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Richard Decker Interview Part 2: Here's How Authenti Protects Members
681 Plays18 days ago
Part 2 of my interview with the founder of Authenti, an intentional dating app, begins with Richard explaining why he prioritizes affordability and good experiences for members.
We also talk about why intentionality can lead to longevity when seeking a relationship, how and why Authenti protects members' identities, the app's unique technology, and whether or not Richard's friends and family found a partner on Authenti! Enjoy. Part 3 of my exclusive interview drops next week.
Download Authenti now for a better dating experience!
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Transcript
Entering the Dating Industry and Marketing Strategies
00:00:00
Speaker
No, it's quite the opposite because like I said, with the research, there's more people coming into this industry, whether it be by their age or their relationship change or their divorce or long-term relationships. you know There's so many different reasons why people get back into the dating world.
00:00:13
Speaker
So if you have a successful one and just say, I was simply introduced on Authentic, we met on Authentic, it's going to drive our business word of mouth marketing and advertising is the best. Instead of people, I've been on Authentic for two, three years and I haven't found that meaningful relationship.
00:00:26
Speaker
You know, i I believe in romance. I believe meaningful relationships do exist. Whether how long, you know, we can put together as many people as we want, whether it's through the other apps, you through my services.
00:00:36
Speaker
it's And you all look good on paper, right? We match physically. We have the same ideals, the philosophies. But how do you handle, you know, the shit when it hits, right? That's how the real relationship then becomes, you know, nurtured and becomes something.
00:00:50
Speaker
you know It's all good when we're all looking for the intentional relationship, but what do you do when life turns a little bit on you? are you there for your partner or are you not? And that's where those other relationships I was talking about earlier exceeded expectations greatly in the world and every field that they're in because when the stuff hit the fan, they had each other's back and they weathered any storm.
00:01:10
Speaker
When you're going into something intentionally, you have a higher chance of of achieving that. you know And I'd like to see people succeed. because then they're just going to recommend more of their friends and will become the place to be for that intense relationship. I believe success always trumps trying, getting more members than if you have people just repeatedly using it. So when somebody meets and they're introduced and they have a successful meeting within three or six months, they're going to tell their friend and their friend, it's going to grow.
00:01:38
Speaker
There's so many people on dating apps. that are migrating over already.
Intentional Dating vs. Casual Hookups
00:01:42
Speaker
And there's so many people who would never be on a dating app because when the dating apps came out, they were in some kind of marriage. Now the great divorce rate is climbing.
00:01:49
Speaker
Historically, those people want to meet new people too, but they're not about to tend to bumble a hinge. oria Or Raya or the other one. So funny because you saying that makes me think like you really have not been on the apps. Like you saying that is so funny because actually there are countless people who are newly separated who get on the apps and Just to hook up specifically, although I'm obviously a huge supporter and fan of dating apps, unfortunately, there are a lot of people saying that they want a relationship, men in particular, but they only want sex.
00:02:28
Speaker
So that is another reason why I'm excited about Authentic is because it's bringing intentional dating to the forefront with intentional members who do not want to spend their days and nights swiping, who do not want like endless messaging, one night stands, because that is a very prevalent event.
00:02:50
Speaker
Very, very prevalent problem on these apps is there is dishonesty about what it is people want just to reel someone in And then when you talk to them or date them, they say that they just, they don't want anything serious. So A lot of people are not coming with that, even though the apps allow people to choose what they want.
00:03:12
Speaker
They're going to be a lot of people are dishonest about that just to reel people in. So my next question is authentic members don't have to share their last names up front. Why is it important to you to protect your members' privacy?
Privacy and Discretion in Dating Apps
00:03:26
Speaker
Well, because I think when it comes to matters of the heart, right, privacy, integrity, discretion are all a good rule of thumb and the other apps exploit them.
00:03:35
Speaker
And I want you to get to know me. i don't want you to get to know that I have multiple businesses and multiple homes because I want you to know me because one day I might not have those multiple businesses and multiple homes. you will your Your relationship is with me.
00:03:48
Speaker
It's not on my material or financial or business success. It could actually it can actually multiply significantly if the right partner partner comes into your life. um But it should not be a starting point for any relationship.
00:03:59
Speaker
you know And unfortunately... You're going to have the transactional hookups, and I think they're great. There's a time for everything in life. No judgment on that. But when people come to something about we're offering, knowing you're going in, the title is Intentional Connections, they're more wary to say, no, I'm just looking for a hookup. I'm not going to join Authentic.
