OPW CEO INTERVIEW -- June 17 -- Online dating upstart, True.com,
states on it's home page that married people will be prosecuted, has
driven online dating background checks legislation, and challenged the
integrity of it's competitor's personality profiling systems.
What will it do next? Mark Brooks, Editor of Online Personals Watch, interviews Herb Vest, True.com's CEO and Founder.

Why the True employee layoffs August last year?
We
got a little too big for our britches and were going in too many
directions at once. We decided to cut back and focus our
direction.

You're a newcomer, an
outsider, you could have just been a VC without getting personally
involved. What made you be want to be personally involved?
I'm
an entrepreneur at heart and like to be involved in running the
business. A VC is more akin to banking than entrepreneurship so
VC's are not necessarily real good entrepreneurs, and vice versa.
I'm more socially oriented. I want to make a difference.
What does society need? One thing is money, the other is
love. I handled the money with HDVest, and so I then decided to
try my hand at love. I know we can lower the divorce rates.

They're way too high. I believe True can do something about
that.

In your book you mention revolutionary entrepreneurs. What is a revolutionary entrepreneur?
We
tend to be social outcasts, not necessarily well liked in the corporate
world. We are very good leaders but not very good followers at
all. A revolutionary entrepreneur seeks to change society for the
better by using their business powers.

And what are the top 'principles of war' you've applied to True.com?
The
main principle of war, business, and life in general is the principle
of the offensive. I think in general in life and business and in
war you have to constantly be on the attack. That is the thing
that I have learned in life. If you go on defensive you're going
to lose. You always have to be out their stretching and pushing
the envelope and digging at the competition. I like the
competition to worry about me rather than me them. In my book,
Instructions To My Officers: A Revolutionary Approach to
Entrepreneurial Strategy, I talk about the race car driver, which is
one of the better parables. It covers the principle of focus;
focusing on the curves but being aware of other curves ahead. You
have to set yourself up for the future curves otherwise you'll slow
down and give the competition time to regroup. This is the
approach True is taking right now.

How is True different than PerfectMatch and eHarmony? How is the site better?
eHarmony
is going after a particular group which represents around 20% of the
market; those looking for a long term relationship. The people at
True believe that love is a continuum. When you come off a
relationship you may say, "wow, I never want to do that again," but it
may not be too long before you wind up looking for another
relationship. So, if you have people who are looking specifically
for long term relationships without regard to where they are in life,
they tend to fail. They are going into life with the idea that,
"I'm going to find my partner." I think, going in to a relationship to
have a good time and 'perhaps' find a partner, makes more sense.

What would you say to Dr Warren and Dr Pepper?
eHarmony
and PerfectMatch are actually trying to tout tests that purport to
measure compatibility between couples when in fact there's no
scientific evidence that they do. I think they are highly
misleading. I would like the industry to look at compatibility
testing on a more professional level. I'd like to see these tests
certified against principles set up by professional
psychologists. I think the public is going to wake up and feel
duped unless we conform to professional standards. It's going to
completely destroy the industry. It's a very serious
situation. We need to establish generally accepted
principles. We need to look at the methodology, conclusions,
findings and algorithms used in these tests. Once independently
verified, professionals should publish their testing manual on their
site, as we've done. You can find that on True.com. We've
also had Dr James Houran publish results in professional journals and
invited criticism from other professionals. This is the way
science has always been done; the generally accepted principle. I
am appalled we're not applying that as an industry. We'd like to
do something about that eventually. We'd like to poll all dating
sites to adopt a professional method of testing that has been accepted
by the scientific community, or, if they don't do that, then they need
to label their tests as 'fun' tests. They can't imply
reliability. It's very dangerous for the public and we think
something needs to be done about that.

How will True influence society over the next 5 years?
We
plan to lower divorce rates in this country, and others, with
scientifically backed matching. We also need to improve the
courtship process. We will work on testing methods, dating tests
and things like that. There's a big difference between dating and
long term relationships. For long term relationships it's
important couples agree about raising kids, finances, household chores
etc. For short term dating, the relationship factors are not so
important as sense of humor, mindset and interests. We want to
facilitate both sides of the equation, for the long term and short term
mindsets. You will see more and more testing on True; matching base
upon users goals, whatever they are within the dating continuum.

What's next on the agenda?
We
have ambitions far beyond just online dating. As a relationship
company, in the next couple of months we will introduce pre-marriage
counseling, pre-commitment counseling and self help guides combined
with a referral service to specialist counselors.

Can you give me an example of why this is needed?
My
wife and I occasionally argue, as do all married couples. We
stumbled on a technique where we become each other's attorney.
We'll put each other on the stand and pretend to be each other, taking
the others view. True will introduce conflict resolution
techniques over time. Every year suicides occur because of failed
relationships. People need to think through issues before they
become hot issues. Many problems can be averted. I have had
a lot of experience with conflict resolution over the years.

There's usually something that can be done.

Any plans to move True into Europe?
Definitely,
but much more long term. We're focusing on the US market.
We have every reason to believe that couples problems in the US are the
same as international problems, but, we want to research this
more. We will be moving internationally. One step at a
time.

What does the future hold for True?
In
a short time, just one and a half years, we've already taken a
substantial leading position in the industry. We will hold and
gain. You're gonna see a whole lot more of us, raising a lot of
ruckus. We made progress with safer online dating. The
industry needs to get more serious about full disclosure and doing a
great job for the consumer.