BEING PICKY

Every business needs to achieve critical mass to succeed, and that’ s especially true in the dating world since the bigger the customer pool, the more likely a match can be found. That’ s a big reason why it’ s far more difficult to sustain a dating service than it is to start one. Here are three tips from Dating Found. com co-CEO Karan Dhanju on how he and his team got the service off the ground.

PICK A NICHE Start ups are often strapped for resources, particularly time and money, so it’ s important to not try to be all things to all people. Dating Found. com chose Caucasian professionals, initially in the Greater Toronto Area .“You have to be really focused in order to make sure you don’ t run out of resources and at the same time you get the customers that you want,” Dhanju says .“If you goal lover the place, it’ s not going to work .”

PICK A CHANNEL DatingFound.com’s managers figured out they could only afford to focus on three marketing channels, and ultimately decided to focus primarily on Facebook, though they maintain a Twitter presence as well .“In the dating industry, especially for start ups, you can go really, really niche with Facebook advertising,” Dhanju says. It also provides a good place to interact with customers and Facebook’ s testing tools help save money in the long run .“With Facebook, you can get a better sense of how people are going to behave and overall you can make smarter decisions .”

PICK A MATCH DatingFound.com’s marketing efforts focus on the fact it doesn’ t have a search engine so it chooses the matches, and that user profiles are secured with HTTP S encryption .“Some of the people we have don’ t want to be seen as being on a dating site, ”Dhanju says .“The primary reason they joined us is because of the personalized service and the privacy .”