eHarmony's Steady Growth

WSJ - July 12 -  Founded in 1999, eHarmony started off in a space with sites like Match.com and Yahoo Personals that catered more to men, emphasized free services and enabled users to sign up and begin using the service quickly and easily. But eHarmony emphasized privacy, which made it popular among women. CEO Greg Waldorf would not discuss exact revenue figures but said reports of the company generating $250M in revenue annually are "in the right ballpark." There are no immediate plans for an IPO, Waldorf said. The company has raised ~$110M from Sequoia Capital, Technology Crossover Ventures and Fayez Sarofim & Co. and doesn't need any more venture funding, he said. "eHarmony has an advantage over other dating sites in that its users tend to be more serious about dating since they must fill out a long questionnaire. Therefore those people who are interested are willing to pay up front to subscribe", said Mark Brooks, a consultant and editor of OnlinePersonalsWatch.com. eHarmony is now in the U.S., Australia, the U.K. and Canada and is soon going to announce its move into more countries. However, can eHarmony be a victim of its own success if its users get married and leave the site? That is a challenge to the company, as its U.S. user base is already large and its U.S. user growth is probably flat, said Brooks, the industry consultant. The company is still growing in other countries though, he said. One small way eHarmony addresses this is through an "elongated" communication process, longer than other dating sites, which ensures safety but also makes it take longer for people to get to know each other, and thus stay on the site longer, Brooks said. FULL ARTICLE @ WSJ

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