Comments for A Startup A Day http://astartupaday.com Each day I'll post an idea for a new Web 2.0 startup Mon, 30 Aug 2010 21:14:41 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ Comment on New Startup Case Study: DateLincoln.com by Glenn Shriner http://astartupaday.com/2007/03/17/new-startup-case-study-datelincolncom/#comment-4204 Glenn Shriner Mon, 30 Aug 2010 21:14:41 +0000 http://astartupaday.wordpress.com/2007/03/17/new-startup-case-study-datelincolncom/#comment-4204 Kevin your an excellent writer, Thank you for the new Ideas, I just emailed are local paper to see if I can get some new coverage on DateLincoln.com, and as for "A/B testing a new headline or trying to get some press from a real blogger," what do you mean by testing a new headline? and you are a real blogger. :P how do I get other blogger's to be interested in my story and website? any feed back would be great from Kevin and his readers. Thanks Kevin. Glenn Kevin your an excellent writer,
Thank you for the new Ideas, I just emailed are local paper to see if I can get some new coverage on DateLincoln.com, and as for “A/B testing a new headline or trying to get some press from a real blogger,”
what do you mean by testing a new headline? and you are a real blogger. :P
how do I get other blogger’s to be interested in my story and website?
any feed back would be great from Kevin and his readers.

Thanks Kevin.
Glenn

]]> Comment on About Kevin by celebrity fuck you http://astartupaday.com/about/#comment-4203 celebrity fuck you Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:38:04 +0000 #comment-4203 Sign: zdbrw Hello!!! nwnsf and 9830pgaaewczkk and 1980 : Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post! nice! I just came across your blog and wanted to say that Ive really enjoyed it. Sign: zdbrw Hello!!! nwnsf and 9830pgaaewczkk and 1980 : Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post! nice! I just came across your blog and wanted to say that Ive really enjoyed it.

]]> Comment on New Startup Case Study: DateLincoln.com by Kevin http://astartupaday.com/2007/03/17/new-startup-case-study-datelincolncom/#comment-4193 Kevin Thu, 05 Aug 2010 22:02:30 +0000 http://astartupaday.wordpress.com/2007/03/17/new-startup-case-study-datelincolncom/#comment-4193 Glenn!!! Holy crap it's great to hear from you again! First, congrats on getting the press, that was a nice write-up. But I gotta say, I'm really confused about the time, effort and money you spent fighting that battle against the sign dudes. Yeah, that sucked, but honestly I wish you had taken the time and energy spent with all that junk and instead used it to address the usability issues that the journalstar article pointed out. Even the time it took you to write up the story on my blog could have been spent A/B testing a new headline or trying to get some press from a real blogger instead of a hack like me! :) You asked for ideas on how to make it work, so here goes. First, you gotta solve the chicken-and-egg problem that all dating sites face. Since you're targeting singles in Lincoln, I would put on a series of live events at local bars or clubs targeting singles, maybe host a speed dating night or something. In addition, you can use this as a way to get feedback from some of your target users. Ask what's missing from online dating today, and try to fill those gaps. Second, try advertising on Facebook. You can run a targeted ad specifically for single people living in Lincoln, and run different ads for males vs. females. The ad can be simple, but it's gotta have some pics (be careful about posting real pics, make sure you have a user's explicit permission or they might be get real mad) And how are you going to pay for those ads? You have to change the business model. According to the article, you're not charging for the site, so I'm assuming you're going with ads. I don't know how many single people there are in Lincoln, but if the overall population is 250K, let's say that 50K are single and looking to date. Even if you get every single one of the 50,000 singles in Lincoln to visit your site once each month, and given a generous CPM of $10, you're looking at a maximum revenue of $500 per month! This model absolutely will not work for a local dating site with very little advertising budget. You have to charge a per-user subscription fee, or change it to datelincoln.org because running ads is basically a sign that you're doing this thing to help the needy singles of Lincoln, Nebraska. Hope this helps, look forward to hearing from you again in 2013. Glenn!!! Holy crap it’s great to hear from you again!

First, congrats on getting the press, that was a nice write-up. But I gotta say, I’m really confused about the time, effort and money you spent fighting that battle against the sign dudes. Yeah, that sucked, but honestly I wish you had taken the time and energy spent with all that junk and instead used it to address the usability issues that the journalstar article pointed out. Even the time it took you to write up the story on my blog could have been spent A/B testing a new headline or trying to get some press from a real blogger instead of a hack like me! :)

You asked for ideas on how to make it work, so here goes. First, you gotta solve the chicken-and-egg problem that all dating sites face. Since you’re targeting singles in Lincoln, I would put on a series of live events at local bars or clubs targeting singles, maybe host a speed dating night or something. In addition, you can use this as a way to get feedback from some of your target users. Ask what’s missing from online dating today, and try to fill those gaps.

