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Hi all,

My Brazilian wife and I just recently started a marriage agency. Since we are really beginners, and you all here seem to be pretty experienced, we would greatly appreciate any comments you may have on our site: www.quercasar.com

Thank you in advance,

Gorm & Maricina

... in response to New agency founded, posted by Gorm on Nov 14, 2005

Regarding the service to to sign up a man in your agency....see the following thread....  Although $15 is not much to charge it is unlikely it will generate any results for the guys.

http://www.planet-love.com/wwwboard/latin/archives/display.php?archive=000279&id=85292

... in response to Re: New agency founded, posted by teoblas on Nov 16, 2005

My fiancee has told me that there are a substantial number of women in Brazil who are willing to pay a fee to browse profiles of and meet foreign men, similar to what exists for us regarding women.  I do not have details of HOW MUCH of a fee they are willing (or able) to pay.  It may not be enough to make such a reverse agency viable.

You would think that a decent looking women would be able to find a man without much trouble.  My fiancee says the issue is not finding A man but finding THE man.

... in response to Re: Re: New agency founded, posted by Brazilophile on Nov 17, 2005

Your fiancee is right, in Brazil there are all kinds of women with many resources at hand. Here in the Amazon the internet is still something without much use for the common man, and we really need to look beyond the small group of Amazon women who regularly go on the internet to find a man.

... its a real "Amazon" refreshing thought to have the women pay for the service...  Anybody have experiences with this?

... in response to Re: New agency founded, posted by teoblas on Nov 16, 2005

You are probably right.

As our ladies physically pass through our agency, we require that they review and consider the male registrants. In our case, George, our only male registrant registered 4 days ago, has adviced that he will visit in January, and we already have 4 ladies that on own initiative are eager to get on his agenda. By January we are confident that he will have a very nice selection of some 20-25 ladies that want to meet him and ladies that he wants to meet.

We hope that George will enjoy this for his initial invest of €15.

... in response to New agency founded, posted by Gorm on Nov 14, 2005

I've processed your site submission and it's now listed on the Latin agencies page.

... in response to Re: New agency founded, posted by Patrick on Nov 15, 2005

Thanks... am I also on your Translation Services page?

Gorm

... in response to New agency founded, posted by Gorm on Nov 14, 2005

Out of curiosity, how much research did you do about the MOB business ***BEFORE***  you started your site?  It seems to me that the feedback you are getting now should have been obtained at the idea stage.  

I am interested in what motivated you to start the agency, and how you arrived at your business model and developed your business plan.

(I have a busness degree and the operations of some agencies don't make much sense to me.  Example, the recent baby kisser G.L.)

... in response to Re: New agency founded, posted by Brazilophile on Nov 15, 2005

Thanks for your comment, and yes, we should probably have done more research before our launch.

Our motivation to start our marriage agency really come from all the wonderful and beautiful single Brazilian women here in our Amazon region. Women, who tend not to share modern female desires to become models, actresses or lawyers, but sincerely believe that a successful woman is a woman who has a loving home and happy kids. Women, who cannot find a stable male partner locally.

Amazon Brazilian women, in general, tend to have more favorable traits, they are physically very attractive and they like older men.

Besides, it is a great motivator to see guys and gals off to happiness and love.

But, to be honest with you, I haven´t really seen any other agency with a convincing business model.

In my opinion, the model of address reselling is prone to scammers and have some personal safety concerns. see www.quercasar.com/Addresses.htm

The model of "Travel with us to meet your Woman" is probably fine, when the activity of the parties is being well guided, but has a long marketing invest to cash conversion time.

Finally, the chat based love letter translation service is probably fine, but you could limit your search to women, who enjoy sitting most of the day in a chat room.

To me, it makes no sense to build a business on delivering a service, that someone can get for free on the web. It is the human interaction and the right mix of services, with the right pricing, that makes a web based marriage agency achieve a lot of coupling.

It may also be better to leave the MOB term to the history books, it awakes the politically correct.

Good luck with your business.

