The Ponder Platform Reach
Manshu Agarwal, Ponder CEO
Ponder is looking to enter into 3 markets, each of which is a multi-billion dollar market. The current product targets the online dating market at $5bn in size, and the upcoming jobs product targets the job referrals market, which is more than double. However, the largest market by far is that of the business referrals market, which is nearly $70bn in size.
Ponder Social
The $5 billion online dating market has matured rapidly over the last 5 years with the loss of the associated stigma about using online dating products. However there is clear dissatisfaction with the online dating products available. Both dating apps and websites share a similar philosophy — they are databases of singles that are algorithmically suggested to you.
In the case of apps, you swipe through that database, one at a time. With the dating websites, you filter and browse through the profiles. In both cases, users are acting on their own, as if they were flicking through an ecommerce website. This approach however, leads to problems in that men send out a lot of ‘likes’ or messages, and women get overwhelmed. This leads to a lot of ‘noise’ in the systems and consequently poor response and match rates
By prioritizing human referrals over algorithmic matches Ponder’s match success rates are significantly higher than traditional online dating apps. For active users it’s an almost daily activity, with 7 sessions on average per week. 40% of users are playing matchmaker alone, with 60% being single.
Ponder Pro
Ponder Pro, although still in the beta stage, already has partnerships with two leading recruiting companies. One of these is one of the world’s largest websites for the recruitment industry. This partnership will provide Ponder Pro with access to hundreds of thousands of job postings each year, and access to millions of customer records.
The second partnership is with Scout, a Korean recruitment company. They are one of the largest recruitment companies in Korea.
Ponder Biz
Ponder Biz will be a place where users can recommend businesses to their social network. Each time any person buys from that business, the user that made the recommendation earns tokens, paid for by the business. In the case of Ponder Biz the referee also receives tokens as reward for following through with the recommendation. That the referree is also rewarded makes it easier on the referrer to make the referral in the first place.
In the business referrals sector, the closest competitors are those such as ReferralCandy. These are SAAS-based solutions that integrate with merchants’ POS systems to provide rewards (coupons, cash, prizes) for referrals. Customers get links that they pass on to friends they’d like to refer.
Although it’s very early in the design stage, we’ve already started signing up business customers for Ponder Biz. These include Cicero Transact — an invite-only business transaction group. PON tokens will be the mechanism by which deal-makers get paid. We are aiming to have at least 10 businesses in different verticals signed up to use PON tokens and the Ponder Biz app in their ecosystem.
Referrals are Key
Nobody in any of our core 3 industries is taking the approach exemplified by Ponder — having a mutual contact make a referral between the parties, through a gamified and financially rewarding process.