Second, try advertising on Facebook. You can run a targeted ad specifically for single people living in Lincoln, and run different ads for males vs. females. The ad can be simple, but it’s gotta have some pics (be careful about posting real pics, make sure you have a user’s explicit permission or they might be get real mad)

And how are you going to pay for those ads? You have to change the business model. According to the article, you’re not charging for the site, so I’m assuming you’re going with ads. I don’t know how many single people there are in Lincoln, but if the overall population is 250K, let’s say that 50K are single and looking to date. Even if you get every single one of the 50,000 singles in Lincoln to visit your site once each month, and given a generous CPM of $10, you’re looking at a maximum revenue of $500 per month! This model absolutely will not work for a local dating site with very little advertising budget. You have to charge a per-user subscription fee, or change it to datelincoln.org because running ads is basically a sign that you’re doing this thing to help the needy singles of Lincoln, Nebraska.

Hope this helps, look forward to hearing from you again in 2013.

]]> Comment on New Startup Case Study: DateLincoln.com by Glenn Shriner http://astartupaday.com/2007/03/17/new-startup-case-study-datelincolncom/#comment-4192 Glenn Shriner Thu, 05 Aug 2010 20:05:44 +0000 http://astartupaday.wordpress.com/2007/03/17/new-startup-case-study-datelincolncom/#comment-4192 wow it's been three years! OK just a little update on DateLincoln.com. DateLincoln.com started out slow and was gradually growing in fact; the local newspaper did an article on us! But for all the wrong reasons! Let me explain why, The name DateLincoln.com was starting to spread like a virus and with that came a competor who started using the name LincolnDating.org they placed illegal signs threw out Lincoln and surrounding areas that read "SINGLE?" and under it read "LincolnDating.org" wow this blew my mind when I woke up to see the signs all over the place! At first I thought my buds went all out and spelled the name wrong doing it. so I started digging into this and the more I dug the more this became a problem for me. I found that by going to this website you were asked to fill out a form and they would call you back. And with that they asked for a huge sum of money to match you up. Now at that point in time people thought we were the same business. “Sigh…” so my first reaction was calling the mayor’s office and asking, what are they doing about the signs all over the place? The answer I got from them was, “we don’t know where they are coming from” So I decided to start pulling them up and throwing them away but they were back up faster then I or the city could take them down. There was no stopping this! So I decided to dig into this more and found out that a dating site called therightone.com was behind all this. So by now this big well known company had destroyed what I built up and there was no end in sight until I came up with a brilliant Idea! I thought hey why not go register the name with the State Of Nebraska and then they can no longer use LincolnDating as I own DateLincoln. So off to pay a few hundred dollars to try and save my little website from the domination of the big boys, the paper work was done the name was in the paper as a new business I was feeling good about this, until my phone rang, guess who? The Better Business Burial. They called to remind me that my business is doing well and that I need to make sure I have the proper paper work in place for taxes and what not and to remind me the dating signs we are putting out are illegal, and they have had some reports on them. So I paused for a minute and thought so they think they just cracked the case of the single sign bandits? I went on to explain how they got the wrong guy and I just registered the name to stop therightone from using it. And to be honest DateLincoln.com was no more than a registered domain name and business name and told them who was behind it all. So now with my name cleared with the BBB, I get another call, A reporter with the journalstar.com wanting to know about the signs and my dating site, so I went on to explain again this is not me and told them who was behind it all and they helped clear the air waves but the damage was done, and to finally get them to stop using the name I had to threaten them with a lawsuit for name infringement, I like to think that is what stopped the madness but the truth is, they prob got bored with me . Anyways here is a link to the story from our local paper. http://journalstar.com/entertainment/article_b3ca1ff5-0125-52c2-bc8e-2009e8edd0b5.html This took a while to blow over and now a few years have passed and I am back with the same question, how am I going to make this work? wow it’s been three years! OK just a little update on DateLincoln.com.
DateLincoln.com started out slow and was gradually growing in fact; the local newspaper did an article on us! But for all the wrong reasons! Let me explain why, The name DateLincoln.com was starting to spread like a virus and with that came a competor who started using the name LincolnDating.org they placed illegal signs threw out Lincoln and surrounding areas that read “SINGLE?” and under it read “LincolnDating.org” wow this blew my mind when I woke up to see the signs all over the place! At first I thought my buds went all out and spelled the name wrong doing it. so I started digging into this and the more I dug the more this became a problem for me. I found that by going to this website you were asked to fill out a form and they would call you back. And with that they asked for a huge sum of money to match you up. Now at that point in time people thought we were the same business. “Sigh…” so my first reaction was calling the mayor’s office and asking, what are they doing about the signs all over the place? The answer I got from them was, “we don’t know where they are coming from” So I decided to start pulling them up and throwing them away but they were back up faster then I or the city could take them down. There was no stopping this! So I decided to dig into this more and found out that a dating site called therightone.com was behind all this. So by now this big well known company had destroyed what I built up and there was no end in sight until I came up with a brilliant Idea! I thought hey why not go register the name with the State Of Nebraska and then they can no longer use LincolnDating as I own DateLincoln. So off to pay a few hundred dollars to try and save my little website from the domination of the big boys, the paper work was done the name was in the paper as a new business I was feeling good about this, until my phone rang, guess who? The Better Business Burial. They called to remind me that my business is doing well and that I need to make sure I have the proper paper work in place for taxes and what not and to remind me the dating signs we are putting out are illegal, and they have had some reports on them. So I paused for a minute and thought so they think they just cracked the case of the single sign bandits? I went on to explain how they got the wrong guy and I just registered the name to stop therightone from using it. And to be honest DateLincoln.com was no more than a registered domain name and business name and told them who was behind it all.
So now with my name cleared with the BBB, I get another call, A reporter with the journalstar.com wanting to know about the signs and my dating site, so I went on to explain again this is not me and told them who was behind it all and they helped clear the air waves but the damage was done, and to finally get them to stop using the name I had to threaten them with a lawsuit for name infringement, I like to think that is what stopped the madness but the truth is, they prob got bored with me . Anyways here is a link to the story from our local paper. http://journalstar.com/entertainment/article_b3ca1ff5-0125-52c2-bc8e-2009e8edd0b5.html
This took a while to blow over and now a few years have passed and I am back with the same question, how am I going to make this work?

