Quote Originally Posted by Footballpunter View Post
Interesting idea and I like how you are putting actions into your idea. Coming from the consultant side of things, here are some general questions I have.

How are you going to differential your site from dozens of other competing sites? Look at Christian Mingles for example, it's positioning itself as dating with faith. It might be bullshit, but it stands out. Do you have a strategy like that?

Which segment of the market are you really going after? General dating? Hook ups only? Finding WLs?

Will there be a payment processing capabilities? What about for the same between users? Can you let's say, take a "secured deposit" for a sugar babe as a trusted third party? Any legal risk/financial risk for offering this?

User data privacy is a major issue and it's more of an issue with dating site, how are you going to gain the trust of new users as a new player on the block? Think about what happen to ashley madison.

Is there an AI play in this? This is the hot topic for a lot of our own clients, people want to know how to use AI to increase productivity for their own business. It's also good for marketing, say we don't match you, but our AI does.

Just some random quick thoughts. Cheers.
many thanks for your opinions.

generally as a new player, yes I should be thinking about our Unique Selling Point (USP) to differentiate ourselves from existing ones. I did research on market share of other sugar dating sites in Australia to see who's dominating. Of course we all know Seeking, SDM, etc. However I could not find any statistics on their market share in Australia.

In books about startups, if an industry is dominated by 1 or 2 players (eg Google, Microsoft), then you'll have to enter as a niche player, differentiate yourself from them as it's impossible to compete with them head on.

If the market share is scattered, no 1 or 2 players are dominating the market, then I think I can have a crack at it. eg Look at electricians, cleaners, or brothels, massage parlours. They aren't much different from each other. New players can come in anytime and compete because no 1 or 2 are dominating the market.

I could not find out how much of market share Seeking, SDM, and other sites have so I could not conclude that they are dominating Australian market. And, also from my experience in punting, if I manage to get many beautiful girls in, then I'll have a chance.

My assumption is that we men will follow where young beautiful girls go. I could be wrong. But if I'm wrong and this site fails, I wouldn't have much to lose as it doesn't take us much time and lots of $ to build the site. And my budget on marketing and advertising is $0. I'll find "creative" ways to recruit girls at no cost.

Regarding segment of market: I'm hoping to find girls who are not asking too much for $$ but this is difficult because I can't just blatantly tell them that you should not ask for $X. Also because I want to use my own product LOL. I'm not fixed on any set of segments or business models yet because it's most likely that our business model and ideas will morph over time. My last startup launched and morphed many times after we learned what our users liked/disliked or used/ did not use. (we call it "agile" LOL)

Payment processing: we won't handle as middlemen for payment. Just a simple monthly subscription like other sites as we don't want to innovate on payments. Also, Airbnb did not handle payment for many years. In my last marketplace business, we built out a bunch of payment escrow system that no one used. I've learned that building escrow payment system early is not necessary.

Privacy is important: we plan to have some basic privacy features (eg private photos) that are easy to build.

AI: no plan for AI at the moment.