Online Personals Watch: News on the Online Dating Industry and Business

Gen Z Is Ditching Dating Apps for Old-fashioned Matchmaking

NEW YORK POST - Matchmaking services are seeing a surge of Gen Z singles signing up for their events after ditching dating apps. "Matchmaking has never been more popular," said Adam Cohen-Aslatei, director of Tawkify matchmaking service. He said that "business has never been stronger" in their 12 years of matchmaking and the company had the busiest January they'd ever had this year. Three Day Rule, another matchmaking company, said that it's had nearly 50 clients who are 27 or younger in the past year - around five times its usual annual roster of the same demographic. A study from Forbes Health found that 78% of respondents reported feeling fatigued by dating apps, especially those who've likely spent most of their dating life online. Gen Z (79%) and Millennials (80%) had the highest percentage of those reporting feelings of fatigue.

by Adriana Diaz
See full article at New York Post

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Boston-Area Matchmaking Is Booming

BOSTON GLOBE - Privacy concerns, 'swiping fatigue,' and a desire to lock down a serious relationship are pushing people to seek one-on-one help. "The matchmaking business as a whole has been on fire," said Vandor, a matchmaker with LunchDates, who said she has seen a ~25% bump in business compared to pre-pandemic figures. Match's most recent Singles in America study, released in Nov, found that 48% of singles say they are now "more eager" to find a partner. Whereas dating apps gave rise to "hookup culture," the pandemic spurred a push toward "conscious dating." And conscious dating just so happens to be matchmakers' specialty. Three Day Rule has seen a 75% increase in business from pre-pandemic figures. Matchmaking rates vary by service but typically cost thousands of dollars. But what some clients are paying for is safety. Susie MacDowell, who runs Susie Q Matchmaking, said privacy is the "number one reason clients seek out her services.

by Dana Gerber
See full article at Boston Globe

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Has the Pandemic Changed Dating Forever?

NEW YORK TIMES - May 8 - Now that all American adults are eligible for vaccination and many of life's once-mundane routines are returning, dating has come back in force. Particularly for those singles who are vaccinated, the demand - or desire - to pair up is strong. In January, Three Day Rule, a matchmaking company operating in 12 cities, started to see a boom in business. "We've never been busier," said Talia Goldstein, its founder and president. In a recent report on the future of dating, Tinder said its users have become more truthful and transparent about personal boundaries. It also predicts that daters will continue to be more honest and authentic when the pandemic ends. Ms. Goldstein, of Three Day Rule, said many of her clients have become less superficial. In the past, their criteria often mentioned height or wealth. Now more people are prioritizing inner qualities, like humor or a "growth mind-set." And, with the flexibility of remote work, dating is not as localized as it once was.

by Sara Aridi
See full article at New York Times

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Inside the World of Elite Bay Area Matchmaking

THE MERCURY NEWS - Feb 14 - Amy Andersen runs Menlo Park-based Linx Dating. Andersen started Linx ~15 years ago, after she grew tired of being a "female player" in San Francisco's Marina dating scene, wondering why it was so hard for smart people to find the right match. Another elite dating app, The Bevy, is not for everyone. Users have to be accepted into the club. Only male clients pay on The Bevy. "What people are really paying for is time," said Talia Goldstein, founder of Three Day Rule. Most of her clients are "working nonstop" in tech and finance and recoil at the thought of spending hours weeding out potential weirdos online, grilling people for their resume on first dates or getting ghosted with no explanation.

by Fiona Kelliher
See full article at The Mercury News

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Matchmakers Are Doing a Brisk Business Pairing Silicon Valley CEOs With L.A. Ladies

