Meet the Man Behind the App That Helps You Get Threesomes
“A service that works for singles and couples. It’s the easiest way to satisfy your human needs and spend some fun time with other people. You can easily hide yourself from friends and family so you can browse freely.”
Tell us a little bit about you and your business background
“No business background, just a high school degree. I come from a design background. I spent six years working in Advertising, Branding and Motion Design Studios. I tried doing two other startups called pokke.me and tenant.at, but they were pretty much ignored by everyone. The traction there was so little and we blamed it on the teaser page that wasn’t clear enough. This was actually a message saying “We don’t care.” but we ignored that.”
How did you come up with the idea? Have you participated in a threesome before yourself?
“Actually, I’ve never had one. My girlfriend and I were curious about it and I did some quick research. All I found was dodgy looking websites which were also subscription based and quite pricey. So I saw an opportunity there, I knew that threesomes are something many people do or are curious about. All I had to do was create a minimal, modern and intelligent looking brand and add the threesome ingredient. When you have that kind of brand and you talk about sexual desires, it’s much easier to be accepted by society.”
How do you pronounce the 3nder? How did you come up with the name?
“Well everybody is struggling with the name but I pronounce it “Threen-der”. The name came naturally, I wanted to capture people’s attention and remind them of something they already knew and that was Tinder. I added 3 in front of the name so it’s more related to the concept. People are familiar with the concept of Tinder so just by looking at the name, they already know what to expect from that new app.”
What did your friends and family think when you told them about your business idea?
“My friends were supportive and really excited, nobody took it seriously though. Everybody thought it was just a joke and that it would never take off as a business. I tried to explain the deeper concept behind the app and most of them got it. So I guess in order to talk about it seriously, you need to make people feel comfortable because it’s a taboo for some.
My family heard about it from the media so I haven’t really had the chance to talk about it with them, but they are really proud. After all, I made a small portion of the world excited.”
We read that you are in your funding stage, how has the interest been? Do you run into people not taking you seriously because of the nature of your business?
“There are a couple of investors interested even though it’s just a concept. I guess these are the people who truly believe in the idea and they see it as a profitable one. As I said earlier, people feel really awkward talking about it and it’s hard to take it seriously, but think about all the other weird startups like SnapChat and even Tinder. Who will have thought that self-destructing messages and swiping people left and right will be a valuable product? It’s that sixth sense entrepreneurs have that’s really important. My first startup pokke.me was basically Tinder, we had the idea couple of months before the release of Tinder, but with the help of our business advisor we decided to change it because after some brainwashing, we saw no value in poking people for a match.”
Your website lists that it’s goal is to expand people’s views on sexuality and relationships. Why is this something people should do?
“We have to be open. Why do you have to keep your desires a secret and be ashamed that you want to try something new and exciting? We’ve been brainwashed by society that threesomes are something dark and ugly and only weirdos do them. That’s why I see that great opportunity to change something… Change people’s perspective about open relationships and sexually active people. Hopefully 3nder will create this new face of being open with yourself and everyone will start to accept this idea of openness.”
Lastly, tell us the most important lesson you’ve learned so far in entrepreneurship
“You don’t need a MVP to validate your idea. You just need to visualize your idea, have good branding, let it fly and people will come to you. If they don’t, then you need to ask yourself if it’s worth investing more of your time in it. I literally spent three days doing the teaser page and branding and UI mockups. All I am doing now is trying to find our core customers and their problems, different people need different features, so I am building all the functionalities without assuming anything, but rather addressing a specific problem that customers already have. Also it’s much easier to build a team when you’ve already validated your idea… you don’t have to convince anyone, they already know it’s something worth investing a bit of time.”
