6 ms·

The problem is, founders tend to try to solve problems they've experienced and understand. For the twenty-somethings that are the public face of "startup founde

by beat 11y ago

The problem is, founders tend to try to solve problems they've experienced and understand. For the twenty-somethings that are the public face of "startup founders", they may not understand international trade or enterprise health care or other big problems, but they understand dating. So they write dating apps. And then, by the time they've acquired enough real-world professional experience to actually understand some interesting and high-value problems, they have a mortgage and kids and don't want to eat ramen like they did when they were 22.

balls187 11y ago
As someone working on International Trade, I will say Dating is an interesting and big problem. Partly caused by the rise of online dating, but also because The world is moving in one direction, and effective dating is still stuck in the old way of doing things.
- beat 11y ago
  The problem is, the only part of dating that can be obviously optimized is meeting new people - increasing the size of the pool, and increasing the quality of the pool (and in the case of Tinder, increasing the accessibility of the pool by optimizing the mobile experience). I've been married for 22 years, and introduced couples who wound up getting married themselves. Relationship chemistry is difficult and tricky business. Large parts aren't quantifiable. For my own marriage, it really boils down to my spouse keeps me stable, and I make her take risks. We're better people together than we are individually. That's not something you can solve with an app.
ci5er 11y ago
> they have a mortgage and kids and don't want to eat ramen like they did when they were 22. Not only that, it's very tiring being an old fart and being told that you don't "get it" by a 27 year old VC who does want to fund an app. Maybe even a dating app. OR being told you don't "get it" by a young Stanford grad that really thinks it would be cool to rebuild an entire 3M patient record data set in MongoDB and access it with something written in Javascript on NodeJS. Fun times.
- beat 11y ago
  I remember some years ago, talking with a couple of experienced co-workers about a young and frustrated manager we worked with. He was very talented, but also hotheaded. Someone suggested that what he needed was a good death march... without the experience of being expected to do something actually impossible, he just didn't know why we would all drag our feet on things so much. He's since had a failed startup, which I hope tempered him some. So very talented, but not sufficiently scared.
rcarrigan87 11y ago
Despite the echo-chamber of SV and tech media, most successful founders are older, with real world industry experience.[0] This data probably doesn't reflect the insane number of 20 somethings chasing ideas in markets like the dating space right now. Most of them fail. I work in the senior care market and I'm shocked there aren't more businesses being started around that market. It's absolutely huge with endless opportunity. But I guess that kind of proves your point... [0]https://hbr.org/2014/04/how-old-are-silicon-valleys-top-founders-heres-the-data/ https://hbr.org/2014/04/how-old-are-silicon-valleys-top-foun...
- bliti 11y ago
  I'll gladly chat about that market over email. It's always interesting to learn about such things. Where should I email you?
- balls187 11y ago
  > This data probably doesn't reflect the insane number of 20 somethings chasing ideas in markets like the dating space right now. Most of them fail. Without being ageist, I think that you see a disproportionate number of younger founders simply because their current situation better allows for taking risks. When you have a family and are are responsible for at least 1/2 the household income, that choice becomes a lot harder. My theory is that age is only a proxy for success, given that most businesses fail because they run out of money. Older founders may have access to larger war chests than younger founders.
  - cookiecaper 11y ago
    Older founders' main contribution is a larger war chest of experience to draw from, even if they also have larger personal networks and some personal savings to make them less dependent on the seed-stage investor. I personally believe that if investors were more willing to make the startup calculation reasonable for stable adults, we'd have far better results at the macro level. 20-somethings are cool, but they are still very young and very naive. It seems most non-tech industries have already internalized that. Tech will eventually mature into that realization as technically-adept generations age.
tomphoolery 11y ago
Most dating sites also end up being a very one-sided battle. That is, most of the women are sitting around waiting to get a torrent of messages and most of the men are sending messages to basically every girl that they see. They play the numbers game, and it's all about how big of a net you can cast. I don't foresee any dating site being more successful than the current heavyweights until they can get rid of "fishing" so women aren't unmotivated to go on the site and men aren't wasting their time sending the same message to 1,000 different people.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- beat 11y ago
  And at that point, they're competing not against automation, but the very human process of "Wouldn't those two make a cute couple?" I like setting up my friends. Lots of people do. I've had some success at it, too (a couple of marriages, even). And I suspect, although I have no evidence, that friend-driven setups and blind dates are more likely to succeed than dating sites are. fwiw, Grindr got around that particular problem by focusing on gay men. But that's a large niche, really. Beyond the problem of men drowning women in messages, there's a question of the quality of those messages. The crap I see my female friends get online from dating sites is appalling. So many men have no idea how to approach women and make themselves appear attractive - and many of them have no idea just how much competition there is. Meanwhile, women have to plow through dozens of dick pics, hoping to maybe find one guy worth talking to. Their odds aren't any better, but for different reasons. Sigh.
  - klipt 11y ago
    Well I wish I had a friend who tried to set me up. Instead I spent about 6 frustrating years getting nowhere with online dating, then eventually lucked out with the right girl, and only now do I get the 'cute couple' comments.
  - Kalium 11y ago
    Hi. I am a male. I have seen how abysmally low the typical message quality a woman receives is. I learned from it. Sad to say, what I learned is that given the sheer quantity of low-quality messages, investing in message quality is a poor decision. The quality may be significantly higher and there may be an elevated chance of a response... but the odds of the message being read at all are quite slim. The chance of an unread message getting a response is, obviously, zero.
zeeshanm 11y ago
It may be true, generally speaking. I am 25, have mortgage, and am not working on a dating app. Although, I did give an SMS-based dating service a shot for a day and then put it aside.

