Valdate deck
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
0 likes•1,065 views
Valdate is a new online dating platform that uses social validation from users' existing social networks on Facebook to authenticate profiles and introduce potential matches. This addresses flaws in traditional online dating sites where users invest time in total strangers who may be incentivized to lie. Valdate's value propositions include using social networks to "valdate" profiles and provide insights into users from third parties to weed out undesirable matches. The company plans to monetize through a tiered pricing model where users are charged less as they introduce more new users through their social validations, creating a positive feedback loop for growth.
Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (19)
Similar to Valdate deck
Similar to Valdate deck (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Valdate deck
- 2. Valdate: LinkedIn for Dating JOHN MATTHEWS, Co-Founder Education: USC (left Spring „07) Major(s): Business Administration Prior Work: Associate, Tech-Focused Investment Banking, Redwood Capital Development Experiece: Stanford CS184 – Startup Engineering, UC Berkeley 169.1x/169.2x – SaaS, Ruby/Rails coding curricula on Code School LIZZY PAULSON, Co-Founder Education: USC „07 Major(s): Visual Anthropology, Communications Work: Industrial Design, Corporate Branding, Public Relations & Outreach, Ethos Design and Time Warner Cable
- 3. Executive Summary 40mm online daters lack a trustworthy site – so we built it Valdate is the first online dating platform to use social validation and existing social network data to find and screen potential partners The existing model is fundamentally flawed It involves a time and emotional investment in total strangers who are incentivized to lie; that‟s silly Value Proposition to Users Valdate syncs with Facebook, allowing your social network to validate (“valdate”) your profile and share how great you are Value Proposition to Investors 1. Compelling and differentiated business model 2. Powerful network effects drive growth 3. Instant monetization with revenue at launch 4. Highly scalable with minimal cost infrastructure
- 4. Online Dating: Fundamentally Flawed 1. Ellison, Nicole, et. Al. “The Truth About Lying in Online Dating Profiles.” CHI 2007. Involves investing in strangers who are incentivized to lie 1 Spoiler alert: they do lie! 2 For women, can be a “deluge” of creeps” 3 An industry so flawed yet so successful is ripe for disruption 1
- 5. What‟s Missing? Social Validation Social validation to build trust is used ubiquitously online for commerce 1 Social validation is used universally offline for recommending dating partners 2 Validation Online for Transacting Validation Offline for Recommending Friends VOID = OPPORTUNITY Any time friends date among mutual friends 56.1% of married couples met one another through friends/coworkers (offline)1 3 1. Rosenfeld, Michael. “Meeting Online: The Rise of the Internet as a Social Intermediary.” Department of Sociology, Stanford University. January 10, 2010. No one has yet addressed this disconnect
- 6. The Valdate Solution All Profile Info has been “Valdated” by friends Social validation from friends gives third party insight, weeds out undesirable options Social connections shows how much you have in common / whom you know in common (incl. things you didn‟t know) Facebook sync offers dynamic privacy; only share profile with specific friends & networks
- 7. Incentivized Revenue Model Premium online dating sites such as Match.com charge $30/month, while others such as PlentyofFish are free Valdate pricing is a step function: o $30/month for premium access (mailbox, chat features), $15/month if three Valdations are made by new users, $0/month if five or more Valdations are made by new users invited to the site Each new user provides revenue growth, network effects growth, or a combination of both This then further drives revenue/user-base growth creating a positive feedback loop Users Valdates Data
- 8. Marketing Powerful Network Effects Marketing: Powerful Network Effects
- 9. Pricing $29.99/month $59.99/month free free $21.99 free Incentive ($29/$15/free) Users 15,000,000 20,000,000 30,000,000 45,000,000 N/A 2,000,000 N/A Social Integration Powerful Screening Tools “Undesirables” Prevention Mobile App Funding Status Acquired: $50mm (1999) Privately Held Acquired: $50mm (2009) Privately Held $19mm, Series B Large Series A in works1 Acquiring Seed Round Valdate Competition 1. Empson, Rip. “50M Matches Strong, Hot Mobile Dating App Tinder Is Ready To Go Global.” TechCrunch. May 24, 2013.
- 10. Financial Operating Leverage Minimal Development Costs Low Cost of Sales Minimal Sales & Marketing Absorbable Fixed Costs Cloud Hosting & Card Processing only Users Invite Others Ruby/Rails Platform Requires Few Developers; Compensation equity-based Content is User-Generated and/or imported from Facebook‟s Graph API
- 11. Summary Opportunity Fundamentally transforming how people find romantic partners Powerful Network Effects Revenue-generating, Positive Feedback Loop Web 2.0 Social Validation Minimal and highly-scalable cost infrastructure Void 1 2 3 4
Editor's Notes
- L: Hello, I’m Lizzy PaulsonJ: And I’m John MatthewsL: And we’re trying to fundamentally change how people find one another romantically. We call it Valdate.
