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<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:401px"><div class="image"></div><keyword id="1779330" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Aaron-Schildkrout">Aaron Schildkrout</keyword>, left, is talking with his longtime friend and co-founder at HowAboutWe, <keyword id="1779331" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Brian-Schechter">Brian Schechter</keyword>.</div>We recently spoke with Aaron Schildkrout, co-founder of online dating site <a href="http://www.howaboutwe.com/">HowAboutWe</a>, about <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/aaron-schildkrout-how-to-build-a-startup-2013-1">how to build a startup</a>. He also has a great philosophy on how the entrepreneurial movement is part of a much larger societal shift, and it's changing the way we live, work and date.
Here's what he told us:
"We’re living in radical times. The current pace of cultural transformation is more rapid than perhaps at any time, ever. Over the past, maybe 10 years, we've entered what you could call a time of <keyword id="1779332" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Actualism">Actualism</keyword>. Other people have named this <keyword id="1779333" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Post-post-modernism">Post-Post Modernism</keyword>. Living an authentic life is valued more now than ever before in human history. And authenticity is understood, above all, as being about creating value in the world. This is apparent in the tremendous rise of maker culture and <keyword id="6359301" type="POSITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Entrepreneur">entrepreneur</keyword>ialism. In fact, I would say that the entrepreneur is the quintessential emblem of our time.
The other day I noticed that on Mayor Bloomberg's Twitter description, the first thing it says is that he's an entrepreneur. Later he mentions being mayor of New York. But it's entrepreneur first. That's so telling. People in our time believe that their task — as humans — is to create things that people want, need and love. This is what it means — for our generation — to be real and to make meaning. 
This first manifested in the late 90s with the first Internet wave and the public service movement. Both were representations of this new ethos. The Internet is the bedrock of this tidal transformation. More than any invention ever it allows humans to very rapidly and very cheaply create value for nearly everyone on the planet.
Work is transforming in accordance with this. Work is the making of value — and so it makes sense that as value-creation becomes increasingly central to our understanding of human life, work is changing. People are looking at work, more and more, as an expression of themselves. Everyone I know is hatching ideas, becoming inventors, considering what's next.
Relationships, marriage, and sex are also transforming. Patriarchy has collapsed, whether or not you buy the 'downfall of man' theory popularized recently by Hanna Rosin. Women are on a trajectory toward financial prowess — making more money than men, controlling household spending choices, dominating enrollment in managerially oriented graduate programs, and better embodying qualities most valued in today's high skill jobs. Men seem headed for a significant economic and social crisis, so the theory goes. The deep architecture of gender roles is shifting. Alongside this, the nature of relationships is changing dramatically. People are living together without being married. It's increasingly common for people to have children in their 30s. People are pickier about their mates. We tend to fall in love more often before we settle down. The nature of commitment itself is changing. People's experience of authenticity and self-reliance is stronger now than ever, and this changes what it means to 'need' someone else. 
Again, the Internet plays a pivotal role in facilitating and driving this metamorphosis in relationships. This time in the form of online dating sites: more options, more anonymity, more decision making based on high speed looks-based impressions. The original dating websites were created to help people chat and meet online. They weren't so oriented towards helping people actually meet in real world. More recently — driven in no small part through <a href="http://howaboutwe.com" target="_blank">HowAboutWe</a>'s invention of the idea of 'offline dating' — most dating sites are emphasizing meeting in the real world. This seems to me — though I'm obviously biased being a founder of HowAboutWe and someone who very much loves the real world — to be a healthy focus.
Look at any area of human life and you will see a similar, radical change taking place. Is it good? I don't know. I tend to experience this as a positive evolution, as a progression. It feels to me like people are becoming truer, realer, more themselves. Many people bemoan the alienation of the modern age. I think that's just a pathology that comes along with the progress, the dark underbelly of something ultimately enlightening and strong. We shall see. I, for one, am excited for the future. It feels like we're already living in it — and it's good."
<h4>NOW READ: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/happy-vs-meaningful-life-2012-11">You May Have To Choose Between A Happy Life And A Meaningful Life</a></h4>

