I'd just gotten divorced and went on the Internet to meet people," Pine, a member of the Garden River First Nation, a reserve of some 2,000 people in Ontario, Canada, recalls. "I went to the big sites like Match.com and met people there, but there was no native community," Pine said. And he wasn't into the bar scene, either, so he decided to expand his Internet portal e-tribe.ca and created Rezfox.com
And to his surprise, Rezfox.com took off. Today, he said, Rezfox.com is getting 15 million hits a month from all over North America, all by word of mouth, claims two "Rezfox marriages," and 15,000 registered users which includes Canadian actor Gary Farmer.
Recently, others like NativeAmericanPasssions.com, Snagaskin.com, and three-month old E-Snag.com have jumped into the Native American online dating business.
Online dating is big business
According to the Internet research firm, Jupiter Research, the online dating business is now a $500 million-a-year business, up from $313 million in 2002, and 26 million people go online each month to find a date. Giants like Match.com, eHarmony.com, and Love@AOL dominate the business, but experts say opportunities are abound serving niche communities.
Almost every single tribe in Canada and the U.S. is listed on the pull down menus at each of the sites. At Pine's site, nearly 50 percent of his registered users are from the U.S., with about 5,000 from the Southwest alone, he said. Interestingly, at both Rezfox.com and E-snag.com the primary users are the same: 60 percent female and 40 percent male.
Some sites are free and some charge a monthly fee for varying degrees of access. At Pine's Rezfox.com, the site is mostly free and supported by advertising. "But the paid component will have videos, instant messages, and other features," he said. "Basically, we're building the community then go after some advertising dollars."
"Right now the site doesn't make much money from access fees, but we've spent time ironing-out problems and are ready to really put it out there. We're slow and cautious in our development."
At E-snag.com, founders Dave and Linda Underwood, have both paid and free membership (see separate story). The paid membership is $19.95 per month. After three months, and word-of-mouth advertising, they claim membership of ,000. "We get about 25 new members a day," Dave Underwood said.
An e-mail response from NativeAmericanPassions.com said they charge no fee and wouldn't disclose their membership or their monthly hits.
"Passions Network consists of over 100+ individual online dating sites, and we are not monitoring hits per site within the network," read their e-mail.
NativeAmericanPassions.com started in July 2004.
There was no response from Snagaskin.com
Site built around Pine's beliefs
At Rezfox.com, Pine built his site around a few beliefs. The first is that he sees a movement in Indian Country towards some form of tribal nationalism. "In Canada, everyone gets classified. If you marry a non-native, the Feds here classify you as non-native," he said. "At the rate we're going, everyone will be non-native in 20 years. This is different from the 70s when everyone was trying to marry the blonde lady. Now, today, it's different. Everyone is trying to go back to the traditional stuff." His site's motto: "For Natives, by Natives."
The other is the name of the site. "I was in my office playing around with the Mac (Macintosh) when I told my friends we got to get into this online business," he said. "We started brainstorming some names and came up with "Rez." Everyone is from the Rez, here in Ontario it is called the Reserve, and down there in the states, they're called Reservations. So we came up with that. Then we said, 'Well, we're all foxes or we want to be considered one. So we went with that name. Next we looked to see if the domain name was available and it was."
Two weeks later, he said, they slightly modified a free dating software as they were all computer literate, and they were in business.
"We had so much traffic when we started that we had problems with our server," he said.
Pine said he wanted his site to have a professional, conservative look. "Some sites are too heavy on some slang, like 'snag'" he said. "They have too many feathers and pow-wow music. I am not opposed to that, we just wanted to look professional."
E-Snag owners spend 16-hour days online
David and Linda Underwood decided to get in on the online Native American dating business and started E-snag just three months ago from their Moreno Valley, California home, between Riverside and Palm Springs. They now work 16 hours a day, screen every member and claim 1,000 members.
"In just our short time being live online we are already hearing of matches made and weddings being talked about," Dave Underwood said, via e-mail. "People finding the kind of love they say makes them feel they have found the love they have been looking for all their lives is a great reward to us . . . and the emotional support to keep doing what we believe in."
Most of our members are busy people, single parents, or people who believe you aren't going to find the love of your life at a local bar. We created and want to keep E-Snag.com as a well-respected online dating site for Native Americans.
Describe your site: The best way to describe E-Snag.com is ask you to visit us at www.e-snag.com. You will find a clean, functional and well-organized site, although we are constantly making changes at the suggestions of our members. After all, it is their site and we want to do our best to give them what they want.
What are the fees? Current fees are $19.95 for a one month membership, $39.95 for a 3 month membership or only $69.95 for a 6 month membership. We often offer specials such as a Promo Code that can be entered to upgrade and save. Soon we will be offering "Ladies Day" or "Guys Night" specials.
Special discount for REZ BIZ magazine readers: For your REZ BIZ readers we'd like to offer them a Promo Code of ESPCRB to get a special discount just for them. All that has to be done is join E-Snag.com, select their Exclusive Member plan and enter the Promo Code to get their savings.
