Online dating is a slow and painful process of back-and-forth messaging, compatibility surveys, and endless disappointment. WooWhoo solves these problems by taking you quickly from online introductions to low-pressure, real-life meetings. You pick who you’re interested in and we set up the dates. Andy Zhang, founder of WooWhoo answered a few questions we had for him about the company and why he chose the Brandery.
What inspired you to start WooWhoo?
Rebecca, my closest friend in law school, inspired me to start WooWhoo after her experience with OkCupid. She spent hours every day dealing with the inundation of messages, looking for the diamonds in the rough. After a month, when she finally found someone interesting, she excitedly sent me a text. It took another few weeks for them to decide to meet and figure out a place. During the date, I get a message, “AWFUL!” Apparently, the guy wasn’t what she expected. Same with the next one. And the one after.
I realized that online dating had horribly distorted the process, and was clearly doing it backwards for people like Rebecca. She just wanted to meet a good-looking guy that wasn’t a bum. She’d figure out the rest when they met. That’s when I realized that WooWhoo needed to exist.
Why did you decide to come to the Brandery?
I had great conversations with past companies, including the guys from RentShare and Roadtrippers. I was incredibly impressed with their products (I use both, in fact), and I wanted to be a part of an environment that fostered such success. The Brandery mentors and partners completely sealed the deal. Mike Bott’s experience with Match.com, on top of Rob, Dave, and JBs energy, gave me confidence that the Brandery was here to do whatever it took for us to succeed.
What is the biggest surprise since you started at the Brandery?
The biggest surprise has been learning from each other. Some of my best ideas and tactics came from my fellow Brandery classmates. On top of that, I’m the world’s worst developer, so I’m always bugging Richard for Javascript help and Matt and Nick for Rails architecture.
What does a typical day look like for you?
I’m a solo founder, so my days are crazy. I do meetings, calls, and emails during the day. I try to leverage the time with other companies, mentors, and partners during working hours. By night, I’m purely on product execution. I’m in charge of the product team, and I work with a designer on the West Coast. We usually crank through product iteractions from 7-8p to 1-2a or later.
How can people test out your product?
They can go to www.woowhoo.com and sign up using Facebook! No, we don’t post to your wall. Any and all feedback are welcome, so they can send me an email as well: [email protected].
If you weren’t a founder of your company what other Brandery company would you want to be a founder of?
I’d want to be a founder of SocStock because I think it’s a really interesting take on FinTech. I think the potential is huge, and it’s actually great for small businesses, unlike some other solutions out there.
Follow Andy at @zhangandyx