The 'Actualist Movement' Is Completely Changing How We Live, Work And Date

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:967px"><div class="image"></div>Aimee Groth, Business Insider</div>Startups <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-15-coolest-startup-offices-weve-ever-seen-2013-1">are known for their perks</a>, and online dating site HowAboutWe is no exception.
It's based in <keyword id="1781502" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="Dumbo">Dumbo</keyword>, Brooklyn across from <a href="http://www.brooklynroasting.com/">Brooklyn Roasting Company</a>, and shares a building with dozens of other startups. Its industrial office has a fully-stocked fridge, music playing throughout the day, and some of its 43 employees bring their dogs in to work.
We spent an afternoon with Co-founder <keyword id="1779330" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Aaron-Schildkrout">Aaron Schildkrout</keyword> at his company's headquarters, where he shared with us how he and Co-founder <keyword id="1779331" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Brian-Schechter">Brian Schechter</keyword> created a dynamic culture while keeping pace with rapid growth. (To date, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-year-of-crazy-growth-that-led-to-howaboutwes-new-15-million-series-b-round-2011-11">HowAboutWe has raised $18.5 million</a> and is about to hit 1 million users.)

Dating Site HowAboutWe Has A Cool Brooklyn Office [PHOTOS]

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"></div>Aimee Groth, Business Insider<keyword id="1779330" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Aaron-Schildkrout">Aaron Schildkrout</keyword>, left, devotes about 20 percent of his time to process thinking. </div>There are hundreds of new startups that launch each year, but most will fail. At the end of the day, it's <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/intel-business-plan-from-1968-2012-12" target="_blank">all about execution</a>, not the idea.
So far online dating site <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/howaboutwe" target="_blank">HowAboutWe</a> is a success, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-year-of-crazy-growth-that-led-to-howaboutwes-new-15-million-series-b-round-2011-11" target="_blank">raising $18.5 million to date</a> and hitting nearly one million users since launching in April 2010.
Co-Founder <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/aaron-schildkrout" target="_blank">Aaron Schildkrout</a> says it has everything to do with process: "Really talented people just don’t like to work inside broken processes. It feels dumb to them."
We recently sat down with Schildkrout <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/howaboutwe-office-tour-2013-1" target="_blank">at his company's Brooklyn headquarters</a>, and he shared with us how he and Co-founder <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/brian-schechter" target="_blank">Brian Schechter</a> scaled up the dating site, attracted top <keyword id="6356184" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="talent">talent</keyword>, and managed its explosive growth. Here's what he told us:
Hitting the ground running 
"At the very beginning, Brian and I did everything together. We were working 90 hours a week, but if you're not willing to do that, you shouldn't launch a <keyword id="138263" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="startup">startup</keyword>. We made every key decision jointly. But at some point, there was too much work and we couldn’t make every decision together, so we laid out on a table every function and split them basically in half, defining our respective purviews. We basically ended up with an org chart where he was running marketing and sales and operations and I was running product. Some things remained co-owned by each of us, like finance and the high-level strategy function.
The company grew, and early on it was very easy to create a deep collaboration on projects. Then you hit a situation where you have 6 – 10 developers, and people with expertise in marketing, business development, community engagement and content, so you've got 20 people on individual tracks. You want them laser-focused on achieving goals specific to their work, but you want a cohesive brand vision, with unified standards across the tech team.
Now we have 43 people and multiple teams working on different product lines."
Going from idea to execution 
"The most important artery in the organization is that which leads from idea to final product. It has many steps and can be elegant, with a beautiful flow. More concretely, how do you come up with ideas, design these ideas, build them and use data to assess whether what you built was effective?
You want to build a process where the right people are involved in innovating. In your process, nobody should ever be blocked, saying, “I can’t move forward on this because I need x."
As a company leader you have to work diligently to avoid excessive siloing, and yet the more collaborative your environment is, the more complex your structures have to be. This is an inevitable tension that you’re always managing as a company leader – the tension between deep organic cross-functional collaboration, and, on the other hand, focused, clear prioritization, deep expertise, and efficient use of time. Your job as a company leader is to mediate between those two forces to achieve maximum innovation and maximum efficiency.
From a development perspective, you often run across intense specialization where developer Jack becomes your search guy, a single point of expertise and potential failure. With our tech team, we use a combination of rotation and pair programming to ensure that we don't have any single point of failure in our knowledge base. It's a collaborative process that allows the best possible code to be written. We run our development team on two week sprints.
Early on, you often hire generalists, multi-purpose engineers. Over time, there is a natural and beneficial tendency to move more toward specialization. As that happens, it’s critical to make sure you don't fall into the trap of excessive siloing. It’s a fine balance, there are pros and cons to both. And it's not always true that a happy medium is good; even it has its cons. Making choices about where to have specialization in your engineering culture and where to maintain a full-stack, generalist approach is often relative to the company’s moment. As companies change, goals change, and you need to adapt."
Finding top talent
"As CEO you have a number of responsibilities. Perhaps the most important is making sure you have the right people in the right roles. This is particularly true for early stage startups. As a CEO your job is to be a facilitator of other people doing amazing work. You do this by finding the best people and setting the vision. So, who are the right people? They are relentlessly driven and smart. There are many kinds of smart. For instance, being a great communicator is essential. Work is inevitably challenging, and it should be. It’s part of what makes it beautiful and fun. When people encounter challenges, their potential to be reflective, and their capacity for self-awareness, is huge. So is flexibility, thoughtfulness and honesty. You want good people and it matters."
<keyword id="1534393" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="scaling">Scaling</keyword> and developing hierarchy 
"We have a fairly flat organizational structure. There are three levels of hierarchy. The whole point of any structure is to support people to do great work.
One thing I’ve experienced is that many people come here from other companies that had bad processes – ineffective, broken processes. On the other hand, some people have come here from companies that had great processes; they’ve brought their expertise here. An interesting example is <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/goldman-sachs" target="_blank">Goldman Sachs</a>; a number of our employees came from Goldman – they work incredibly efficiently and display great process thinking. Our head of business development and VP of acquisition, retention and revenue both come from Goldman.
When I talk to people who work at top startups around the country right now, a common thread is that they’re really thoughtful about building effective processes. Really talented people just don’t like to work inside broken processes. It feels dumb to them. Building a great process is very hard. Building value effectively: that’s always been the purpose of the workplace. And it will continue to be the purpose of the workplace. The nature of value changes and the workplace changes accordingly. Smart people adapt and innovate and build processes that truly work. The business is itself a product – a value-creating product. And great process is what allows great value to be created.”
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/howaboutwe-office-tour-2013-1">Now Tour HowAboutWe's Cool Brooklyn Office &gt; </a>

