Brian Schechter and Aaron Schildkrout thought they had found the main one.
Internet dating is a saturated market in which one behemoth – Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp – has staked out a near monopoly.
Schechter and Schildkrout had co-founded HowAboutWe, an 85-employee Br klyn dating startup. IAC had been their primary competition. And additionally they were planning to take it on.
The dating area, they discovered, was already spoken for – IAC counts heavyweights Match , OkCupid and Tinder among its portfolio. So HowAboutWe would offer one thing IAC don’t.
“IAC owns online dating sites,” Schechter told Fortune in January. “So what we’re wanting to do is develop a news business whoever single focus is love. And we think that’s the real method to beat IAC.”
It acquired Nerve , the very early Web magazine pioneer, and planned to perform a collection of web sites offering articles on sex and relationships. HowAboutWe didn’t only want to allow you to get a night out together – it wished to give you date tips and relationship advice, t .
In July, IAC bought nearly all of HowAboutWe for an amount that is undisclosed. It appeared no beating is place that is taking. HowAboutWe had amassed 2.3 million users between its singles and couples internet sites, however it became clear that with so competition that is much couldn’t develop fast enough.
For IAC, it had been just another day at the digital f d chain that is dating. HowAboutWe required an exit; IAC was the only one buying.
“It ended up being opportunistic,” said Sam Yagan, CEO of IAC’s dating unit, Match Group. “It was not like, ‘Oh my Jesus, we must have HowAboutWe.’ It was an attractive financial deal.”
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