Review my dating & discovery startup...

[Josh]

Hey folks, getting ready to launch a group social discovery/dating website and wanted your input, suggestions, comments, etc. You can access a test beta of the site at the following address (yes, lot of fake profiles, etc just want to make sure things are smooth before a roll out to public):

http://www.planadrink.com/user

The basic premise of the site is to make meeting new people through the internet easier, more comfortable and fun. Currently, most socializing/dating websites focus on a one on one meeting which can be very uncomfortable. We think the best way to meet new people is in the company of your close friends. The vision we have incorporates your already established "social circle" in meeting new friends and potential dating partners online and in reality.

Our goal is to concentrate on making matches through real life group social activities. We we will be providing the medium of establishing new potential successful connections by offering a complete group social interaction and discovery experience.

Our website interface is simple and direct:

1. Sign-up and create a brief profile.

2. Add/Invite a maximum of 6 close friends to your circle that you normally socialize with.

3. Start meeting new circles in your area!


Mods: I posted this in Love & Relationships as well, but I figure I'll get a lot more opinions here. Can we delete the thread in the L&R forum? Thanks.

 

[jlee]

Essentially meetup.com but on a smaller scale?

 

[BoomerD]

http://forums.anandtech.com/forumdisplay.php?f=32

 

[Josh]

Essentially meetup.com but on a smaller scale?

Well, not really, because meetup.com is pretty much you (by yourself) meeting up with a group of strangers who are interested in a common subject. Plan A Drink is you + your close friends meeting up with another group of friends to socialize/potentially date.

 

[HNNstyle]

Looks cool but how will you make it work and how is it different from facebook? The main problem is how do you expect to attract people who are willing to log in more then once a day to check it out? How will you advertise? You should start small and not big, probably work with only 1 city first before you expend to others.

 

[Josh]

Looks cool but how will you make it work and how is it different from facebook? The main problem is how do you expect to attract people who are willing to log in more then once a day to check it out? How will you advertise? You should start small and not big, probably work with only 1 city first before you expend to others.

Thanks for the comments.

We are going to start small...rolling out slowly in New York City only to begin with. Plan A Drink is different from Facebook because Facebook is not about meeting new people but sharing things with your friends. Our site is totally about meeting new people (in real life) but in the company of your close friends (we only allow a maximum of 6 people to be in your "social circle"). We are trying to remove the hesitation and awkwardness that people feel when going on a one-on-one date or meet up with someone they met on the internet. Also, we believe it will be a much better time if you are with your friends - more comfortable, easier to talk to people, etc.

Attracting people to visit the site more than once a day, at least for now, will be somewhat tough as we do not have a large user base like OkCupid or PlentyofFish. However, down the road as we grow we are planning to implement various features that will hopefully draw people back to the site more frequently than once a day (in addition to having a larger user base to browse through).

As far as advertising, we are going to initially start advertising on Google AdWords, Facebook and hopefully a lot of word of mouth.

 

[HNNstyle]

How many users do you have right now? You should do the same thing that Facebook did to start up. Hit up your local colleges to see if you can get sorority support.

 

[vinylswing]

The color scheme of the site reminds me of meetup.com.
going to check it out.

 

[Lifted]

we only allow a maximum of 6 people to be in your "social circle"

I don't see how that could help people want to use your site. I go out with many different friends, some more often than others. If you're going to limit this social circle for whatever reason, you might as well ditch it.

 

[Josh]

How many users do you have right now? You should do the same thing that Facebook did to start up. Hit up your local colleges to see if you can get sorority support.

Haven't opened the site to anyone yet really besides close friends having them test out functionality, etc.

When we do open up (in like 2 weeks) we are going to try and get support from local college greek life, etc.

 

[Josh]

I don't see how that could help people want to use your site. I go out with many different friends, some more often than others. If you're going to limit this social circle for whatever reason, you might as well ditch it.

Well, the point is to go out with your closest friends not just ones you see every now and then. But, you are not limited to the amount of circles you can be a part of. For example, if you don't go out with "Bob" a lot but Bob is on the site you can be part of his circle but don't necessarily have to have him in yours. The friends in your circle would be the ones that you go out with "more often" - the ones you are most comfortable with.