Here's A Great Philosophy On How To Build A Startup

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image">HowAboutWe</div></div></div>IAC, which owns dating properties Match.com, OK Cupid and the majority stake in Tinder, is close to acquiring New York startup for singles, HowAboutWe.
The deal has not yet been finalized, according to an email Schechter sent to employees that was obtained by Business Insider. It's expected to close on Monday, at which point, a number of HowAboutWe employees may lose their jobs.
"Indeed, we are still finalizing a deal and zero final decisions have been made," Schechter wrote to employees Friday afternoon. "That a deal is even a possibility should remain completely confidential." 
Schechter added that he knew this was a "weird moment" for many at the company.
"I know this is a bumpy - and let's face it - a weird moment but we should proceed in a manner that is really smart, graceful, and empowering for everyone," wrote Schechter.
From what employees say, this week has indeed been "bumpy" as the startup gears up to sell itself. 
One staffer told Business Insider many employees had individual meetings with HowAboutWe founders Brian Schechter and Aaron Schildkrout on Wednesday and Thursday in a glass-walled conference room. During those meetings, the staffer said they were notified they could be fired due to budgetary restrictions when the company transitions to IAC. The founders relayed that after Monday they would know "how many people can stay."
The meetings, which were meant to prepare employees for potential next steps, left employees feeling uncertain about what Monday will hold.
"You could just see people crying," the staffer said, later adding, "It was a very slow, dragged out process of notifying people, which is awful."
Schechter and Aaron Schildkrout also held a company meeting Thursday at about 5 p.m. where Schechter reiterated the potential deal with IAC and potential, impending layoffs. 
"He said we don't know which of you are going to get positions and we don't know what budget is," the staffer recounted.
According to the staffer, some of the employees won't have to wait until Monday to get the bad news. After the big meeting, the staffer said three employees were told they definitely could keep their jobs. 
However, one of the three who thought they were staying told the staffer things changed when they got a text from Schechter Thursday night at about 10 p.m. asking for them to call him. When they called him back, the staffer said he immediately answered with a question.
"How much are you getting paid again?" 
They told the other staffer they informed Schechter of their salary, which included a recent raise. When he heard this number, they said Schechter changed his tune and said, "Never mind, I forgot we gave you a raise. I don't think we can make that work. Sorry."
The staffer also recounted a tale of another HowAboutWe employee who they saw get a grim prognosis from Schechter.
"He literally told her to her face, 'You're too expensive, so we're not taking you,'" the staffer said, adding, "They're only taking people who are not expensive."
Although no one has been technically laid off this week in preparation of the impending sale, a few - including sales teams in LA, Chicago and San Francisco, were let go earlier in June, the employee said. 
Nerve.com editor-in-chief Brian Moylan noted he left the company this month in a post on his <a href="https://www.facebook.com/brianjmoylan?fref=ts">personal Facebook page</a>. Editor-at-large Lux Alptraum <a href="https://www.facebook.com/lux.alptraum/posts/10152122980162066">made a Facebook post</a> June 12 noting this month would be her "final one" at the company.
Though they were clearly frustrated with some aspects of the way HowAbouteWe management has handled the looming deal, the staffer noted the company has made some efforts to help employees find new work. They said there would be a "job fair" at the company Monday with recruiters from ZocDoc and that human resources had been trying to provide staffers with job listings. 
"Maybe this is how transparency works," said the staffer. "Maybe it's better than being laid off by a corporation that gives you no notice." 
HowAboutWe and IAC have been in serious deal talks for the past week. It's unclear how much IAC will be paying for HowAboutWe, or if the brand will continue to standalone among the other dating brands in IAC's portfolio.
Schechter and Aaron Schildkrout founded HowAbouteWe in 2009 and it recently <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/howaboutwe-acquisition-2014-1">acquired Nerve</a>. Its founding idea was to help people connect by asking them to fill out one simple statement: How about we ____, and inviting other users to join in the date.
IAC did not return requests for comment.
Here's the email Schechter sent to employees today and and has been obtained by Business Insider:
Subject: Quick touch base
Hi Everyone, 
I got an email from someone in the media industry asking about "What's happening with layoffs at HowAboutWe?" They specifically asked about the edit team.
If you get this question, it should be denied. It's inaccurate. We have not laid anyone off.
Indeed, we are still finalizing a deal and zero final decisions have been made. That a deal is even a possibility should remain completely confidential, as well.
The company being in control of the message is the best thing for everyone to be well set up for next steps, and that means keeping things truly in confidence and not telling anyone about this exciting next step may at HowAboutWe, etc. [sic]
I know this is a bumpy - and let's face it - a weird moment, but we should be sure that we proceed in a manner that is really smart, graceful and empowering for everyone
Thank you. Please don't hesitate to reach to me with any questions or concerns. I'm available.
Brian

