Overworked and under-loved, the young innovators of Silicon Valley now have a local startup that wants to help them make the most of their relationships.
Although their day jobs may involve disrupting the tech industry, tech workers don’t want their relationships disrupted by their own inattentiveness caused by the focus they place on career pursuits. The hardworking men of Silicon Valley are known for missing dates and forgetting special occasions.
Fortunately for them, a new startup is on hand to help make life, and love, easier. Dan Sullivan, a 27-year-old venture capitalist, has started a subscription service known as BetterBoyfriend.me, which offers to provide a present each month for a member’s wife or girlfriend for the cost of $70.
The service, which has been in test (or beta) mode thus far, already has 350 boyfriends and husbands signed up, generating $17,000 per month as a result, reports the Guardian. Sullivan claims that most of his sign-ups are men who work in the tech industry for companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook.
In return for the monthly subscription, members get to choose from a list of seven possible gifts (including chocolate, tea sets, manicures), which then get delivered in an unbranded, unlabeled package straight to the men.
You may be thinking that it sounds like the perfect crime, but Sullivan claims that around half of the women are aware of his company’s involvement in their relationships. “It’s correlated with age. I think after you’ve been married a while you don’t keep many secrets,” he told the Guardian.
Such is the importance of his role in the lives of these absent-minded romantics, that Sullivan claims he’s transcended the business-client model to become more of a relationship coach for his customers. Something akin to a modern-day Cyrano de Bergerac (who coached Christian to woo Roxane), albeit with a more materialistic approach to courtship. The key, according to Sullivan, is to remember that “his relationship is with the boyfriend.”