00:04:17
Speaker
I'm not going to find out what I want there. Our wording kind of weeds them out a little bit. And also, you're not paying us anything until we find you people to be introduced to.
00:04:31
Speaker
And that's when you decide to become a member. So a lot of those people who are just looking for that casual hookup, they're not going to pay. That's a good point. They show us to get it for free. You know, why buy the cow when I get the milk for free, so to speak, right?
00:04:45
Speaker
So you can do anything you can to try and prevent, you know, this kind of behavior with electronic technology. You're always going to have a little bit, but there's always, you know, you err on the side of caution going in and protecting people. But even if you're newly divorced and you don't want the drama, you don't want your children to know, you don't want anybody to know you're going back into the world of dating, nobody knows. The only person who knows is the person you're being intentionally introduced to. Or like we mentioned before, you're up and coming in the business world, in the big cities. you know Why should the boss, the mailman, the only co-workers, everybody see your bikini shots or see you hanging out at Mr. Pizza, see you doing things?
00:05:17
Speaker
Because, you know, that's what they're all doing. They're all checking out the profile of the next person coming up. And it's like, that's really what gives the whole industry a little bit of a cringe, right? It's like, and if you really want to protect your reputation or whatever, how about you already made it, right? And you're you're already in the top world of finances. You're you're a well-known personality. Like the woman who introduced me for the Donna Drake show on CBS who interviewed me.
00:05:39
Speaker
She was widowed at, I think, 38 years old. Her husband died of cancer, God rest his soul. And she had three children and they had a pack. you know Go find somebody, live your life, we're young. So when she went back in, she went in Rhea. And the amount of opinions and i know I say disregard the good opinion of others, everybody had something to say about
Impact of Dating Apps on Personal Reputation
00:05:55
Speaker
it and this was her personal life. And she was trying to rebuild. And she has all these naysayers and people have with their comments. You don't need it. So if you're divorced or widowed, why should anybody know? Or even just a long-term relationship in a small town.
00:06:07
Speaker
Then your girlfriend or your for your boyfriend, everybody finds out about it. They tell the friend. that It just hurts the other person. It's kind of like if you run into your friend's girlfriend out having dinner with a new guy and they just ended a five-year relationship, you probably shouldn't go home and tell them, hey, I saw her out with somebody because you're not going to help him at all. He's just going to go into depression.
00:06:24
Speaker
And that's what these apps do. People, they just they have a lot of... and strong opinions about why you're on that and how about you're just on it to live your life or how about you really don't need to know that I'm on these. The only person who needs to know is who I'm eating.
00:06:38
Speaker
No, and honestly, like ah something that's really crazy is within the past few years, they have literal just a tap of a button to share somebody's profile.
00:06:50
Speaker
Now on like I Tinder, if I'm not mistaken, Tinder and Bumble. And it's like, why can i not just look at an app? or screenshot what I want. Unfortunately, there are you know we have the ability to screenshot, so it's essentially the same thing.
00:07:07
Speaker
But when you're giving me the option to tap a button, like I could send that to 40 people if I want to. Some of them have introduced an option
Critique of Dating App Business Models
00:07:17
Speaker
where you share a profile, like text it to somebody.
00:07:22
Speaker
that's That's their business model. Their business model, if you think about it, they own the supermarket and wear all their products on the shelves, but we pay to be on their shelf. So they pay for no inventory and they have millions and millions of photos to exploit.
00:07:36
Speaker
in any way, shape, or form that they can to keep their $49 monthly subscription going. So that's the thing. that's by Wanting to meet people, not bad. Wanting to have a hookup or a transaction relationship, not bad.
00:07:46
Speaker
The way the other services are going about it and exploiting people's good nature just to take their $30 to $50 a month, it's just not a good... it's it's On a business plan, I can't take anything away from a guy. He's a multi, multi, multi-billionaire with this concept. Ethically, I wouldn't do it because you're using people for your step above, you know?
00:08:05
Speaker
I understand. and And it is, it is not, it's uncomfortable to be coming across profiles of people, you know, because it's obvious that they can also see your profile. it It's definitely not a very comfortable.
Communication Challenges in Modern Dating
00:08:22
Speaker
I was talking to some people because I'm in from a small town, Sag Harbor, and people saw what I was doing. So they see the the see these podcasts, they see other things and And they'll tell me, you know, I go on the app and I saw John and God, I would never date him.