IAC Is Close To Acquiring Dating Startup HowAboutWe 

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<td style="color: #000000; text-decoration: none; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;" width="700">This is part of the "<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/moving-forward" target="_blank">Moving Forward</a>" series offering advice to small business owners on technology, mentorship, productivity, and growth. "Moving Forward" is sponsored by Ink from Chase®. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/moving-forward" target="_blank">More posts in the series »</a></td>
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 <div class="image-container float_right"><div class="image"><keyword id="1746347" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="HowAboutWe">HowAboutWe</keyword>Brian Schechter and Aaron Schildkrout, the founders of dating site HowAboutWe.</div></div>Finding and keeping loyal customers is a core business challenge that trips up many young companies. With so much competition, consumers have endless options to choose from.
Brian Schechter and Aaron Schildkrout, the founders of dating website <a href="http://www.howaboutwe.com/">HowAboutWe</a>, say that to keep customers happy and run a successful business, you need to find and fix a problem. Then you need to never stop fixing it, which they found out the hard way.
HowAboutWe, launched in 2010, has quickly grown to 1.5 million users and more than 100,000 dates posted monthly on its site. Unlike traditional dating sites built on posting and viewing profiles, HowAboutWe's users post and view date ideas, such as "how about we... go kayaking in the Hudson River." Those who are interested in specific dates can then contact the person and, potentially, follow through on meeting up. The focus of online dating is then placed on the date idea and experience itself rather than browsing through users' profiles, say the founders.
Schechter and Schildkrout, who are friends from childhood and former high-school teachers, launched HowAboutWe because they wanted to solve a "deep human problem" that wasn't being addressed: the dating industry doesn't push people to meet offline and share experiences to build their relationships. 
"There were a bunch of problems with the existing online dating sites," Schildkrout tells Business Insider. "This is a culture of endless profile browsing, winking, and long-extended online conversations that even if they led to a date at any point, it would be this sort of stale coffee shop date."
It turns out, their theory was right, but it almost worked too well. Last year, the founders realized they had become so successful at making matches that they were losing their happiest customers.
"We've connected many thousands of people who are now in relationships and have gotten married," says Schildkrout. "Somebody emailed us the other day with a picture of a baby they have; they met on HowAboutWe. The problem is, once they connect and they're in a relationship, they have no use for our product."
Realizing that they were losing the successful matches, Schechter and Schildkrout decided to come up with a product for these couples. That was the beginning of <a href="https://couples.howaboutwe.com/">HowAboutWe for Couples</a>, which aims to curate, book, and set up creative dates for couples. The service launched in New York City last year, followed by San Francisco a few months later. The founders say they plan to expand to other cities soon. So far, the couples service has 130,000 users signed up, and one account is typically shared by two people.
If the modern dating problem for singles is too much online browsing, Schildkrout says the modern love problem for couples is giving up on relationships too easily. Couples stop trying to make their relationships interesting because they get too comfortable, he says.
HowAboutWe for Couples was created to avoid the endless cycle of Netflix and Chinese food that many couples find themselves in. The site's couple service offers discounted dates, which include eating the smelliest foods in Chinatown or participating in a dumpling-making class. Members can sign up, pay, and reserve their spot through the site. Then all they need to do is show up.
"We have an editorial team that's really passionate about great dates, finding places people want to go, and creating the kind of activities that really provide for an opportunity to connect," Schechter tells us.
Members can upgrade their experience by using the special concierge service, which costs $18 monthly, where your dates are planned down to the tiniest detail ahead of time, such as having flowers delivered or door-to-door car service on your date night.
"We're curating the dates for our couple members. The concept is still the same, but we've become the experts," says Schildkrout. "This really filled out the whole vision of the company, which isn't only about helping people fall in love, but also about helping people stay in love."
There's another benefit to having so many creative date ideas filter through the singles service: the founders say that they're able to see trends before the rest of the world knows what's happening. "When we first launched, we saw the beginning of the lobster roll craze coming, and about a year and half ago, we saw when donuts were becoming mainstream over cupcakes," Schechter tells us.
Those trends give Schechter and Schildkrout a glimpse into what their customers are most interested in and how to give them what they want. This is most helpful when coming up with ideas to help people fall - and stay - in love.

