Mustaches Prevail on Gentlemint, the Pinterest Site for ‘Manly Men’




What’s more manly than a mustache?

Not much, if you ask co-founders Glen Stansberry and Brian McKinney, co-founders of the recently launched Gentlemint.com — a Pinterest-inspired site for “manly men.”

“We wanted to add an old-school, ‘gentlemanly’ feel,” Stansberry says of the ‘stache logo. “Kind of like a Teddy Roosevelt persona….Pre-hipster.”

A monocled man with a ‘stache serves as the logo for the site, which went public this week and is currently “invite-only.” But it’s easy to get access to the site — just click on “request an invite” to get an invitation sent to your email and then you’re in.

Gentlemint’s love of mustaches — plus users’ evident enthusiasm for lip hair (the picture above is a mustache tie-clip someone posted) — adds a bit of kookiness to the site. A rave review from the American Mustache Institute (yes, that’s a real thing) displayed at the top of the site proclaims that Gentlemint is, “…one of the more manly websites on the planet.”

“When we were designing the site we just kept having fun with the idea of the manly mustache and elements like that, so we went with it,” Stansberry says. “It’s supposed to be fun, silly, useful and entertaining — something that appeals to everyone.”

If you’re the type to post cute kitten videos, take note: Gentlemint is having none of that girlishness.

The manly site is similar to Pinterest but without the pictures of high heels, glittery manicures and wedding dresses.

Users post content, such as photos with a short blurb, and other users can comment and click on the moustache logo that also serves as a “like” button. Gentlemint connects to Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus. Sift through pages of entertaining pictures and articles to vote on your favorites. Posts with more support get pushed toward the sites’s first page.

The two co-founders currently work day jobs together at a web software company in Kansas. Initially, they wanted to challenge themselves to build a website in one day. They worked for 12 hours and — boom! — Gentlemint was created. Since then, they’ve fine tuned and added more features. Stansberry says they hope to eventually have an app for iOS and Android devices.

The site is a veritable playground for men. Posts include instructions on the proper way to kick-in a door (don’t jump), rundowns on unique products including rum soap and a meat-mallet four-finger ring, and a discussion of “interesting Big Lebowski art.”

Don’t worry, though — while Gentlemint is a definite boys’ club, it does play nice with girls.

There’s no gender-check when you join to the site. Women can sign-up but if you post, say, a picture of a wedding ring, it might not make it to the first page or be on the site for long.

“We really want to focus Gentlemint on the type of content that is interesting to us,” Stansberry says. “Anyone can pretty much post anything they want, but we want the focus of the site to be the type of content we built Gentlemint for.”

Studies have shown that women are more active social media consumers than men, except on Google +. But some publications are hoping to tap-into the male readership market. Cosmopolitan magazine launched a men-only version for iPads in August 2011. Although Gentlemint doesn’t yet appear to be the type of site where men can read about manscaping and hot bedroom moves, their content is eclectic and entertaining.

“It really has less to do with being a male or female, or kittens or bacon, and more to do with encouraging users to add stuff around that theme,” Stansberry says.

What do you think about Gentlemint? Sound off in the comments.

Photo courtesy of Gentlemint

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