Anya Novik may as well be a super hero. She is the first person we’ve interviewed on Starting Stories that works a full-time day job, as a Senior Systems Analyst at viaPeople Inc. in addition to her entrepreneurial venture, Date Raters. And on top of that, she’s also the mother of a two-year-old! Even though she lives in Princeton, NJ, she agreed to meet up with us in the city for this interview.
Moudy originally met Anya at a Google open house several months ago and was really impressed by her multi-lingual computer programming skills. He was eager to learn how she built an online community with Date Raters, a website for people seeking feedback about their dating abilities. There’s no doubt that Anya can code with the best of them, as evidence by the fact that she made it through several interviews with Google, but what sets her apart from other programmers is her creative drive to call the shots and realize her own projects.
What is Date Raters?
Date Raters is an online community dedicated to helping people date better. So often you will go on a date and then never hear back from the other person. You never know what you did wrong and you’re left in the dark. We wanted to help people figure it out.
These days everything revolves around doing your best research. When we go on vacation, we research hotels. If we go to a restaurant, we go online and check the ratings. When we interview for jobs, we research the company. But, for dating, that kind of information wasn’t available. People take dating very seriously. They’ll pay a lot of money to join a dating site, so why not do a little bit of research to find out what your strengths and weaknesses are?
My partners are psychologists and they’ve developed this questionnaire that asks people to rate their dating partner on four different aspects: physical, intellectual, emotional and social. We don’t want the site to be negative; we actually want to help people. By structuring it this way, we found that people reveal more positive qualities that they noticed in their partner, even if they would describe the date as a disaster.
Where did you grow up? What’s your education background and how did that lead you to where you are?
I’m originally from the Ukraine and immigrated to Canada, where I grew up and went to the University of Toronto. When I started working, I found myself attracted to start-ups. Once you work for start-ups, you begin to think “wouldn’t it be great to make my own decisions and realize my own goals”. My partners, Amanda and Russell, and I all worked for a company that dealt with rating people on a professional level, which made us think of rating people on a social level.
Having a day job and running Date Raters must be really time consuming. How does this start-up affect your family life and your personal life?
I’m lucky enough that my family is very supportive. It stimulates a lot of conversations and we’re always talking about ideas. I was always the person with 100 things going on. Right now, I also have other web development projects going on. It’s time consuming and sometimes you don’t get enough time for your hobbies, but it is very rewarding.
How do you differentiate yourself from your competitors?
Well, we’re really not a dating site and we don’t promote ourselves as a place where you can go to meet singles. We help people improve dating skills. We welcome all daters from the traditional dating sites and try to get the positive and negative feedback. If you ask a question like, ‘What went wrong?’ you’re naturally going to get an all-negative response. If you ask about a more specific aspect of a person, you will get a more balanced response.
We also have a lot of have a lot of original content. Russell and Amanda write a lot of articles for the site and we’re working on our ‘Playbook’ right now, which will be a wiki forum where people can share and collaborate on dating tips.
Can you talk a little bit about growing a community and the problems you’ve faced building a user base?
I think a lot of the challenge has come from combating people’s tendencies to be negative about dating sites. We’re not ‘Hot or Not’ and we don’t welcome bashing people . We want people to say what they think but, if we feel that it crosses a line, we will monitor the content. We also provide a place for people being rated to respond to a comment if they strongly disagree.
What is the future of Date Raters?
We’re working on a phone application and a little scandalous commercial; which should be interesting!
How is it scandalous?
Oh, you’re going to have to wait and see; sorry guys. We’re also getting more into coaching. We have ‘Love Doctors’ who will look at your feedback and coach you. They’re married; I’m married, so we’ve all been through the whole dating experience. We know what worked and what didn’t work.
What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs?
You need to stay focused and be dedicated to what you’re doing. At the same time, if something changes and you get more information on something, then you can’t be afraid to shift gears a little bit. You need to be true to yourself and the values you have in place. You also have to believe in your idea. When you start something on your own, you want to see results, which sometimes can take a while. If you don’t love your idea, you may not have the patience to wait for results.
If you weren’t doing what you’re doing now, what would you be doing?
A: That’s a tough one. If I didn’t have to work, I would be painting and traveling. I love traveling and painting is my passion. I also always have other projects on the side. So, if I didn’t have Date Raters, I would be spending more time on them. It’s great to have something of your own. When you’re a web developer, you’re always working with somebody else’s content. They’re running the show. But, as an artist, you get to make all the decisions.
How do you promote Date Raters?
We use a lot of social networking. We have our Facebook followers and we have a twitter account. We also write for a couple of online dating magazines and then we always link back to Date Raters. We have partnerships with other people in the dating industry, like dating coaches and organizations that bring singles together. We also have fliers that we pass out.
What is the most common mistake people make on dates?
Being under confident or over confident. Who are you trying to fool? You’re going on a date to meet a person and learn about who they are and show them who you are. It’s not a job interview; it’s supposed to be fun. Your personality is always going to come out anyway so why not be yourself from the beginning? I think it’s important to find a good balance. Talk about yourself, without revealing too much on the first date. At the same time, listen to your partner. If you relax and enjoy yourself, there’s a good chance the other person will too.
Special thanks to Anya Novik. For more information on Date Raters, please visit their website , Facebook, or Twitter