]]> Comment on Startup #83 – True Wireless Networks by Svavar http://astartupaday.com/2007/08/20/startup-83-true-wireless-networks/#comment-4123 Svavar Wed, 21 Apr 2010 20:08:00 +0000 http://astartupaday.wordpress.com/2007/08/20/startup-83-true-wireless-networks/#comment-4123 Some Palm phones also have this feature. I wouldn't be surprised if this caught on in a big way. Some Palm phones also have this feature. I wouldn’t be surprised if this caught on in a big way.

]]> Comment on Five More Ideas for Startup Weekend by Amy Obreiter http://astartupaday.com/2010/03/18/five-more-ideas-for-startup-weekend/#comment-4117 Amy Obreiter Tue, 13 Apr 2010 18:10:19 +0000 http://astartupaday.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/five-more-ideas-for-startup-weekend/#comment-4117 I think your Thumb wars App would be super successfull, and I would know since I am part of the super cell phone generation... Also I tried raising Uncle Jessie, and I think it's pretty funny... Way to be Kevin! And yes... I sometimes peruse your website... I think your Thumb wars App would be super successfull, and I would know since I am part of the super cell phone generation… Also I tried raising Uncle Jessie, and I think it’s pretty funny… Way to be Kevin! And yes… I sometimes peruse your website…

]]> Comment on Five More Ideas for Startup Weekend by Bojan Babic http://astartupaday.com/2010/03/18/five-more-ideas-for-startup-weekend/#comment-4108 Bojan Babic Wed, 07 Apr 2010 21:24:00 +0000 http://astartupaday.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/five-more-ideas-for-startup-weekend/#comment-4108 I guess that I loved too much comics with multiple ending as a kid. If we go another level up, we can actually put Stamos' fate in hands of another player in another game, ie from manager role facebook app. That way we can leave decision making to actual person , instead of "straight forward algorithm" ... maybe it could be social gaming revolution! I guess that I loved too much comics with multiple ending as a kid. If we go another level up, we can actually put Stamos’ fate in hands of another player in another game, ie from manager role facebook app. That way we can leave decision making to actual person , instead of “straight forward algorithm” … maybe it could be social gaming revolution!

]]> Comment on Five More Ideas for Startup Weekend by astartupaday http://astartupaday.com/2010/03/18/five-more-ideas-for-startup-weekend/#comment-4107 astartupaday Wed, 07 Apr 2010 16:41:18 +0000 http://astartupaday.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/five-more-ideas-for-startup-weekend/#comment-4107 Bojan - good call! We're actually working that into the game a bit. You have to make decisions on which items to give your Stamos and depending on the choices you make, you get different outcomes. Bojan – good call! We’re actually working that into the game a bit. You have to make decisions on which items to give your Stamos and depending on the choices you make, you get different outcomes.

]]> Comment on Five More Ideas for Startup Weekend by Bojan Babic http://astartupaday.com/2010/03/18/five-more-ideas-for-startup-weekend/#comment-4106 Bojan Babic Wed, 07 Apr 2010 14:30:29 +0000 http://astartupaday.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/five-more-ideas-for-startup-weekend/#comment-4106 Also agree that last idea is the best. I think that you should leave room for multiple endings for John Stamos , depending on decisions play made during the game. ie, depending on player decision Stamos could end in gutter or as super-star. like in real life ;) Also agree that last idea is the best. I think that you should leave room for multiple endings for John Stamos , depending on decisions play made during the game. ie, depending on player decision Stamos could end in gutter or as super-star. like in real life ;)

]]> Comment on Five More Ideas for Startup Weekend by Ben Bachhuber http://astartupaday.com/2010/03/18/five-more-ideas-for-startup-weekend/#comment-4100 Ben Bachhuber Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:34:08 +0000 http://astartupaday.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/five-more-ideas-for-startup-weekend/#comment-4100 The last idea is definitely the best one. But i also like Thumb wars. The last idea is definitely the best one.

But i also like Thumb wars.

]]>