm not seeing your solution to the chicken and egg problem here.

ErrantX
Potentially it removes it altogether because you could do a more traditional "scale up". Picking a few dates a week in a small region initially you only need a few users (sub 100 probably) to fill up the slots.

Then with luck the membership should grow by word of mouth.

Matching people DOES require a huge amount of people to stand the chance of finding a geographical and personality match. This idea of date oriented meeting seems to nail the first problem perfectly.

@OP: I think it's got legs, serious legs. Though I see a problem with no-shows (I guess the 3 or 4 "couples" per date fixes that somewhat). The question is how do you monetize?

bmr
Membership fees are possible, but I get the sense that users would balk at paying "entry fees" for their dates.

It's also possible that local restaurants/attractions could sponsor certain dates (i.e offer kickbacks), but the site would have to be sending a LOT of dates per week to any given place for those kickbacks to materialize.

A third idea might be to take the community of active daters you have created and host paid events periodically. For example, for users who enjoy nightlife, you could have a blowout bash with a cover charge. For users who enjoy classic movies, you could have a wine tasting and a screening of a classic movie.

I'm sure there are better ideas out there for paid events, but you get the idea.

christonog
You could monetize by creating "packages" that those setting up the date could buy, straight from the site. You could also set up deals with venues and restaurants for sponsored dates.
bmr
The chicken and egg problem is alleviated by the model. We needn't supply each user with a huge pool of profiles from which to choose - we only need to supply each user with ONE other person also willing to go on that date.

In theory, the site could function with just two users.

tristian
Hmmm. I don't think that a completely profile-less site would work. Users would be too worried about meeting a weirdo, someone they found deeply unattractive, or someone with highly different creed. Er, think of a strongly Christian person "dating" a staunch Atheist. Users would want at least some way of weeding out dates that would be time-wasters.

But if the profile and the date were intermingled somehow, then yeah, that might work.

cousin_it
Really good idea, but I'd be afraid of seeing nine other guys show up, so better replace "first come first served" with something else.
roundsquare
My guess is that "first come first served" has 2 queues, one for each gender...

Edit: For heterosexual dates in any event.

roundsquare
I think its a really neat idea, but I think there is a security fear. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that with other websites, people generally get to know someone via email, IMs, etc... before going on a date so they can be relatively sure that the person won't be violent, etc... I don't see a good way to do any such screening of people (either by the website or by the other users) before they meet.
dsplittgerber
If I were dating, why would I potentially waste hours with getting ready for a date and going on the actual date, if I had no clue whatsoever who was going to come and if I liked them at all to begin with?

I think there is a huge psychological barrier for people to go on such dates. The more 'successful' they are, the greater the opportunity costs with your model. You probably would have a self-selection mechanism that leads to weirdos etc coming.