CINCINNATI -- Need suggestions for a Valentine’s Day date?
Just in time for the most romantic day of the year, Datecrawl, an app for date nights, is now available for Androids and iPhones.
It’s brought to you from husband-and-wife team Derek and Jessica Tye, the creators of How Did He Know, an app designed to help men know what’s going on with a woman’s body on any given day in her menstrual cycle -- and act accordingly.
About 3,000 of the free How Did He Know apps have been downloaded by users in 52 countries, Derek said, and the owners are looking to license it to a nonprofit or sell it to get revenue for Datecrawl, which now has most of their attention.
How Does It Work?
First, you give Datecrawl an idea of what you’re looking for -- like how far you want to travel, what your price range is, how active you’d like to be and how dressed up you’ll be.
Datecrawl then gives you a choice of dates based on those criteria. A date in Montgomery, for example, might start with dinner at Pacific Kitchen, tickets to the Go Bananas Comedy Club and dessert at Aglamesis Brothers.
Using software powered by Google, Datecrawl guides you to each destination and even enables you to hire an Uber driver to take you there. It also asks you to rate the date when you’re done and share it on social media.
The dates are all submitted by people who’ve been on them, Derek said, and verified by Datecrawl staff. They’re limited now to the Cincinnati area, he said, but the app is easily scalable to other cities.
“I think the app has potential not only to be a great local app, but even go national and have great success,” said Joe Danzer, Google’s city ambassador for Cincinnati, who works with local app developers.
How Will It Make Money?
There’s no charge to use the app. One way it could make money is for businesses to sponsor it in exchange for getting their business name higher up in the search results. Another would be to partner with Uber or with babysitting websites, to help couples find babysitters for their date night.
For now, the No. 1 goal is to create really good content with a great app experience, Derek said. The No. 2 goal is to get a lot of users who can contribute dates and ratings.
Are There Investors?
So far, the Tyes have financed their apps with about $100,000 of their own money, Derek said. They’ve also offered equity in lieu of pay to some members of their team of eight Datecrawl employees.
Creative Director Blake Galloway, quit a job with a local magazine company because he wanted to work for a startup, where his ideas would have immediate impact.
“We have the potential to be bigger, if not as big, as Facebook," Galloway said.