How Dating Site HowAboutWe Keeps Users Even After Matching Them Up

When high school teachers and best friends Aaron Schildkrout and Brian Schechter came up with the idea for a new <keyword id="6367193" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Dating">dating</keyword> site, they were not even living in the same city.
Schechter was in Washington, DC, and Schildkrout in Boston, but they wanted start their company, <a href="http://www.howaboutwe.com/">HowAboutWe</a>, in the best possible market that will allow their business to thrive.
They set up shop in Dumbo, an up-and-coming area for artists and startups in Brooklyn, New York in April 2010, and for the past three years they have been reinventing the online dating business by getting people offline, and focusing on both singles and couples to help them discover love, or just have fun together.
Watch below the co-founders of <keyword id="1746347" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="HowAboutWe">HowAboutWe</keyword> talk about the lessons they've learned since launching their business, and what makes their products a success. 
<div style="display:none;" id="kalturavideoplaceholder">kalturavideoplaceholder</div>
Produced by Robert Libetti, Will Wei, and Kamelia Angelova.

Why The Co-Founders Of Dating Site HowAboutWe Relocated To New York To Start Their Company

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image">HowAboutWeHowAboutWe's co-founders.</div></div></div>From Hinge to Grindr to Grouper to JSwipe, there are a lot of dating startups being built. While the sector used to be a popular one for venture capitalists to back, the acquisition landscape has suddenly changed and exit opportunities for many of these companies are now uncertain.
A startup investor tells Business Insider why:
"There's only ever one acquirer in the dating space, and that's IAC," this person said. Barry Diller's company owns OKCupid, Match.com and HowAboutWe. It also owns the majority of Tinder, a hot mobile dating solution. IAC recently acquired more Tinder shares in a deal that valued the startup at $500 million, making Tinder a leader in the mobile dating space. 
"Now that IAC has Tinder, it doesn't have the same appetite for acquisitions that it had a few years ago," the investor explained. "Who's going to buy all of these startups now?" Other large dating properties like eHarmony and Zoosk haven't traditionally been active buyers.
That's not to say IAC isn't making any more acquisitions. This week, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/howaboutwe-iac-acquisition-2014-6">IAC bought HowAboutWe</a>, a five-year-old startup that raised more than $20 million. But dating startups don't have the same leverage with IAC they had before. 
Although the purchase amount hasn't been announced, the IAC offer seems less-than -ideal for HowAboutWe; an insider told Business Insider that budgetary restraints forced HowAboutWe to lay off a good chunk of its staff in order to join IAC. <a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/digital-love-consolidated-iac-buys-howaboutwe-dating-site/?_php=true&amp;_type=blogs&amp;_r=0">The New York Times confirmed</a> that some of HowAboutWe's business, its Couples product, wouldn't be joining IAC and some staffers were laid off.
"The online dating business is completely monopolized - IAC owns online dating," HowAboutWe's co-founder Brian Schechter admitted in January.

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