The world has found it’s next Tinder knock-off, founded by three average-looking (at least they’re slim) but annoying-sounding Asian girls. While they seem to have some decent skills as far as computer engineering goes, their business skills are sorely lacking. They recently went on the entrepreneur show Shark Tank and turned down a (potential) thirty million dollar offer from Mark Cuban.
If you need a quick Shark Tank 101, here it is: inspiring entrepreneurs bring their product, service, or business to a panel of five “sharks”, all of whom are self made million/billionaires. They state what they’re looking for in an investment (in the case of Coffee Meets Bagel, they wanted $500,000 for a 5% stake in their business), and the sharks can choose to invest or walk away. Of course, they can counter offer to drastically different numbers.
You can watch the entire episode below. Break-down of the interaction by yours truly follows.
For starters, they make it abundantly clear that this is an app by women and designed by women. In reality, I have no problem with that. Online dating can be extremely overwhelming for girls as they receive mass messages from thirsty dudes, which I touched on briefly in my new book. The three girls had no issues with calling the majority of guys using online dating “creepy” and “disgusting”. Notice, too, how the billionaires have no problem throwing each other under the bus in agreement (3:12).
Let’s just debunk every line of bullshit they spewed about online dating.
3:40 – “Online dating has a bad stigma.” Sure, maybe for old people, but I’m going to wager a guess that their market isn’t 70 year olds. Their market is…people who have smartphones…who have no issue whatsoever with using a phone to date or fuck.
4:47 – “All users have to sign up with Facebook, propriety algorithim blah blah blah.” Yes, just like Tinder, Hinge, JSwipe, Skout, and numerous other dating apps.
5:23 – “We have several hundred thousand users…between 1 and 5.” Kinda hard to compare an app that mostly requires you to pay to get a decent amount of matches to Tinder, which is 100% free and has 22-24 million users (projected 50 million by end of year 2016). To hide this number and not be specific looks foolish.
6:30 – “Right now we take $100,000 salary, each.” Only a woman could phrase this and make it sound so much like a victim complaining.
7:20 – “We plan to bring on four million users next year.” Admittedly, this is nothing to scoff at. If I was getting four million hits a year on This Is Trouble, I’d be pretty damn happy. This statement in itself is only foolish because they turned down a (potential) thirty million dollar deal at the end of it.
9:10 – “Someone else could do this.” NO SHIT?!?! IT’S ALREADY BEEN DONE!
9:30 – “Women feel like a piece of meat in the meat locker.” Says the 65 year old…wyb?
10:00 – “If I offered you thirty million, would you take it?” Drum roll to 10:40…they say no. Because they think they can be as good as Match.com. Of course, they’re forgetting that Match was truly one of the pioneers of online dating. I wasn’t really at an age to be dating when I first saw commercials for it, but Match and eHarmony are the only sites that I still see in business today. In addition, from my extensive experience, Match.com is the only paid dating site that’s actually worth it. It’s foolish for these girls to think they’ll just skip merrily to the same user level as a company that’s been in business since 1993.
To an extent, they’re to be admired for sticking to their guns and holding on to their company. It’s their baby, their dream – and they didn’t want to sell out. But, this episode didn’t air in 2010. It aired January 9th, 2015! Tinder has already been out for two plus years, and clearly has the biggest foot in the door as far as dating apps go. It is absurd that this episode aired without a single mention of any other existing apps – just potential “thieves.”
To note, when I say “apps” I’m implying that they’re a bit more basic than OKCupid, POF, or Match.com.
“App” = limited to swiping and very, very basic information.
The three Asians also failed to account for the fact that this is catered to women, and women are far less likely to pay for dating than men. Sure, some of them will pay to weed out the “creepers” as they so nicely put it, but if these are attract, fit, single women – why can’t they snag a guy in real life? How many girls that live in this century are that desperate that they’ll pay for a virtual currency “coffee bean” to find love; especially when I can name a half-dozen cheaper and better options off the top of my head.
The other problem – ONE MATCH A DAY?! This is 2015! The attention span and patience of your average 25 year old is equivalent to a 5 year old in 1970. It’s all about NOW NOW NOW.
One match a day? Jesus, talk about waiting for Prince Charming to come along and sweep you off your feet. At this rate, these women will be 40 by the time they pull their head out of their ass with their one match a day theory.
It’s a bummer, too. They could’ve sat on $30 million while they waited for their Prince Charming. Instead, Coffee Meets Bagel will probably die an insignificant, slow death over the next couple of years, as the app marketplace gets flooded with dozens of better choices.
If you want to use a real dating site and get more than a match a day, check out OKCupid and the new book I just released about it.
Man, I fucked around on dating sites and may again in the future but I am way more successful IRL; keeps things more on my terms. Who needs an app that gives more into women’s entitlement?
If you get the system down pat, it can be pretty damn profitable as I demonstrated in my latest book.
That was painful. The whole idea that someone would even think about refusing a 30mil buyout (not that anybody would ever pay i) for such a company makes me sad.
Just take the money and start another competitor, idiot.
Indeed. Not only did they give off that entitled vibe, their business decisions were awful too.
I like the show and normally the “sharks” are pretty sharp but they were all ignorant on this one.
Which is weird, honestly. Online dating is not something obscure, and business people like them surely know the space. Probably played that way for show.
I don’t think it is, if you really think about it. Most of the guys are older and have been married for a long time, there’s really no reason they would have ever used an app like that.
The guys that are younger like Mark and Damon Jones both are so wildly successful and charismatic, I have no doubt women have been throwing themselves at them for years. When you have plenty of 8s, 9s, and 10s all lining up to spend time with you…why would they have ever tried to get laid online?