... in response to New agency founded, posted by Gorm on Nov 14, 2005

[This message has been edited by Michael B]

1) 30 euros per contact is too high
2) I was about to say your 'Make me exclusive' service is not fair to the lady, keeps her from  getting the exposure she deserves...but then I read the details and see that it is only for 3 weeks.....still, I have mixed feelings about it.
3) quote: "If the woman decide to give you her personal address or potentially e-mail address, then you are set to develop the relationship you want on your own. Any further of our services will be optional." ....Some agencies charge for each message and use that as a scam method (i.e. the lady doesn't even know she's writting, the agency is writting made up letters in her name, to generate the translation/comminucation fees)....but you are obviously not intending to do that, since you say that it is allowed for her to give her contact information to the man. So, that's a GOOD point for your agency.
4) quote: "We recommend that you choose 2 or 3 women".....I recomend they chose 10 or 12....of course, at 30 euro each, that's too expensive......maybe you could offer a "10 for whateverprice" special.
5) quote: invite one of the women to visit you? Please do so, we will be glad to assist you and your potential wife with the visas and travel documents.....99.9% of your ladies are not going to qualify for any kind of US visa except a K-1 (fiancee) and the couple has to have met in person before they can even apply for that kind of visa......maybe things are different getting into Europe?
6) I went and clicked on 3 or 4 of the ladies......very good (i.e. complete) information -- religion, number of children, occupation, smoke, drink etc...so that's another GOOD for your agency.
7) Offering nultiple languages for your translation service is good also.

Well, tried to give you an honest evaluation. Hope you are financially successful and bring happiness to some deserving couples.

... in response to Re: New agency founded, posted by Michael B on Nov 14, 2005

Thanks a ton for your comments, thats really helpful.

1) 30 Euro, please see my comment to Malandro, would it be better to change our approach and just sell the addresses??

2) We have this option on a "trial" to see if it works out for the gents& ladies. Sofar we have not sold this service yet. It really comes out of the stereotype that women tend to never make up their mind if they get a constant flow of proposals.

3) Thank you.

4)you are right, 20 women would be better. That would be 600 Euro, or 800 dollars right off the bat. However, a frugal man may mix our services and, say, write to 3 women that he find very attractive (90), and then sign up as a man on our Agency (15), and announce to all the ladies of our agency that he will come visit on date Xx.xx.  Does this work?

5)Again, right on. To the USA it is complicated, but to Europe she can travel 3 months without any visa. However, we fear that the country gal may get lured into bad quarter. Would it not be better to always recommend the man come visit as the first step?

Thank you for your advice,

Gorm

... in response to Re: Re: New agency founded, posted by Gorm on Nov 14, 2005

I read your reply to Maladro, here's some additional thoughts
1) Don't know--it's certainly too much for just selling the address, but about fair for all you are giving, including the translation and all, and as you said, it does protect the woman by keeping her information private from people she doesn't like. How about a compromise? If a guy buys a lot of addresses and sends out letters, he doesn't expect them ALL to answer him anyway (at least he shouldn't)...maybe 30 euro, but the man gets half of it back if the lady tells you she doesn't want to correspond with him for a valid reason (wrong age range, smoker and woman is nonsmoker, whatever).....that way you only have to translate one letter instead of two.

4) Actually, I think that most agencies that offer the service of posting the man's information usually charge much MORE for that, not less.

5) You raise another good point. Of course you can't PREVENT the woman from traveling, but you certainly can (and should) ADVISE her to insist that he comes to visit her first, for exactaly they reason you mention. The woman is certainly safer in her home town than she is in a foreign place with no friends, no family and can't speak the language.

... in response to New agency founded, posted by Gorm on Nov 14, 2005

Nice site, nice ladies.  All the vital information is there. However, are you sure you want to deal in euros? The Eur/dollar has been crazy the past week.  Also am I reading correctly, you are charging $25 per address?

... in response to Re: New agency founded, posted by Onephd on Nov 14, 2005

too much.

... in response to more like $35 , posted by Malandro on Nov 14, 2005

Thank you for your comment.

Actually we don`t sell the addresses. I have mixed feelings about selling addresses, it may not always be fair that the ladies that they cannot control where and to whom their private information goes.

Also, what is a man going to do with it? write a letter, include some photos and mail it. It can take 2-4 weeks to get to the destination, and the nice Amazon girl cannot understand it. She rarely will have money to translate your letter, or respond to you in a sensible way.

We fear that a lot of well intentioned letter writers will be taken for a ride by local translators, or be left out in the cold by the vast majority of pretty girls who don`t know how to respond in English.

Rather, what we do is we sell the translation and delivery service of your letter to her, and of her letter to you, AND the print out and delivery of a full letter sized portfolio of photos. Just the translatin cost can take up a good USD20-30, the photo print out is another USD3. So after the delivery there really is not much left to play with.