00:08:35
Speaker
But meanwhile, John's exactly what she wants in a man, the way he looks and everything. But, you know, 10 years ago, he did something and they think they know John. You don't know John. You know, a moment of his life that this small little town has exaggerated over the last 10 years.
00:08:49
Speaker
John has the right to make amends or change. Yeah. But nobody has the benefit of doubt because you have that small town. So these, like big cities, that apps work better than in smaller towns.
00:08:59
Speaker
um But also on the outside of the app world. So I was, you know, I really love this whole concept of relationships and more. I dove in and saw how many people in between 18 and 30, like I think it's 60 or 70 percent. Haven't even had a physical date yet. Between 18 and 30 years old. That's a crazy stat. They don't know how to talk to each other.
00:09:17
Speaker
And then another big thing that's growing is ghosting, where after you physically have met the person. Let me just say, Richard, we should not discuss ghosting because I discuss it very often on this podcast.
00:09:31
Speaker
I don't know if I want to go down that road again. I'm just saying, whatever you got to say, please be brief with the ghosting because I could go off on a ghosting, an anti-ghosting tangent, like every single day.
00:09:44
Speaker
How about I don't have to give you my phone number, Joy? How about I say here, scan my QR code. Let's go to a private chat room until we get to know each other. then we'll exchange our personal information. It was really nice to meet you, but I don't want to be in a situation where we have each other's phone numbers. We don't know each other yet.
00:09:58
Speaker
scan this QR code. It's a private QR code. Can't be shared with anybody else. Can't be forwarded with anybody else. And now let's talk in a private chat room and let Joan and Rich get to know each other. Let Joy and Rich get to know each other a little bit before we decide, okay, you know what? It was really cool meeting you at the other night. And now that we've talked a half a dozen times, maybe we should meet for a cup of coffee.
00:10:15
Speaker
i was I think people should use like a burner, a burner number, which. all this please So that's basically authentic connections, which is the other services now. It's not a burner.
00:10:27
Speaker
yeah but Your phone, but you get a QR code and you discuss in our your private chat room. Yeah. And then you give could give that you could give your QR code changes every time you give it to somebody. So it's systematic and nobody has the same QR code and you can't share my QR code to your friend Susie. So, you know, I know this guy rich. I don't like him here. Why don't you talk to him? It doesn't work that way.
00:10:46
Speaker
No, that's brilliant. That's brilliant. It's genius. I didn't know something but something like that was available. But yeah, like i said. Why did you create it? Huh? I just made it. Okay, yeah. I mean, like I said, I think great. That's another one of our designs because when we built the app, okay, that's the app world.
00:11:03
Speaker
But how many people are bailing from apps who want to be in the physical world, but how do we help them
Entrepreneurship in App Development
00:11:09
Speaker
better? And that's a free service. We don't even charge for that. Yeah, absolutely. No, it's genius. And I wish that everybody would um offer something like that because that is definitely brilliant. Because, yeah, I mean, sometimes I've definitely been contact contacted from contacted by different people.
00:11:27
Speaker
um And, you know, for a long periods of time or just messages you don't want to receive. And then I started to get a lot better with the burner numbers and the burner numbers are really great because you can just disable the number and move on. So if that person is messaging you, they could have fun with their one way, you know, attempts. So,
00:11:49
Speaker
ah You're married. Is that correct? No, no, I'm divorced. I was married for 25 years. Okay. Two children from that relationship, 32 and 30. And then I had a short-term relationship of four years and I have a daughter and a son from that relationship as well. So two, two long-term relationships, four children.
00:12:06
Speaker
And now I'm single. Okay, so ah you have seen your friends and your family's frustration with the apps, with dating apps. So when do you think dating apps stopped working and why was it important to you to find a solution? know, I'm a serial entrepreneur.
00:12:26
Speaker
I've never worked for anybody since I graduated high school. Came from lower and middle class, sweat equity into my first restaurant and never knew anything about that business either. Businesses and that concepts, just when you're an entrepreneur, on my mindset, they come to me and this just came to me and watching everybody happen. And then I just do a deep dive into the industry. I'm like, wow, this industry needs to be serviced better.
00:12:46
Speaker
It's just like another app that I just created that's being launched um in the new in the food world. Because that's just to me, it's like you listen to music on ah on a speaker and you go to break the speaker open, you're not going to see your band. That music's getting piped in.