Start date: E-Snag.com started beta testing in July of 2005. Testing and changes were not completed until we launched January 1, 2006. Although we are still making changes as needed in our effort to make E-Snag.com the premiere Native dating site online.
Startup cost: It was more than expected, well into the thousands now.
Where did you get the capital? Every dollar has come from our personal bank account. We were lucky not to have to take out a loan, but have gone this far without a grant, sponsorship or gift. Although we are hoping at some point, we can get some help with costs. But for now, E-Snag.com and its current as well as future members are what drive us to keep working.
Operating expenses: Actual operating expensive such as site hosting, content updating and routine internet costs are not that expensive. Our major expense is in the man-hours it takes to server our members. E-Snag.com is monitored 16 hours a day, 7 days a week and we foresee a time in the near future where 24 hours a day monitoring will be required. It takes a lot of time to respond to all the e-mails we receive, to assist people technically (even with scanning, editing and uploading photos for them) and review every profile and photo submitted for proper content.
Estimated yearly revenues: Being a startup site of only 3 months, this is a difficult question to answer. Our projections based on our first 3 months is a net in the red. In other words, when we consider out investment and expenses against the membership fees, we expect to lose money the first couple of years. Not to worry, E-Snag.com is here to stay!
Did you write a business plan before starting? No one ever said I was a businessman. I have never taken a business class, so when it comes to writing a business plan it's written in my head. I see it, I feel it, and I act on it. For me it is how I do things, for the true businessperson, this doesn't work so well and I would not advise anyone to start without a business plan. In other words, do what I say and not what I do.
Did you seek help from the SBA or some other small business organization? No we didn't. My wife and I are both old school if you will. If we want it, we save for it and we pay for it. We would never have started E-Snag.com if we had to beg or borrow money. Its just not who we are.
Number of subscribers: Currently we have over 1,000 members that are more equally balanced than we expected, with approximately 60% female and 40% male. Of course as I stated before, this is ever changing. In fact, during this interview six new member's profiles have been reviewed and approved.
How many hits per month do you get? At this time, we do not have a hit counter on the site. It's not about how many people visit E-Snag.com as it is how many join. The bottom line is: you cannot expect to find someone if you don't look. Currently we approve over 25 new members every day and that number is growing fast.
Do you have any competition? Yes, there are many online dating websites, but we feel we are [not] competing with any of them. In fact, we are on good terms with one of our competitors as we realize each site offers something different and are targeted toward different people. So we often refer members to other sites if we feel it better suits what they are looking for.
How long did you plan the business before starting? The concept was in the talking and planning stage for many months, as we looked at what was already in place and considered what we wanted for our members. As I said before, it has taken a long time to get E-Snag.com towhere it is now.
What motivated you to start this company? This is the number one question asked. There are two reasons we started E-Snag.com. The main reason for E-Snag.com was due to the success story of my wife and I. I was recovering from the end of a 20-year marriage, Linda was doing the same after 18 years. All of our friends were married and neither of use was excited about getting back into the "dating scene" and figured we'd live out our lives alone. We both had friends and family suggesting online dating, but neither of us wanted to get involved with players or people who were not serious about life and love. Both of us would have rather stayed alone than try the "bar scene."
Interestingly enough, we both (obviously) signed up with the same online dating site. Long story short, I saw her profile and loved her smile, liked what I read, and sent her an e-mail that simply said "lovely smile." The rest is history, we are very happily married . . . and we want others to experience the same happiness. The other reason is in the 11 years we have been doing the Pow Wow Cruise, we have found that just about every cruise someone will ask "Dave, why don't you do a Native Singles Cruise?" We saw a need for a quality, upscale, safe and secure Native dating site and so we did it.
How did you come up with the name? Best I give you the Readers Digest version. Over the months you can imagine the number of names that we considered. Some we would never put in print. Seriously, the name had to convey what we were actually trying to do in a new and modern way. That is how the first part came to be . . . the "E-". One day I was reading an article on how the term "snag" was used in a traditional way, rather than how some might use it today. We talked it over with several friends, throwing ideas and comments out, one of those being a Native historian.
What makes your web site unique? I'd have to say the features we offer our members and the fact we are personally involved in every aspect of the site, from reviewing each and every photo and word printed in a profile to insure appropriate content.
How do you market your business? Something I learned years ago with the Pow Wow Cruise . . . "You build it and they will come" . . . We have a section on www.powwowcruise.com that is called "Smoke Signals". There people can share what they think and feel about the event. The best advertising is still word of mouth, especially in the Native community.
GET SURFIN'
RezFox
www.rezfox.com
Free & paid site
E-Snag
www.e-snag.com
Free & paid site
Snag-a-Skin
www.snagaskin.com
Paid site
Native American Passions
www.nativeamericanpassions.com
Paid site |