You really think it is too expensive?

Thank you in advance for your response.

Gorm & Maricina

... in response to Re: more like $35 , posted by Gorm on Nov 14, 2005

"Rather, what we do is we sell the translation and delivery service of your letter to her, and of her letter to you, AND the print out and delivery of a full letter sized portfolio of photos."

I'm not sure if you're "up" on all of the free services available on the Net, but guys can now do their own translations for free, use instant messaging and video chat for free, send text messages for free, email services for free, photo storage for free, browse and contact women from many sites for free (or, for a monthly charge that is much less than the cost of one of your addresses).

"You really think it is too expensive?"

With a capital "H", Hell yeah!

Nevertheless, there still exists a core group of gullible chaps that are eager to fork over such dough to find their special luv bunny.

Just my onion.

Peace and out.

... in response to Yowzy, ouch!, posted by doombug on Nov 14, 2005

Hi Doombug,

The few times I tried I got any language translated into jibberish!

I`d be scared dead making wedding plans based on a questionable translation quality. Does it really work? Any experiences out there?

About the chat, messaging, etc. that is a great thing. However, these pretty and unspoiled girls (apart for 1 or 2) don´t have access to Internet services.

But you give me a great inspiration. Would it make sense to offer "scheduled and live translated webcam sessions"? where I invite the girls to our offices. What would be a reasonable fee?

Gorm

... in response to Webcam the smart solution?, posted by Gorm on Nov 14, 2005

"Would it make sense to offer 'scheduled and live translated webcam sessions' where I invite the girls to our offices. What would be a reasonable fee?"

Sounds like it'd be a unique offering.  Coordination would probably be the biggest challenge--trying to get each party (or multiple parties) to commit to a video-chat intro. during a specific bracket of time.  I assume  pricing would be a fraction of whatever a typical in-person intro. costs.  In any case, it's strange that agencies haven't moved in that direction already.  Video chat intros. could save a lot of hassle.  The frequent hang-up over issues of "chemistry" could be delt with from the very start--prior to any booking of flights/appointments.

I agree about the limited ability of the language translators on the Net.  It helps to keep sentences small and simple prior to translating them; and if one knows at least a modicum of the target language, this can help somewhat in editing.  I've used them a lot to translate individual words and phrases.  Multiple sentence or paragraph translations is, of course, a bad idea.  I guess that's where you'd come in.

Looks like Hoda pegged you right on:  a pretty straight-laced agency dude.  I hope your agency does well.  

Peace out!

... in response to Re: Webcam the smart solution?, posted by doombug on Nov 15, 2005

Try this link

http://www.teoblas.com/virtualdating.htm

NOBODY has contacted me about it yet.....

... in response to The possibility for webcam dates already..., posted by teoblas on Nov 16, 2005

I think I've got an idea why you have had no takers on this offer:

Servicios Internacionales will not be held responsible and will not provide refunds if either the gentleman or lady is not available at the agreed upon time or if the internet connection is interrupted.

Why would anybody pay $40.00 (or worse, $70.00) with that kind of a disclaimer? A guy can take his chances that he may not make a favorable impression on the lady, but who's going to put out that much money only to hear you say "Sorry, she didn't show up"? I guess your reasoning is you can't control if the lady shows up or not.....That's true, but that should be YOUR risk, not the customer's.....If she doesn't show up (or if the internet connection fails) you have lost NOTHING. Granted, you won't profit anything either, but you won't lose. Why should your customer lose? .... Yeah, yeah, you could say "The customer takes the risk she won't write back if he purchases addresses, too".....but addresses don't cost $40.00 to $70.00 each.

... in response to The possibility for webcam dates already..., posted by teoblas on Nov 16, 2005

Awesome.

Looks like you're at the forefront already.  Still, it's kind of perplexing that guys and gals aren't jumping to use such a service.

... in response to Re: more like $35 , posted by Gorm on Nov 14, 2005

how would you handle it if someone was able to write their own letters in Porkacheese to the girls??

if I write my own letter in Portuguese would the cost then go down significantly??

... in response to it wasn't clear, so thanks for the reply..., posted by Malandro on Nov 14, 2005

Good question... I think they may not need my service at all, but just travel here on their own and meet a brazilian woman... I`d probably discount 10 or so...