This is an experiment in how to build a company. It’s my fourth start-up. The businesses change, but the process for building a successful consumer product stays the same.
How it works: in one sense the product doesn’t much matter. I begin with a thesis about a need in the marketplace. The thesis is presented to people I respect and described with absolute conviction. I present it with conviction because I’ve found that without the conviction, most people will discourage you from venturing into a new place. The outward conviction — even when I lack the certainty myself — elicits the response for which I’m looking.
And it usually goes like this: ‘that wouldn’t work, but if you modified it to be like this then I think it would work.’ From the feedback, I modify as I think makes sense and then present again with conviction to a new person. The process continues, until the presentation reflects the reality, in so much as I’ve come to possess certainty.
But certainty in what? It’s not certainty in the exact offering, because only a fool could be certain that his or her guess will hit the bullseye. It’s certainty of a direction. And only a general direction.
For MeetMoi, the certainty is in this: someone will build a 100 million member community for location based mobile dating. The paradigm for dating will be the opposite of what exists in the online PC-tethered world, in so much as the dating will be ‘push’ based, rather than pull. Here’s what I mean: in the traditional online dating site, a user queries: I’m a man looking for a woman between the ages of X and Y. The system returns a set of results.
In the mobile world, the experience will be: I’m available to date and I’m located on the corner of 8th and Broadway. Please send my profile to everyone who meets my criteria that’s close to me.
If my vision sounds specific in nature, in many ways it is. But from the thesis above, there are still a thousand permutations of the service that can be built. Let your mind wander for a second, and imagine all the different rules and circumstances that could apply to sending out profiles and chatting with someone over the phone.
So how do I come to the right answer on the right service from here?
Build the perfect Loop.
The Loop is the cycle between marketing; listening to what users say; modifying the product; and then marketing again. Technology companies have the opportunity to shrink the time frame for the loop like no other industry. Think for a minute how long a Loop would take to make for a manufacturer of automobiles or a manufacturer of jeans.
In 2007, just about anybody can find a partner with a userbase or buy a mailing for a relatively modest amount and drive people to a page. The question is not, ‘can you get people to come?’ Rather, it’s what will they do once they come. And how quickly can you learn what they like and don’t like? And when you learn what they like and don’t like, how quickly can you pivot to modify your offering?
MeetMoi is still in its earliest stages. We’re shortly to introduce pictures to accompany the text based profiles we’re sending out now.
My goal has always been to perfect the Loop. This time I’m going to try to build the Loop in public with the hope of shrinking the timeframe still further. Your comments are welcome. I’ll share feedback and features as we go.
