Founder/CEO at Crema Social
Timothy Chen Chen
3X entrepreneur with 2 exits, 2 time VC * Bonusme.com to Times of India * Intouch Health sold to Teladoc * Genesis Ventures, Shenzhen Valley Ventures * MIT alum
Questions & Answers
What's the story behind your company?
I'm 43. Was happily married for 7 years, then turbulence hit when we had kids. Ex wife's background is Greek American where she valued feelings and mine is Chinese where I valued languages and discipline. Problems became fights day/night. As a non 9-5 entrepreneur I was never good enough even though we had plenty of real estate, live in a small penthouse on Park Ave in NYC with plenty of liquid assets. We separated, she told me to date other people. I felt emasculated in my 40s. How am I ever going to date again with all these red flags? So I got on Instagram with a focus of finding a more traditional woman to be the love of my life. In Latam, most women live with the families until they get married. So I sent cold DMs asking: If I bought you lunch and send it to you via Rappi (Doordash of South America), would you hang out with me on a 30 min zoom. 6 out of 10 women said yes. Typical dating apps return 2%. I've been dating better than a 6'5 blue eyed guy in finance ever since.
What sets you apart from others in your industry?
All the dating apps make their money on memberships, where Hinge said it best: designed to be deleted. We keep our users on the app. Since we encourage people to date with other cultures around the world, distance lends itself to a new business model called gifting. Global gifting is the biggest industry in the world that is not consolidated. 1st world expectations are out of touch with reality. The standard is Nobu and Louis Vuitton. In developing countries, if you go to McDonalds or get an ice cream the other person is quite grateful. We have a continuous gifting model in our dating model. Starts with a delivery of lunch, then flowers, lunch again, possibly a small pendant gift, and prior to taking the chance of going onsite to meet someone great, a customer can get assurances by mutually agreed background checks, prepaid meals in public places, safety minded hotels, and insurance premiums to hedge against catfish/adverse events. Bringing offline spend online. That's powerful.
Why are you excited about your company/product?
500K+ users in a mere 8 months. 70% women which is a rarity for dating/social apps. Blended cost of acquistiion of users around 15 cents for non western countries. We already have 400K women on our platform. On traditional dating apps, an average woman gets liked at least 200 times per day. On our platform, if an average woman just accepts 4 lunches at $25 per month, she will generate $1K annual revenue. Our measly 400K women can easily generate $400M revenue just on a small amount of lunches. As we introduce goods like flowers, pendants, everyday necessities like diapers, groceries, the revenue model can significantly hockey stick. Teachers can ask for pencils for their classroom and parents chip in. Pharma reps can gift lunches to physician offices. Imagine 100M people providing lead generation and companionship (not all has to be dating related) and we scale this marketplace generating $1K in gifts/user. Goal of consolidating the global gifting market makes this journey incredible.
