Lexington, KY - Lori Cheek works New York City as if she were the secret love child of Carey Bradshaw and guerilla marketing guru Jay Conrad Levinson. She is relentless in her pursuit of attractive men, but what she really wants is attractive men and women for everyone.
Cheek, founder and CEO of Cheek'd, the offline-to-online dating service, was eating dinner with friends recently when she noticed a handsome and familiar French film director looking bored with his date. As she left the restaurant, she slipped a small black card into his jacket pocket that said, "I'm cooler than your date."
Cheek'd works like this: You see someone. You like him. You give him a card that says "don't overthink this" or "act natural, we can get awkward later." Or just "hi."
The card also has a unique code, which is a private invitation to see your profile online. You are notified if he looks at your profile, and he has the option to email you. You can email him back to begin an online communication. If all goes well, you can then take it offline without all the awkwardness of the typical first date generated by an online match-up.
Cards can be bought on the Cheek'd website, where participants are asked to fill out a quirky simple profile that only takes a few minutes.
"People always ask, 'Why can't you just say hello if you like someone?'" Cheek said. "But there are many situations where that isn't possible. Say you see two men having a business lunch, or someone wearing headphones on a bus. You can't just walk up and say, 'Do you want to go have coffee later?'"
When you give a card, "rejection is not a factor," she said. "You don't have to stick around for someone to tell you 'you're not my type.' Or maybe that he's married or gay."
Lori Cheek is in town to give the keynote speech for Lexington's Global Entrepreneurship Week. As organizers began to coordinate the agenda for the event, which is financially supported by the Bluegrass Business Development Partnership, they agreed their dream speaker would be an entrepreneur with ties to Lexington who had shown that she/he was not afraid to take risks and step outside the comfort zone when developing an idea or technology.
As Warren O. Nash, director of the Lexington Innovation and Commercial-ization Center and the Von Allmen Center for Entrepreneurship, explained, "We also wanted someone who could demonstrate that many times an entrepreneur has to think outside the box when taking a product/technology/idea to market. Lori was a perfect example of such an entrepreneur and a great fit for the keystone event."
Running her own company and speaking all over the country was never what the Taylorsville native expected to do when she moved to New York after graduating from UK's architecture program.
Even as she arrived in New York, friends would tell her that she was too social to be an architect. It's easy to see why. She sings. She dances. She hula-hoops professionally, and she often carries a Mr. Microphone with her for when she thinks things might be getting dull. Cheek is noticeable in a crowd, with the body of an athlete, the sartorial style of a British dandy (she is given to ties and vests), pouting ruby-red lips and shocked white-blond hair that is piled high on top of her head and often embellished with a feather.
When she finishes speaking, the audiences line up to chat, and they always want to hear more about two things: her marketing and her financing.
Cheek concedes that in the beginning she wasted her budget by paying other people for public relations and marketing that she was better equipped to do herself. She ran ads that didn't work. She hired a public relations company that didn't care and most memorably hired a social media expert who tweeted links to depressing singles articles - and misspelled Cheek'd.
Today Cheek handles all the PR, marketing and advertising herself for little or no money. "I don't have a dime to my name; I've bootstrapped this business since day one," she said. "We had to start thinking outside the box about how we were going to tell the world about our great idea."
She knew she needed to start appearing in the media, but she couldn't pay for it.
"So I put one of these black cards in a black envelope with a Cheek'd sticker on it, and I sent it to one of the New York Times' top editors, Stephanie Rosenbloom. Two weeks later, we were on the cover of the New York Times' style section, being called the next generation of online dating."
That led to a slew of national and international press. Cheek's favorite is a five-page spread in a Norwegian magazine.
Whenever Cheek encounters a celebrity, she always gives him a card because, as she says, "you never know if he might end up on a talk show and mention Cheek'd."
She ran into Spike Lee recently and gave him a card from the New York deck that says, "My season tickets are next to Spike's."
"He freaked," she said. "He really liked it."
Cheek herself may be a celebrity soon. She recently began filming a reality show.
"They have been filming me doing what I do," she said. "The gist of it is this woman-entrepreneur penetrating this male-dominated tech world, and all the crazy things I am doing to fund my idea."
Five producers vied for the opportunity because, as Check said,
"I've got a good story to tell."
What are some of her more effective and inventive marketing strategies?
Sticking cards on the ads on subways. "I use this sticky stuff that doesn't damage anything," she said.
Posting fake images on Twitter and Facebook of billboards.
Carrying sidewalk chalk everywhere. She looks to street artists for inspiration.
Holding parties all the time. "I have a Derby party every year. We have a card that says 'talk derby to me,'" she said.
Using social media, including Four Square. "I have been tweeting Ashton Kutcher, who is a tech investor," she said. "Trust me, I'm going to meet him."
"I have been very creative about funding this," Cheek said. She enters tournaments and pitches her business any chance she can. She recently won $35,000 in prizes by beating out 63 other startups in a March-Madness-style tournament.
When asked if she would be interested in investors, she replied, "I can't take this to the next level the way that I would like without some funding. Yes, I am looking for a seed round of investment. And I would love more than anything for some of that to come from my home state. "
And the striking French director? After five days, he sent a message that said, "I'm not sure if this is a joke, but if it isn't, meet me at the Guggenheim at 3 p.m. on Sunday." Cheek did meet him. They had a lovely time, she said.
"I'm not sure we are going to get married," she said. "He is quirky. But we had a good time."