OPW INTERVIEW - Mar 8 - I like the name, SetForMarriage.com. Its a matrimonials site essentially. One step more serious than eHarmony, but without the personality test. The man behind the site is Bradley Boyd. - Mark Brooks
What is your background?
Actually I’m a student at the University of Houston. My degree is in Business Management and this is my first entrepreneurship role.
What drew you to start a dating site?
I have several friends who’ve been on eHarmony, Match.com, PlentyofFish.com and some of the other big dating sites. My buddies are ready to settle down and get married but they kept meeting people on these sites who were just casual online daters. They didn’t feel like those mega sites worked for them. So I wanted to provide a viable alternative for them.
Would you say you’re more marriage minded and serious than the likes of eHarmony in terms of positioning?
I think I would. I don’t think eHarmony uses the word marriage in their marketing. What I’ve noticed they use “find your life partner”. In our marketing campaign we go after the marriage minded people, people who are not afraid to say: “I’m ready to get married, not just find a life partner.”
What would be the difference between marriage and life partner?
I’d say marriage is going through the matrimony, through the ceremony of being married to someone compared to having a life partner. eHarmony matches you up with somebody perfectly but leaves the door open.
I’ve looked over the site and there is no personality profiling. Why is that? Would you like to have a personality profile or do you not believe in it?
We left out the personality profile on purpose. We give the power back to people. I don’t think a computer algorithm should tell somebody who their perfect person is. Let nature run its course and if you find somebody in your area or anywhere in the US on our site that you feel may be a potential marriage partner for you, by all means, we leave it up to you to decide.
When was the launch date?
August 31, 2009
What do you have in the way of investment? Who else is on the team?
The investment to the site is out of my own pocket. I self funded it and I only have a developer who is developing the site.
Are you interested in raising funding?
I’m definitely interested in that.
How many members do you have so far?
We have 1,500 members currently.
How many paying members you have?
6 or 7.
How are you driving new users to the site?
Currently we’re advertising on Facebook. We’re driving new users by email marketing campaigns from a company called Ad Knowledge. The biggest deal for us getting new users is me doing interviews on local TV around the country.
You are getting a fair amount of press, I noticed. What are the biggest interviews you’ve done so far?
The biggest interview besides your site has been probably Greenville, South Carolina, Colorado Springs, Charleston, South Carolina and here in Houston. Houston is probably the biggest markets we’ve hit.
Why $15 a month?
I chose that price because in our economy not everybody has a lot of money to keep throwing to online dating sites.
What are your goals for the site, say for December 2010?
As far as the number of members, I would love to hit around 20,000 by the end of the year. Then we would like to continue with the development, refine the site and clean it up a little bit.
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