- Before we get into how and why, a little on our team. I went to USC. I’ve been an M&A banker since ‘07, until this year when I’ve applied myself full-time to learning how to code and be a software engineer. And I’m Lizzy…
- So, just as a quick intro: 108mm single Americans out there lack a trustworthy platform to meet one another. So, we’re building it.We’re going after the $2b online dating industry, and it’s inherently flawed model, in a way that’s completely novel, and in a way no one’s taking advantage of. Moreover, we’re tackling it in a way that’s compellingly cheap and scalable.
- Here’s why online dating is inherently flawed. You have to trust strangers who are incentivized to lie. Spoiler alert! They do.Men exaggerate their income and height; women, their weight.And if you’re like me, and created a female profile to see what it was like, you’re mailbox wouldn’t accept new messages after day 4. Because it reached its limit of 450 messages. Mostly from creeps.So here we have this industry so successful it’s grown to $2b… despite the user-experience being awful for 54% of its constituents! We think that’s ripe for disruption.
- What’s interesting is that this ultra-successful industry hasn’t capitalized on something we do in every other facet of life offline, and even online: social validation.Social validation is what happens anytime you recommend an associate on LinkedIn, transact successfully on ebay, or endorse someone on AirBnb by saying “hey, I know Rick. He’d be a trustworthy renter and won’t wreck your condo.” Validation is trust-building. We do this offline all the time to when we recommend friends. That 56% of marries couples met through friends or coworkers is evidence of this. Yet no one’s doing this online.
- Here’s how: Valdate syncs with Facebook, importing your profile information and friends. Those are hard to fake. Moreover, your friends socially validate “or Valdate” just how great you are via mini-reviews. The more you get, the more attractive you appear. Further, because we’re linked with Facebook, we show you everything you have in common with that person. Friends, educations, hometowns, even friends of friends. Which if helpful because, if you share the same social circle as someone, it’s safe to say they’re prrrobably not an axe-murderer.
- J: It’s a beautiful business model too. Pricing starts at $30/month, the same as match.com, but if you bring in three friends to validate you it’s $15/month. If you bring in five or more, it’s free.So what’s so great here is that every new sign-up either generates revenue, or brings in multiple friends so that our user-base grows… or both!
- Growth is not only driven by people incentivized to shave costs, it’s driven by competition. People will naturally want to be valdated to look better to the opposite/or same sex. So they’ll ask their friends. Their friends will get pulled in and then ask THEIR friends. And if the average person has 6 valdations from friends, well, anything less will look sub-par. And because they want to out-compete everyone else for dating prospects, they’ll shoot for seven or more Valdates. Aside from us just being a better mousetrap, if financial incentives don’t drive growth (and they will), the human drive to compete will.
- (Lizzy slide)None of the major players in our space have integrated social and mobile options in the same way we have. And despite this, they’ve grown to become famous success stories. If these players have grown so big on such outdated, Web 1.0 business models, imagine Valdate’s potential.
- (John slide)From a financial POV, it’s SO EASY TO DEVELOP and SO CHEAP. Development-wise, most content is either imported from Facebook, or user generated. Our only costs of revenue are card-processing, and server bandwidth. Because we’re hosted in the Cloud by Amazon Web Services, we’re tremendously scalable. We’ll always take in more than we pay for hosting. And because users bring in one another, our sales and marketing costs are minimal too.
- J: So, if we could just leave you with a few thoughts, it’s this: Most startups just try to build a better mousetrap. We’ve done that. Most startups only think about user-base growth and not monetization. We’ve done both, and developed a compelling model for both. Aside from tremendous top-line growth, this is really, really cheap margin-wise. Because we’re cloud-hosted, we’re gross margin positive from Day 1, and EBITDA positive from Month 4. Lastly, we’re addressing something all of us drive towards as humans. This is not just a new dating site. This is fixing how people meet one another in 2013.Its mind-boggling that no one has seen the huge opportunity here, seen how cheap it is to fix it, and done so. Candidly, We wake up every day in fear that we’ll read TechCrunch, and someone obtained their Series A with this idea. Because it’s going to happen. So, please, help us be the ones to keep the internet safe for keepers, and not creepers. Nor axe-murderers.