Violet Lim, Co-founder Of Lunch Actually Interview

OPW INTERVIEW -- Nov 15 -- I met Violet at the Matchmakers Conference in September. She’s runs Lunch Actually in Singapore. - Mark Brooks

Tell me about Lunch Actually.
My husband and I started Lunch Actually in 2004. It’s a company that arranges one to one lunch dates for business professionals. Ever since we launched 2 other branches. One is in Malaysia and one in Hong Kong in additional to our office in Singapore.

How does it work?
Client comes to our office for a face to face consultation and this is when we screen them. Once they decide to join, we start looking for suitable matches for them. Once a match is found we will arrange everything from booking a restaurant to reminding them about the date. After each date we require feedback which is very important because this is how we fine-tune what they’re looking for and then we set them up with their next match.

What do you charge?
Our fee ranges from about 850 sing dollars 1650 sing dollars.

And you have another site, Interact right?
Yes that’s right. Interact is a company that does something totally different. Eteract.com is an online portal where singles can go online and interact with each other. We have online speed dating, 3D chat rooms, so singles can dress up their avatar and send gifts to each other and that has worked very well for us.

I think the government has had some involvement with that?
The government doesn’t have a stake in it but in the past years the government has been very interested in the dating industry. They have set up a funding for the dating industry. It’s called Partner Connection Fund. So new dating agencies or active dating agencies can tap onto this funding, outline what their plans are get 50,000 sing dollars max. Eteract has tapped onto this funding and received about 49,000 from the government to develop the site.

So what’s next?
We are looking to start another branch once the one stabilizes in Hong Kong. Our next destination will be in Shanghai. Eteract is currently available in Singapore and once we’re done developing it (we’re still in the Beta) we are going to grow it out regionally in Asia and eventually worldwide.