The National Center For Health Statistics (NCHS) says that there are approximately 2.2 million marriages in the U.S. every year. Some of those marriages work out well. But a big percentage of marriages – up to 1.4 million per year – end in divorce.
There are sites that help people plan for marriage, like the $400+ million market cap TheKnot.com. And when the time comes, BabyCenter, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, will help them through the process of having a baby. There’s even Caring.com, which helps people plan for aging and death.
But if your blissful union ends in a dissolution, there aren’t many places to turn on the Internet for help in getting through the process. And that’s a shame, because the average participant spends up to $15,000 in the months leading up to and after a divorce. Houses are sold or refinanced, new bank and credit card accounts are opened, and someone has to furnish that shabby apartment that dad has been booted to. And it doesn’t stop there, of course. Revenge sex and, eventually, the ridiculous hope that the next relationship will end better than the previous one leads divorcees to start checking out the online dating services, too.
That’s why new Florida-based startup Divorce360 makes so much sense. These people are confused, lonely and need to make major financial decisions fast. Divorce360 will help them, just like TheKnot helps with marriages and BabyCenter helps with having a baby. And like those sites, Divorce360 will find ways make money through advertising, classified listings and lead generation.
Site Overview
The site is broken up into time based categories, from Deciding (to have a divorce) through Moving On (at the end of the process). Each category has four sub-categories (legal, financial, emotional, children). Each page has content relevant to the category – paid contributions by journalists, blog posts by users, a Q&A section (with questions and answers provided by users) and video. The professional content is clearly there to seed the site. The user generated stuff, including user profiles, blogs and questions/answers, help builds community on the site. That community can help provide a crucial support network for the newly divorced.
A directory for service providers is coming. The company says listings will be free to ensure rich content. Later, premium listings will help generate revenue. The site also has other resources for divorcees: checklists, budget calculators, a glossary, links to relevant state laws and resources and an abuse hotline.
Here’s one of the smartest features – the site has an area for users to keep private notes that are not viewable by others – a sort of private journal and incident report. In the early stages of a breakup privacy is often a real problem since the couple cohabitate and any notes or files, even if stored on a computer hard drive, may be seen by the enemy (your wife or husband).
Advertising for now is basically a mixture of display and text ads. But over time, the company says, they’ll be able to generate revenue more intelligently by recommending services, classified ads in the directory and other lead generation.
Divorce360, which has six employees, was founded by Cotter Cuningham, who was previously the COO of publicly held BankRate.com (Cunningham says he’s never been divorced, by the way). The company is headquartered in Palm Beach, Florida. They raised a $2.5 million Series A round of funding in September 2007 from Austin Ventures and a number of angel investors. Austin Ventures’ Tom Ball joined their board of directors.
i’m still hoping i find a girlfriend someday
Hope those partners THINKING about getting a divorce remember to clear their browser history after each visit at home or work.
Certainly don’t even think of Bookmarking.
Jolting way for a spouse or child or to find out.
Miss Universe:
No need to worry, Facebook Beacon has you covered for the times when a bookmark or browser history won’t suffice.
Just looky here:
Less technical:
http://communit...-logged-in.aspx
The real techy juice:
http://www.radi...eaconjavascript
(The second one is very in-depth, but requires two trips to the local Starbucks to get through…)
This is not a good idea in my opinion…
I think this company will get Divorced
An interesting idea. There must be a way to tie all these sites together: dating, marriage, pregnancy, divorce, repeat. Would be nice not to have to register at each one.
Try Microsoft DivorceMaker 2.1
http://fakestev...er.blogspot.com
Really a good idea. The divorce market is so damn big. 1.4mil/2.2mil ppl getting divorce every year. I think the Lawyer is the most happiest man out there.
this is a good service, but the one thing i notice from 90% of the site that gets featured on TC. They are all cluttered with Ads, what happened to the day of focusing on the user experience.
I went to the site, and would probably never go back, the prevalence of ads all over the place from google adsense have to make you wonder about these companies. I think its a good idea, i would however caution focusing on ads in the begining. Design the site so that the user experience is first and foremost.
Take a chapter from the really successful sites. User experience is paramount.
Youtube
Myspace (before it was purchased by ad gorilla)
Paypal
Amazon
I think marriages are doing fine, better than people think. What those statistics don’t include, is the fact that probably 1/2 of those marriages are to get people greencards. Therefore the incredible rate of divorce once 2 years have passed.
i could of used something like this. the theory behind it is solid and useful, i hope over time it’s better implemented (echoing the above comment
).
I’m wondering when people will get a life and give up on these “fake ballmer”, fake arrington, Miss Universe”, etc.etc.. comments?
Perhaps Seth Godin has something by not allowing comments on his blog, somedays the quality of discussion here is just horrible.
You have much more patience than I, Mike.
I am definitely going to criticize this post! 290 flaws found already.
Matt (Mad) Chider
http://www.chide.it
I somehow find this idea more funny than anything else… May be in the future people will start planning their divorce even before they get married!!
for what it is worth – the “subscribe by email” feature on the site is not working. When I try to enter the captcha it won’t go through…pretty sure after 5 tries I had at least one right.
a better name would have been http://www.theUNknot.com
Coffee Man, which bug flew up your ass?
The way I take it is that over 50% of TheKnot customers will end up being Divorce360 customers…
Fake Arrington,
It’s old, tired, lame, and apparently you don’t get that.
You and the rest are like those guys still walking around and yelling:
Whasssuupppp!
Seriously just try and use some imagination to come up with something new.
Is that too much to ask?
What a timely idea! A lot of marriages end over the holidays. Another good site for information and help is 211.org
They should have made two different sites: one for men, one for women.
