How a lack of likes drove an entrepreneur to create Christiancafe.com with Sam Moorcroft

Today’s podcast guest is Sam Moorcroft, President and Co-founder of Christiancafe.com. After a few hits — but many more misses — on various dating sites, Sam and his brother Philip — who is also an MBA recipient — decided to build their own. Launched in 1999, Christiancafe.com is now the largest privately-owned Christian singles site online. After more than 22-years as a business, this site has helped hundreds of thousands of Christian singles connect, and is responsible for over 25,000 marriages.

In today’s podcast, Sam takes us through the complex world of online dating, and how Christicafe.com’s original strategy has and stood the test of time, technology and the pandemic.

Sam finishes up by offering his advice for young entrepreneurs, detailing his and his wife’s savings and investments, and, revealing his definition of financial independence for him and his family.

Listen to the podcast – Download the transcript

Highlights:

Sam and his brother started ChristianCafe.com after Sam used many dating sites and realized that he could create a better experience for Christian singles.
He explains how they saw a 30% jump in membership buy-in during the pandemic.
Sam highlights that, while Christiancafe.com is a global site, 80% of their membership is from North American singles.
Sam’s investing strategy has changed somewhat over the years, however, he continues to embrace a tax limiting strategy of using RSPs, RRSPs, TFSAs and RESPs.
His definition of financial independence is quite straightforward, “it is just from a simple mathematical point of view of more cash in than cash out.”

Quotes:

“So people are shifting heavily, heavily towards mobile. So in our case, right now it’s about 65%.”

“While [activity] historically was, and it still is, evenings and weekends. In our case, Sunday afternoons are one of our most popular times.”

“I remember a great salesman, a mentor of mine saying, “The difference between a good salesman and a great salesman, a great salesman believes in what he’s selling.” So you have to know why you’re there.”

“If I was giving advice to my younger self, I would have started saving 20 years earlier. Like when I was legally eligible.”