Is the future of dating platforms in niche markets like Farmers Only?

The startup industry goes through its own fashion cycles, ideas, and platforms that were in vogue a few years ago will not get a penny from investors today. As Tinder started taking off in 2012 dating apps where all the rage, and for a very long time the rule of thumb was don’t do it. Today, however, companies that spend years operating in niches and covering specific lifestyle choices seem to be all the rage. One of these niche dating sites that is starting to enter the mainstream is FarmersOnly.com.

Farmers Only was funded in 2005 as a dating website for farmers, ranchers, and people who live in rural areas.

Lean Canvas Takedown

Problem

- Population in rural areas are sparse and the pool of viable life partners is small
- Country living is a specific lifestyle choice that not everyone understands

Essentially the problem is summed up in their tagline ‘City folks just don’t get it’. People living in rural areas don’t necessarily want to date city dwellers as they feel the lifestyles are too different. They want to date someone who also lives in the countryside, however this can be challenging as the rural population tends to be low density. It can be hard to find compatible soul mates.

Customer Segments

• Straight men who live in the countryside or are interested in the countryside lifestyle
• Straight women who live in the countryside or are interested in the countryside lifestyle
• Gay men who live in the countryside or are interested in the countryside lifestyle
• Gay women who live in the countryside or are interested in the countryside lifestyle

The website seems to only recognise binary gender and binary sexuality and does not seem to cater to people who fall outside gender and sexuality binaries.

Also thought this is never openly said looking at the promotional material and screenshots from the website the site is overwhelmingly white and projects the image of a white Christian Midwestern American.

Unique Value Proposition (UVP)

• Only for farmers
• No hookups, only serious long term commitment

Within the bigger dating landscape, the UVP of only farmers is that its targeting only farmers and people who want to live in a rural area. It also seems to attract people who have intentions for a long term relationship rather than a date and a hookup.

Solution

A dating website that brings together people with a rural mindset within both rural and urban populations.

Unfair Advantage

• First mover advantage

Within its niche of rural dating, OnlyFarmers has the advantage of being the first to market. And through their marketing, they seem to have cornered the rural dating market.

Revenue Streams

• Membership fee
• Merchandise
• Advertising

Membership fees seem to be the main revenue stream. They do have a freemium membership. However if you sign up for the full service for one month you pay almost 22 dollars, for three months it's just under 40, and for six its almost 66 bucks.

The longer you sign up for the cheaper your membership is per month. The price is comparable and by no means cheaper than mainstream dating websites such as eharmony or Match.com.

Even though FarmersOnly.com offers fewer features and fewer people are on it. In this niche, people will pay a premium for fewer features just to have access to people with a similar mindset.

Another revenue stream is branded merch. I am not sure how many people actually buy the FarmersOnly branded t-shirts but the website does sell them.

Given the niche customer segment, it seems that the platform is a good place to advertise products aimed at farmers and people working in agriculture.

Cost Structure

• Website running costs
• Regular business and administrative costs (workspace, accountant etc)
• Google ads
• Marketing

I am confident that FarmersOnly.com’s running costs are smaller than those of the majority of tech startups at least because their office is not in San Francisco. The development costs also seem to be lower as the website looks like a standard dating app template from mid-naughties with fewer features when compared to match.com or Plenty of Fish.

Probably their biggest expense is marketing, as they run Google ads as well as run local ads in areas that their user base inhabits.

Key Metrics

• Active paying users
• Successful matches
• Repeat customers

Like any membership platform, the key metric for OnlyFarmers will be active paying users. Successful matches should be the second most important metric. For a dating platform every match means that you have lost two paying customers. Successful matches however provide marketing material and the word of mouth necessary to help make the service more successful.

Channels

• Online advertising, especially AdWords
• Advertising in publications targeted at agriculture professionals
• Advertising in rural areas

Final Thoughts

From Jenny

FarmersOnly.com is a great example of how b2c niche products can be bootstrapped and actually don’t need VC funding to be profitable — a lesson that many startups forget. As a product, there clearly is a market for it as FarmersOnly has copycats in America and. In other countries as we. I do understand that a countryside lifestyle is often associated with a conservative outlook however they should be more inclusive of folk of color who live in rural areas. As well as embrace nonbinary sexualities and gender identities.

From Adrian

In the days of the early and pre-internet, success used to come from being broad-based with a general monopoly over the market — in this market services like eHarmony and Match have come to represent this.

We seem to be entering a time where success for internet services comes from being narrow while reaching the whole world. The big players in the space are continually competing through high-end branding or claims of scientifically approved matching algorithms, Farmersonly.com simply focuses on a group of users who want long term relationships with people that have similar cultural norms and values. We are seeing this model working especially well now within religious communities, people of a specific socioeconomic standard and geographical heritage.