A business idea for me and Dianne - Dating service?

[Travel Dude]

I had a dating site back in the 90’s – it did pretty well and I ended up selling it

But the Asian Dating site heyday is long over – I did some pretty serious research on it a few years ago and again this year. It’s a Dog, unless you want to put a minimum of 10K USD a month into google adwords you won’t make any money

Also its illegal in the Philippines to run so called “marriage tours or Marriage introductions� businesses now. Attracting attention of the authorities in the country where you live is a big no-no unless you have allot of money or influence


~James

James, you are correct, any guy can set up a romance website but to make REAL MONEY...you need lots of start up money to have a successful international romance site. About 10K for Google Aswords PLUS you would have to pay for a optimization service that can range From $5000 to $10,000 per year. If you don't do both....there will be very few customers. In the past, have taken the cheap route and did very poorly, money wise.

I know that everyone is saying that in the Phillippines "marriage-romance tours" are illegal but A foreign Affair runs tours.

http://www.aforeignaffair.com/tour/phil ... girls.html

[Contrarian Expatriate]

I think you would be better off providing a service that sponsors trips, personal introductions, and foreign living than a plain old dating site.

Your passion is helping men find peace abroad. You should have a service that provides the key to enjoying what you preach.

[starkeep]

if i had to start a dating agency like cblossoms i would make sure all prospects had no criminal record and were officially divorced. Most of the ones
i have been talking with are in fact legally married. So many people waste a lot of time and money and find out in the end that is the case. So that would make your agency different with background checks on marital status. The last one had 2 ids and legally married.

[Gene and Viol]

Dear all,

I've talked with Dianne about this and she seems interested in it.

Since she knows a lot of nice Filipina girls from her friends and acquaintances, I figured we could start a small dating agency like Blossoms and Cebuanas does, only of course, we will have a small pool of girls.

So we will have to bank on quality and trust. I have a reputation that people trust, both online, through my 100 percent Ebay feedback rating, positive comments on the hospitality sites, references, etc. and so people would trust my girlfriend too naturally. This way, people would know that they aren't going to get greedy scam girls that are going to ask for money, and instead a sincere legitimate one.

I can have the girls that Dianne knows fill out a profile sheet much like the ones used by dating sites, and then just type it out online. The clients would just pay a small fee to join and write as many girls as they want. However, these girls are not girls who just want anybody. They have their preferences in terms of race and age. Some of her friends for example, only like Asian guys, not white guys. So it would be more honest than those girls on Blossoms who say they want anyone between 20 and 80 who is nice.

What do you think of this idea? Is it a good one?

However, I heard that marriage agencies are illegal in the Philippines. So how would we get around that? Would we have to make it a friendship/penpal site like Friendster? How do Blossoms.com and Cebuanas.com get around it? I think those sites are based in the US, so could we just use a US address?

Also, what do you think we should charge for such a service?

Finally, if we had such a service, how many of you would be interested in signing up as clients?

Thanks,
Winston

Hi Winston,

Just saw your post here. Considering that I have not heard of any dating services here my thinking is there must be a good reason for it. Legality is the first thing that pops into my mind. You're right-the mail order bride thing cant be done from here.

My thinking on this is that due lack of full onderstanding of law on the part of the PNP, it could cause you a lot of problems. Mostly financial in that the PNP in your area might be at your doorstep trying to colletct protection fees as they do at the bars, clubs, and hotels. VERY EXPENSIVE!

If there is something in Philippine law that will not allow this, you could also have the NBI giving you more problems than can be handled.

The best bet is to get legal advice and also a visit with Harry The Horse there in Angeles might be in order. He has a wealth of information on most subjects.

Gene...