I went to a bookstore today and I was just browsing through the management books section, while I came across one book that recorded the meteoric rise of the some of the world’s best entrepreneurs. It was an interesting read, though I just skimmed through, except ONE CHAPTER, ONE ENTREPRENEUR.
Of course, I work in the dating niche and anything related to it attracts me like bear to honey. The name of the entrepreneur was Darren Richards, the CEO and founder of DatingDirect.com, the UK’s largest internet dating site. You must have heard about him, haven’t you?
Okay, he was into some import-export business where he imported cheap goods from Japan and sold it in UK. That did eked him a living but when he is still 33 and single (just out of a long term relationship), his focus was not on building his business but on getting himself a girlfriend.
He never even thought he would sire the UK’s best internet dating site till that point. He just wanted to try the online dating thingy to find him a girlfriend and realized how starved a niche it was. No online dating site for UK members, huh! Most sites were in America and none of them seemed to take the idea of a serious relationship starting from an online dating site seriously.
And there’s the man of action. He decided that there are many who are searching the internet for a serious date. What if he could provide for a site that can cater to these people…well that was just a theory. He started on with some petty market research, holding public polls, asking friends and relatives. After favorable feedbacks, he put on a simplistic website with the help of some basic software and manuals. It was not that great, according to him but it was getting a lot of hits.
He approached some web developers, but in vain. But at last, he got one quality website up for about £2,500 in the year 1999. And lo! Within three months, the site had got 40000 members, the idea which was initially doubted on its merit.
Still he needed to monetize it. Barclaycard didn’t approve of it, dating as a high-risk area similar to pornography and gambling. So, he went to the man in charge of the applications and gave him a demo. Well, after much convincing, he got approved and that changed everything.
Now, a member has to pay £15 a month to be able to contact another member. That is, you have to subscribe. At present, there are 800,000 members, one third of them are subscribed members. It is now worth in millions, a turnover of around eight million per year that only increased steeply over the last couple of years.
The once idea-kid, as his friends call him for coming up with an idea every day, Darren, after leaving school at 16, never thought of heading a company that was worth in millions. Who thought the little waiter or the holiday rep will be one of the biggest internet dating site entrepreneurs in the UK?
Moral of the story: If you have a winning idea, keep with it. It can change everything.
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You can reprint this post in your website or blog and link back to my home page, Modern Men's Online Dating Guide blog - Ron C.
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