Can WooMe rock the online dating industry?

WooMe is an exciting dating site. With investment from one of Skype´s founders WooMe aims to woo the dating industry. Frostfire spoke to their founder to learn a little more.

Where did your idea come from?

Stephen was hanging out with his 23 year old sister and her friends who were all complaining about how lame online dating sites were, but how much fun speed dating was. Stephen, who was looking at nascent in-browser voice and video technologies for British Telecom as its youngest VP, put two and two together and created a cutting edge speed introduction platform where people could have fun meeting others without the overhead of lengthy profiles or dating stigma.

 

What is your elevator pitch?

WooMe is an introduction platform where you can meet five people in five minutes in live video speed sessions.

There are no long forms or lengthy profile descriptions, simply find a session that interests you and meet 5 people in 5 minutes. Or, create your own sessions based on your interests - such as "Tech lovers in San Francisco." -Invite friends or strangers to play with you and immediately decide if you are woo'd by someone. WooMe's cutting edge in-browser video and voice capability delivers a live interactive experience.

 

How is your proposition different from competitors? Who do you see as your main competition?

1) it is a completely innovative user proposition based on topical speed sessions (vs profiles) that replicates the offline speed dating model (users meet five people in five minutes live)
2) leverages cutting edge in-browser voice and video technology, ie no client downloads or clunky user experience
3) users can create their own session topics and leverage viral tools to invite people

 

Why will you succeed?

We have a great team and a great idea.  The technology itself is cutting edge with over 15,000 man hours of optimization that has gone into it.

WooMe takes social networking, online dating and online gaming into new territory bridging the gap between offline and online worlds.

 

What are your biggest successes so far?

User side - have had over 1000 speed sessions with over 30,000 introductions made within those sessions. of the 30,000 people who have met, over 7000 have mutaully "woo'd" each other (both said they connect with other person).

Technology side - in-browser communication aspects optimized to point that is better than skype quality (to point where Skype founders have invested)

How will/do you make money?

In a session, if both parties select "I was woo'd" vs "no thanks" it is a successful woo and they have the opportunity to pay $1 for the person's contact info.

How do you market your site?

Social media, facebook, PR, targeted campus campaigns, sem.

 

Have you received funding? If so, how much and from whom?

$2m from Nikkalas Zennstrom (Skype founder), Klaus Hommels (Venture Partner at Benchmark) and Mangrove Capital

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