The emotional and financial repercussions of each sex in a divorce are so radically different, to combine them in one site is just a turn off.
There’s the “MAXIM Guide to Divorce” and the “Cosmo Guide to Divorce.” This site attempts to combine them. Big mistake.
Putting them on the same site is silly. And what kind of community can emerge – in divorce, women help/advise women and men help/advise men.
Fake Steve Ballmer
“Try Microsoft DivorceMaker 2.1″
lol =]
Hahahaha…..I cannot stop laughing guys
Does divorce360 as a name really make sense? You want to start off where you start?
Maybe Divorce180 would have been better.
Coffee Man or Coffee Mug!! LMAO whatever your name is. its a blog, freedom of speech..
And yes, i still say whatup to my friends.. like whatup homie or whatup bro or whatup ma..
You obviously missed the point i was trying to make. That these sites instead of focus on making the UI rich and useful, its cluttered with ads.
Stop crying like a little girl..
This is such a great site, I just woke my wife (ex wife) up and told her I am leaving her!
Thanks TC!!
‘ridiculous hope that the next relationship will end better than the previous’?’
Is someone here a little bit bitter? Or have some inherent biases against staying together with one person for their life?
Yeah, relationships often fail, but we don’t need some unjustified social commentary when we are trying to find out about new companies. Please stay focused on those things.
Fake Mike Arrington, I wonder how big the market would be if we launhed a startup for all the “Fakes” out there, I bet there are millions of “Fakes” and closet “Fakes” out there just waiting for a vibrant community to join and share their “Fakeness.”
Not sure if Divorce360 is a good name. It could be Thebreakup.com automatically you are catering to a bigger audience.
Eh, well divorce here in the UK is even higher! Im on my forth!:)
Wonder if their first revenue deal will be co-registration with Adult Friend Finder?
Ha, wouldn’t a 360 end up in getting divorced people married again?
@jeradc :
Perhaps its covering all 360 degrees surrounding a divorce!
Coffee Man we would rather listen to all the ‘fakes’ out there than your incessant, childish whining. Do us all a favour – go make yourself a cup of tea and uninstall your browser.
@20 is absolutely right. They need separate sites for men and women. Imagine if girlfriendstealer.com and boyfriendstealer.com were a combined site! The divorce360 people clearly are just trying to make a buck and haven’t really thought through the psychology of it all. That’s the problem with these VC sponsored “content” sites — the quality is suspect. Some guy looking to sell ads throws something together. Compare that with a paper magazine where there are usually some experts in the domain involved.
Interesting idea to say the least. Better watch out for the disgruntled spouse. They have resources right at their fingertips to ditch you. With all the private investigators and other resources available, makes it pretty easy these days to catch you, dump you, and take half with swiftness. Actually, this is kinda funny. I new the internet would evolve into a monster every since I first logged on 15 years ago. I can’t wait to see what’s next.
(scratching my head)
Guys (and gals), I am not exactly aware of U.S. family laws… Is it legal to divorce in the U.S. only if one of the parties is cheating? This site seems to assume so all the way.
In Europe, you can get a divorce just for the heck of it, and it does not cost you anywhere this much.
Verdict: Not scalable internationally.
OMG, what a productive website.
Que? #32 highlighted as a TC contributor, but no name?
This is beyond pathetic. Is there any sphere of human misfortune that there isn’t some wannabe internet millionaire salivating to profit from?
Quite obviously, Divorce360 is a blatant rip-off of a concept that was conceived over a year ago:
“Donut Divorve — Let’s make divorce a spectator sport! Divorces are usually very time-consuming, costly and not a lot of fun. Donut Divorce wants you to be able to get a divorce in the time it takes to buy a donut. It’s an online service. Both parties can invite all their friends and family to help duke out the details of the split. Donut Divorce makes money by taking 10 percent of any settlement that’s reached, which — in part — will be redistributed among the contributors. Of course, there’s point rewards and reputation systems and lots of web 2.0 bells an whistles.”
Jesse – haha, right on! you and me both….hahahhahahahha
Jesse FTW
blah, the quick/simple divorce market was settled ten years ago, but it only works when both parties think the divorce should be quick and simple. otherwise it is off to the lawyers you go.
That website is a fantastic idea. Resolve problems is good.
Perfect website idea. you have targeted ppl so other companys would love to pay to put ads on the site.
D360: “Hi Mr. Angel. Can I haz $2.5 mil to hire some Bulgarians on eLance to make me a Web 2.0-riffic scrapesite in the colors of last year’s Ikea catalog?”
VC: “That depends…what original idea for revenue generation will $2,5 mil get me?”
D360: “Um…..AdSense?”
VC: “Well, if you throw in banners for mortgage brokers, you’ve got yourself a deal. One rule, though: it’s got to look like every other 2.0 site. No Purple Cows allowed.”
D360: “Pwnd.”
BTW, if you need separate sites for men and women, I’ll “niche it down” one further: Dad’s New Place.
Great web site idea…. guys are finally getting the truth on the delusion of marriage today. Also try http://www.learnwomen.com. Thanks for the site-find, TechCrunch!
I don’t think this should be a website, but rather a Facebook application. I’ll call Zuck and see what he wants to do.
There should be strategic alliance between divorce360 with theknot.com because after dissolution people will plan for marriage.
#2 cause of divorce:
Browsing the internet when you should be paying attention to the needs of your spouse!
http://fakestev...er.blogspot.com
This is a great post and very interesting ideas, I like the idea for the website as well… communication is the key in relationships and marriage but especially in the divorce.
Thanks,
Howard