New Dating Site Aims to Make Dating Simple, Social, and Safe

The three S's - simplicity, sociability, and safety - are a solid foundation for any dating site. So why does it seem like so many sites are mysteriously missing them from their business plans?

Enter LikeBright, a new dating site founded in Seattle that aims to purge deception from the online dating scene. It's a tall order, but Ron Lai, Sonya Lai (yes, they're siblings), and Nick Soman are determined to meet it. The trio met while studying at Harvard, and decided to found LikeBright this year as part of the TechStars, a company that calls itself the "#1 startup accelerator in the world," program in Seattle.

Their goal, as explained to Aislyn Green of TechFlash.com, isn't complicated: "LikeBright is a TechStars Seattle startup working to make dating simple, social and safe for women." Women everywhere - and plenty of men - complain about the lack of trust and rampant lying that plagues online dating sites. For some, it's become such a problem that they've given up on online dating altogether in favor of returning to the traditional methods of dating that they'd once rejected, like meeting through friends or at social gatherings. LikeBright aims to combat this problem by "building a dating layer on Facebook to help women meet people through the people they trust."

The inspiration for LikeBright came from personal experience. Sonya was driven by a desire to help her female friends navigate the sometimes-dangerous world of online dating, and wanted to place emphasis on the issues, often ignored, that women care about when it comes to searching for love online. Ron, a frequent traveler, was inspired to create a site that met his nomadic needs, and Nick learned of the value of meeting a date through someone you trust when a female friend introduced him to his girlfriend.

Before constructing the site, the trio conducted 50 live interviews with women who wanted to share their experiences with online dating. The responses they received ranged from the hilarious to the horrifying, like "Everything seemed good. And then he asked me if I smoked meth" and "He was 11 and I had to drive him home. He had walked all the way across town." Determined that the world lacked a dating site that puts women first, LikeBright was born.

LikeBright is committed to creating an environment built on the 3 S's. Joining the site is simple: it takes 30 seconds to sign up via Facebook Connect. The site promotes sociability by offering users a social context for the singles they see and allowing them to interact with friends - attached or not - on the site. And it's safe: women can use LikeBright anonymously, and every man on the site is vouched for.