Case Study: brainmates recently helped RSVP - Australia's leading dating site - to develop a new dating website.

1. Case study – Product planning for Fairfax Digital
Recently, RSVP engaged brainmates to fast track the product planning and product requirements of a new online
dating website.
The company
As part of Fairfax Media Limited – the Fairfax Digital network features the online presence of some of Australia’s
most prominent media brands such as smh.com.au, theage.com.au, RSVP.com.au, drive.com.au and
domain.com.au.
RSVP is Australia's largest online dating site. Since its launch on Valentines Day 1997, RSVP has grown to
become the largest singles site in Australia, serving the needs of over 1.7 million members.
Business challenge
With the success of online dating services that offer compatibility matching overseas, it was the opportune
moment for Fairfax Digital to explore launching their own matching service in Australia. RSVP looked externally
to fast track development to get to market quicker. brainmates was engaged to focus on the Product Planning for
the new online product.
Our efforts and the outcomes
To prepare the new online dating service for development, brainmates took these steps to strategically plan for
the new digital product:
 A comprehensive competitor analysis of local and international online dating websites
 Conducted customer research to better understand the target market and what they desired in an
online dating service
 Created personas and use cases
 Drafted the market requirements based on the analyses of research, and
 Translated the market requirements into product requirements
The competitor analysis and customer research qualified many of the ideas Fairfax Digital had envisaged the
new product to contain, but it also helped refine the new product to incorporate what target customers desired in
a new online dating service. The final market and product requirements documents were used to guide product
design and development into creating MyType.
Testimonial
“brainmates were instrumental in bringing the MyType product to market. brainmates added value to the project
through the use of their product development methodology that not only delivered a great product but also
helped to engage the project team (including developers and marketing) and manage multiple stakeholders. The
consultants brought with them a wealth of Product Management knowledge. It’s great to know that brainmates
are available when you need them.” Fern Jones-Middleton, Product Director, RSVP
www.brainmates.com.au +61 (02) 9232 8147