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Modern Dating, Modern Fundraising, Same Funnel

How I fixed my leaky funnel raising a search fund.

This week I saw a tweet I haven’t stopped thinking about.

A guy shared five years of Tinder data and it was a brutal self own.

I thought no dead animals in photos was tinder 101

Here’s what he posted:

  • 2,020,459 were right swipes

  • 2,053 matches (.1)

  • 1,269 chats (61%)

  • 1 date

  • 0 relationships (and 0 casual sex lol)

While he used the post to give commentary on why modern dating is broken (it is), the self own is WHY HE DID NOTHING DIFFERENT.

He spent five years with a leaky funnel.

When things aren’t working…

You’ve got to look at where they’re breaking down and the variables influencing the outcomes at each stage.

The guy had over 2 million right swipes… and only 2,000 matches. That’s a 0.1% conversion rate. There are only two things that influence the swipe (let’s be real, its only one, but for arguments sake we’ll say its two):

  • Your photos

  • Your bio

The man could be a silver tongued deviant, but we’ll never know because he hasn’t plugged his funnel. He needs to modify the variables to get women to the next stage.

If he wanted different results, he didn’t need better texting skills he needed a new profile. Or a fishless photo. Or literally any iteration. Insert rant about A/B testing here.

(If you’re unfamiliar with A/B testing: what this guy should do is swipe 100 times in a week. Track how many matches. Then change one photo and repeat 100 swipes. Did more matches occur? If so, the change was positive and is your new baseline. If not, revert to the original and make new changes. Repeat this process ad nauseam with combinations of photos, orders, bio, etc).

Look, maybe relationships aren’t something we should treat like an optimization problem.
But if you’re going to put five years of effort into something and nothing’s working, you’ve got to try something different.

This isn’t a guide to modern dating, sorry.

What this means for me and why you should care -

The idea of funnels and stage conversion is a topic I’ve been thinking a lot about while raising my search fund. I’ve never done this before but the idea is essentially the same.

I need to get in front of a bunch of investors, have multiple conversations with them, establish trust, and get them to write me a big check. They need to move from one phase to the next to get to the desired result ($$$).

I didn’t start out thinking this way. In my first week of outreach, I sent maybe 15–20 emails and I quickly realized I couldn’t keep the conversations straight. After fighting the urge to build TEH MODERN DAY ERP, I built out a table in Notion to track my conversations and everything that was relevant, not just for followup timeline but also to see what my funnel looked like.
Things I took particular note of: what we talked about, what objections came up, where the energy shifted.

That helped me spot something in my funnel almost immediately.

The first week, three different investors asked the same thing:
“What niche within your industry are you targeting?”

I had niches in my head, but hadn’t explicitly outlined them because it underpinned a larger strategy I was actively discussing.

A good reminder to never assume especially when you’re working with people you don’t know, who don’t owe you anything, and ultimately you need them to like you. Leave nothing to chance.

I made an addition to my PPM and noticed a sharp increase in not only how much outreach I was getting in response, but also in the quality of the conversation. The more laid out my thoughts were, the further ahead the starting point in discussion.

Here’s a snapshot of my current pipeline:

i’ve been waiting 32 years for the opportunity to make a sankey diagram

Now there’s many things outside of your control in this process, but there is everywhere. Focus on what you can control. Listen to what the data is telling you. Adjust your approach. Measure the response. Rinse and repeat.

What this means in numbers

There’s likely different approaches to funnel optimization. Prior to actually running the numbers, I was almost sure that starting at the top of the funnel (in tinder’s case optimizing photos/bios to convert higher number to matches) would be more productive from a throughput standpoint compared to the bottom of the funnel (being a better talker to take it from chat to date). The numbers actually show something else and emphasize why should focus on the lowest performing conversion step.

Let’s imagine in Tinder’s case he can double his conversion with better photos OR being a better talker. Here’s how the scenarios play out.

While not a big difference in absolute terms, he actually ends up going on more dates by fixing the lowest performing conversion step.

There may be a statistics argument in whether or not there’s replacement - if there isn’t an infinite number of potential targets, that could change the approach. It did for me - there’s only so many known search fund investors. That’s why my first step was get more people out of email and onto calls.

All of this to delicately close with it depends.

The Real Lesson

More things have stages than you think, you just may not be thinking of them that way.

Your sales, marketing, hiring, onboarding, DATING - it’s all one big funnel. Fix your leaks.

Next week, I’m sharing the questions EVERY INVESTOR has asked me and how to prepare for those conversations raising capital.

Thanks for following along.

If you’re building something — a product, a pitch, a process — and you’re hitting a wall, reply and tell me about it. I’d love to hear where things are breaking down.

-Brock

PS. If you’re new here and found this valuable or insightful, subscribe because my son drinks like 5 gallons of milk a week and I’m unemployed.

(it’s actually free).

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