by beat 11y ago

balls187 11y ago

As someone working on International Trade, I will say Dating is an interesting and big problem. Partly caused by the rise of online dating, but also because The world is moving in one direction, and effective dating is still stuck in the old way of doing things.

beat 11y ago
The problem is, the only part of dating that can be obviously optimized is meeting new people - increasing the size of the pool, and increasing the quality of the pool (and in the case of Tinder, increasing the accessibility of the pool by optimizing the mobile experience). I've been married for 22 years, and introduced couples who wound up getting married themselves. Relationship chemistry is difficult and tricky business. Large parts aren't quantifiable. For my own marriage, it really boils down to my spouse keeps me stable, and I make her take risks. We're better people together than we are individually. That's not something you can solve with an app.

ci5er 11y ago

> they have a mortgage and kids and don't want to eat ramen like they did when they were 22. Not only that, it's very tiring being an old fart and being told that you don't "get it" by a 27 year old VC who does want to fund an app. Maybe even a dating app. OR being told you don't "get it" by a young Stanford grad that really thinks it would be cool to rebuild an entire 3M patient record data set in MongoDB and access it with something written in Javascript on NodeJS. Fun times.

beat 11y ago
I remember some years ago, talking with a couple of experienced co-workers about a young and frustrated manager we worked with. He was very talented, but also hotheaded. Someone suggested that what he needed was a good death march... without the experience of being expected to do something actually impossible, he just didn't know why we would all drag our feet on things so much. He's since had a failed startup, which I hope tempered him some. So very talented, but not sufficiently scared.

rcarrigan87 11y ago

Despite the echo-chamber of SV and tech media, most successful founders are older, with real world industry experience.[0] This data probably doesn't reflect the insane number of 20 somethings chasing ideas in markets like the dating space right now. Most of them fail. I work in the senior care market and I'm shocked there aren't more businesses being started around that market. It's absolutely huge with endless opportunity. But I guess that kind of proves your point... [0]https://hbr.org/2014/04/how-old-are-silicon-valleys-top-founders-heres-the-data/ https://hbr.org/2014/04/how-old-are-silicon-valleys-top-foun...

bliti 11y ago
I'll gladly chat about that market over email. It's always interesting to learn about such things. Where should I email you?
balls187 11y ago
> This data probably doesn't reflect the insane number of 20 somethings chasing ideas in markets like the dating space right now. Most of them fail. Without being ageist, I think that you see a disproportionate number of younger founders simply because their current situation better allows for taking risks. When you have a family and are are responsible for at least 1/2 the household income, that choice becomes a lot harder. My theory is that age is only a proxy for success, given that most businesses fail because they run out of money. Older founders may have access to larger war chests than younger founders.
- cookiecaper 11y ago
  Older founders' main contribution is a larger war chest of experience to draw from, even if they also have larger personal networks and some personal savings to make them less dependent on the seed-stage investor. I personally believe that if investors were more willing to make the startup calculation reasonable for stable adults, we'd have far better results at the macro level. 20-somethings are cool, but they are still very young and very naive. It seems most non-tech industries have already internalized that. Tech will eventually mature into that realization as technically-adept generations age.

tomphoolery 11y ago

Most dating sites also end up being a very one-sided battle. That is, most of the women are sitting around waiting to get a torrent of messages and most of the men are sending messages to basically every girl that they see. They play the numbers game, and it's all about how big of a net you can cast. I don't foresee any dating site being more successful than the current heavyweights until they can get rid of "fishing" so women aren't unmotivated to go on the site and men aren't wasting their time sending the same message to 1,000 different people.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
beat 11y ago
And at that point, they're competing not against automation, but the very human process of "Wouldn't those two make a cute couple?" I like setting up my friends. Lots of people do. I've had some success at it, too (a couple of marriages, even). And I suspect, although I have no evidence, that friend-driven setups and blind dates are more likely to succeed than dating sites are. fwiw, Grindr got around that particular problem by focusing on gay men. But that's a large niche, really. Beyond the problem of men drowning women in messages, there's a question of the quality of those messages. The crap I see my female friends get online from dating sites is appalling. So many men have no idea how to approach women and make themselves appear attractive - and many of them have no idea just how much competition there is. Meanwhile, women have to plow through dozens of dick pics, hoping to maybe find one guy worth talking to. Their odds aren't any better, but for different reasons. Sigh.
- klipt 11y ago
  Well I wish I had a friend who tried to set me up. Instead I spent about 6 frustrating years getting nowhere with online dating, then eventually lucked out with the right girl, and only now do I get the 'cute couple' comments.
- Kalium 11y ago
  Hi. I am a male. I have seen how abysmally low the typical message quality a woman receives is. I learned from it. Sad to say, what I learned is that given the sheer quantity of low-quality messages, investing in message quality is a poor decision. The quality may be significantly higher and there may be an elevated chance of a response... but the odds of the message being read at all are quite slim. The chance of an unread message getting a response is, obviously, zero.

zeeshanm 11y ago

It may be true, generally speaking. I am 25, have mortgage, and am not working on a dating app. Although, I did give an SMS-based dating service a shot for a day and then put it aside.