Exclusive: Techvibes interviews Matt Read from GetDateIdeas.com
Matt Read has the distinction in Toronto as being the tallest tech guy around. No kidding! He towers over people 6 feet tall! No matter the location or the occasion, he is head and shoulders above anyone else.
Now, he’s set his sights on being noticed for more than a potential Toronto Raptors draft pick.
Along with a few partners, Matt has been working on creating “the go to place for people looking to find great things to do in their city, especially if you're in an established relationship”
I had the opportunity to catch up with Matt to ask him about his new business venture: GetDateIdeas.com.
When asked if he is behind this venture for “personal gain” Matt laughed. “I've also created a great pop culture website with my fiancée Marie Nicola (@karmacakedotca) called Karmacake.ca that was an extension of Marie's personal blog and even though it's currently in a bit of an overhaul, Karmacake has been a passion project we've been scheming on for years.”
Tell us a little bit about your background.
I'm a Ryerson computer science grad who's been playing around with computers since the early days of BBS's and IRC. I got into web development in high school and I've been interested in web technology ever since I first tried the internet at the EX in 1993. For as long as I can remember, I've always been interested in understanding how things work and figuring out new ways to make them better. I'm a classic 'void-the-warrantee' type and I love being able to apply that same type of analysis and tinkering with web development. After school I toiled away in the corporate world for a while but kept building sites on the side, especially sites for blogs and small businesses but now I've been active in the Toronto start-up scene for a little while now and I'm loving it.
Where did the idea for GetDateIdeas.com come from?
The idea for Get Date Ideas came from my partner and Date Ideas founder, Will Lam. Will originally started the site cheapdateideas.ca as a blog and lifestyle site designed to help people like himself find interesting and fun things to do when going on dates. Will has actively been working on cheapdatesideas.ca for over a year and was later joined by our other partner, Irene Kuan to work as Editor and to assist in building up site content and community.
What exactly is Get Date Ideas?
Get Data Ideas is an online resource to help people find and plan great dates with an emphasis on people in relationships. We've created a great system that is able to build a date itinerary for people in as little as 4 clicks. In addition to building date nights, we also have hundreds of restaurant and event reviews, as well as a custom rating system that helps people choose venues based on its "Date-ability".
There's also lots of dating and relationship articles aimed at helping people get the most of their relationships. When creating the site, our motivation was that everyone deserves to go on great dates without worrying about the hassle and time constraints traditionally associated with planning a date night. In the end we like to think we're in the relationship saving business and we really want to create a system that couples enjoy using together.
Early this year Will had a chance to make a presentation to Xtreme Venture Partners. What happened?
In late May 2010, Will pitched the concept of Date Ideas to the guys at Extreme Venture Partners, who were going into their second year of their startup incubator program, Extreme U, and Will was accepted to join. Once accepted, Will brought me on as Technical Lead and we've been working hard along with two other great companies PopHire.com and Sunrank.com to further refine our product and to continuing building the skills, experience and contacts to run a successful startup.
