Cheek landed on the New York Times cover by mailing one card.
Lori Cheek · The Truth About Patents: 'I Did Everything Right — It Hurt Me' · Dec 2, 2020 · at 11:37
Lori Cheek, founder of dating app Cheek'd, describes the unconventional grassroots marketing campaign that landed her startup early major media coverage.
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“I remember I sent a lone cheeked card, one of those cards I invented, and a black padded envelope to one of the editors of the New York Times. Three months later, we're on the cover of the style section of the New York Times, and it said moveovermatch.com. This is the next generation of online dating.”
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More from Lori Cheek
Cheek argues that securing patents and trademarks ultimately hurt her business.
“I did the trademark, the patent, the copywriting, everything to protect my idea. But in fact, all of that that I did, it went the opposite way. I think it ended up hurting me because this man is trying to get on my patent, which I don't even think is worth any…”
Cheek built an early database using discarded business cards found on streets.
“I'm probably going to get sued for saying this, but I used to pick up business cards off the street in New York city and add them to my database.”
Cheek says Shark Tank was worth the subsequent multi-million dollar lawsuits.
“If anyone had asked me if I would do this again, going back on that show, even with this one lesson learned, I think the answer is yes, because the result of what happened after that show has been truly amazing.”
Cheek says in-person encounters prevent the profile masking common on Tinder.
“Well, you know, on Tinder, you can be anybody you want to be, but when you see somebody in person, there's no masking that on a picture because you've already seen them in real life.”
A developer error cost Cheek'd $30,000 during its New York Times spike.
“That developer in London had that button ticked off that didn't save everyone's credit card. So we lost every single person's credit card from that push from the New York Times, which based on our average monthly user, that turned out to be about 30,000 dollar…”
Cheek funded the launch of Cheek'd using her personal retirement savings.
“I used my little piggy bank... This money that I'd saved was for retirement, it was for my future, but when I came up with this idea, I thought, you know, I'm gonna invest all this money into me, and this is gonna turn into billions.”