Raising Money From Eighty Investors and Steering to a Successful Exit: Ludovic Huraux, CEO of Attractive World (Part 2)

Ludovic Huraux: Because the concept was very different, we had a lot of journalists who wrote about how attractive we are. There were a lot of bloggers who covered us. We got traction very quickly in France. A lot of our users organized events. I raised money. The first round was €500,000 with private investors. Then I made another mistake because I tried to outsource the website to Indonesia.

This was the biggest mistake I ever made because it was our core business. I had a lot of issues with the new website. That was during the crisis. It was at the end of 2008. The company almost died at the end of 2008 because we were very short in cash. The new website couldn’t be released, so we didn’t make any revenue. Fortunately, I had the chance to meet our current CTO. He saved the company. He told me, “In the next six months, I’m going to do my best to rework the website and make sure that we have something that works.” We did it and I raised more money with private investors.

The concept of Attractive World is that you accept only 35% of people. We spend marketing money and we accept only 35. It means that the acquisition cost is quite large. We decided to put a higher price on the subscription at €60 for one month. As soon as we started with the subscription model, we had very good conversion rates and a lot of very active users.

People paying more than they would on a typical dating website. I said, “Now we know that people are able to pay €60.” It was at the end of 2010 when the company was still very small. I insisted on doing a TV advertisement. I was sure that we needed to advertise on TV because we needed to build a very strong brand. In a business, the brand is very important. I raised more money with private investors. The brand awareness went from 8% to 91% in France three years later.

Sramana Mitra: You said you were very selective about whom you accept.

Ludovic Huraux: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: What were you looking for? What is the selection criteria?

Ludovic Huraux: We didn’t decide. The members of Attractive World decide on the new members. It’s a longer sign-up than the other websites. You have a 15-minute sign up where you have to introduce yourself including occupation, the books you like to read, and places you’d like to go. Based on this profile, people select the new member. Men select the women. Women select the men.

Sramana Mitra: Is it fair to say that you have a much longer questionnaire that people need to fill out in the process of getting into this community? If they don’t fill that out, you don’t accept them.

Ludovic Huraux: Exactly. It’s not the website that decides. It’s the members of the website. The idea behind that was to create a trusted environment.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Raising Money From Eighty Investors and Steering to a Successful Exit: Ludovic Huraux, CEO of Attractive World
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