00:13:01
Speaker
When you're in tuned with what's going on and an idea comes into your head that really like out of like left field, I just look at it like, well, it's interesting that that would come in my head. Let me go follow this up and see why this was piped into me.
00:13:16
Speaker
And then I do the research. I'm like, wow, this is an interesting concept. I'm going to follow through and execute. And that's the, you know, that's the entrepreneurial spirit. We're about executing. You know, we build and we execute outcome outside of our responsibility. This particular industry that I decided to explore based on what got piped in is this is such a needed service.
00:13:36
Speaker
It just needs to be done better. Just like I said, Uber did it with the taxis, JetBlue did it with airlines, Netflix. there I could go down a list. Fortune 500 companies used to last 30 years before they made any changes. Now it's only 18 because the more technology becomes available, like this whole AI um world that we're living in now,
00:13:56
Speaker
inventors and entrepreneurs will make things happen faster and in real time. I mean, I i put this together in less than three months. What? And built it myself, low-code and no-code, and then gave it to a dev team on the back end and probably did it for about $250,000 less than if I paid a dev team in about nine months faster.
00:14:14
Speaker
And I'm not a tech guy at all. And the second app that I just did, I did it in less than... Less than four weeks and we'll be in market in two weeks. That's for a whole nother podcast. And that's going to really rock the world because it's another replacing type of app.
00:14:27
Speaker
And there's going to be a lot of those opportunities. I also wrote a book called The AI Thinker. So it shows people who you could just be a brick and mortar layman. You know, I'm a contractor. I own health clubs. I own restaurants. I've owned nightclubs. I've owned marketing companies.
00:14:41
Speaker
Never dabbled in tech. And now I'm three tech companies in and one tech book in less than a year. What's your, nevermind. I was going to say, what's your sign, but please don't answer that question. It's I'm not going to get a different, a different subject.
00:14:59
Speaker
I live 12 months a year, so i have 12 signs. How's that? Okay, I love that. I love that. I've never heard that either. um So what advice do you have for someone who is reluctant to try your ab?
00:15:13
Speaker
I mean, ah to me, we've already answered that question.
Unique Selling Points of the Authentic App
00:15:17
Speaker
i think it's just the uniqueness, the saving of time, the alignment, the similar interests, similar goals, similar objectives. You're not really going to get the fuck boy who is pretending to want marriage.
00:15:31
Speaker
um But, and I also think that a huge selling or I think it is very unique and important for people to know they are safe on authentic, all of their coworkers, all of their neighbors,
00:15:45
Speaker
All of their friends and family are not going to see them on this app, which nobody else is doing. And that just feels so, so comfortable. I just love that idea so much.
00:15:58
Speaker
Yeah. So it's like for those who are reluctant just because they have a little bit of fear, they've never been on one, maybe they've never experienced one, you know, establish your trust. You're going in slow. You're not putting else, anything out there that nobody could see until they're matched with you.
00:16:13
Speaker
That's the big thing. People have this fear that everybody's going to see in my picture. Everybody's going to see my profile. are going to judge me or this. Nobody sees it. You said it. And forget it. Then we do the work for you. We bring you the ideal mate based on your description of you and what you're looking for and how you all answer the onboarding questions.
00:16:30
Speaker
And then based on your continued conversation after that inside the app, you're not exchanging phone numbers yet. you know, you're either going to grow or not grow. If it grows, mazel tov, you're going to have a relationship possibly down the road. If it doesn't grow, you've not been seen by that person. They've not been seen by you. So there's no harm, no foul.
00:16:48
Speaker
There's no exploitation. There's no objectification. There's no, you know, it's just, it's just a clean, holistic way to try to get to know somebody to try to get, find that relationship. You know, there is, there are no guarantees that,
00:17:01
Speaker
We're setting you up and in a place where if you go on to that next level, next level, next level, it's based on your input, your decisions, not an algorithm. um It's all human designed. It's all driven by humans. It's not based on you look really cute in that photo, but maybe that photo isn't. I was a bodybuilding competitor. I could show you my photo from five years ago or today. I mean,
00:17:22
Speaker
They're similar, but was my body rocking then at 4% body fat? Yeah. But is that me today? No. Am I physically fit? Yeah. But is that photo misleading? Yes. So let me describe who I am today.
00:17:34
Speaker
I'm fit. Okay. Okay. So, I mean, this is a personal question. That's your little so your little warning. So, like, have your have your kids slash have your friends, family members, have they found someone on Authentic?