LA MAGAZINE - Jan 9 - "About two and a half years ago, I started getting a ton of inquiries from women living in LA trying to find a good, like-minded man," says Amy Andersen, the San Francisco-based matchmaker. Andersen founded her company, Linx Dating, in part to find women for the men of Silicon Valley, who can be peculiar, to say the least. She grew up in nearby Marin County but got into a serious relationship with a "quintessential Silicon Valley geek," to whom she is now married. "I witnessed that there was a huge surplus of eligible men and a dearth of women," she says. According to a recent article in The Washington Post, there are 40% more men than women just in Palo Alto (home to SAP, Tesla, and Hewlett-Packard). In 2018 women held only 20% of all jobs in tech. Talia Goldstein, founder of the L.A.-based matchmaking service Three Day Rule, has paired a number of SoCal women with Silicon Valley men. "The more successful they are, the pickier they get," she says, "especially those techie guys that maybe didn't have all the girls in high school. Now they're really choosy."

by Sean Elder
See full article at LA Magazine

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Match.com Offers Dating Coaches to Its Subscribers

FAST COMPANY - Aug 26 - Introduced in New York City in May, the AskMatch dating coaching service is now available in 18 states and Washington, D.C., with plans to expand to all U.S. subscribers by January 2020. The coaching - typically over the phone - is included in Match's standard subscription. "We get people who say, 'I need help flirting. I forgot how to flirt,'" says Katie Wilson, a veteran dating coach who came to Match in Dec 2018 to build its team. Wilson spent four and a half years as a manager and director at matchmaking company Three Day Rule. The L.A.-based boutique service has had a partnership with Match since 2014, aimed at users who want to get personalized matchmaking. Three Day Rule coaches will appear in tips videos for AskMatch.

by Sean Captain
See full article at Fast Company

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Matchmakers Emerge as an Antidote to the Agony of Online Dating

WALL STREET JOURNAL - Mar 8 - In a 2018 Match.com survey, 55% of respondents said technology makes personal connections harder to make, and 54% felt overwhelmed by the work involved. Melissa Brown, CEO of It's Just Lunch, a matchmaking service founded in 1991, says the company has seen its fastest growth in the past couple of years among daters in their 20s and 30s. "They're sick of the swiping and the countless hours of talking to people that goes nowhere," she said. Three Day Rule, another matchmaking service, grew out of Talia Goldstein's LA apartment, where in 2013 she would host large parties in hopes of fixing up friends. Now CEO of the company, she secured funding from Match Group, and her company boasts ~700 users across 10 cities. Its services start at $5,500. Clients receive professional photo shoots, and matchmakers help them write texts to prospective dates and shop for appropriate clothes. After each date, the matchmaker will check in with both parties and give the client feedback.

by Michelle Hackman
See full article at Wall Street Journal

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$2000 + $99 a Month Silicon Valley Matchmaker

THE BEACH REPORTER - Feb 25 - Veteran wedding planner Constance Curtis launched The List for elite singles in Southern California. It combines "old fashioned intuition with science and technology." "I saw a space in the industry between the dating apps and matchmaking," said Curtis. "Many people using a matchmaker spend between $14,000 and $25,000 for the service." Curtis charges $2000 initiation and a subscription fee of $99/mo. The List is powered by real-life matchmakers and relationship experts with 15 years of combined experience. Elite members are met in person, and receive a personal matchmaker, and receive feedback after each date. The app is free. User's create a free profile and are added to The List's database of potential suitors for its elite members. Free members have access to the site, but not actual matchmaking services. For $1.99, non-elite members can also purchase "coins" to send messages about suitors they are interested in to the matchmakers. They've had 400 downloads, and have 15 elite clients.

by Genie Davis
See full article at The Beach Reporter

Mark Brooks: There really is a gap between dating apps and matchmakers. Noone has quite cracked it yet. Although, I believe Tawkify are occupying that space, Three Day Rule had a go at it, and It's Just Lunch have been working at it for years, but I don't really regard them as matchmakers. It's actually tough to deliver proper matchmaking services for anything less than $5k a year.

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Why Millennials Are Burnt Out on Swipe-Based Dating Apps

MENSHEALTH - Feb 6 - Hinge's user base grew by 400% in 2017 after it eliminated its swiping feature. Once, a dating app that sends users one suggested match per day, reached 7M downloads last May. Still, swiping or not, some are giving up dating apps altogether, opting for offline dating and matchmaking services like Three Day Rule, which doubled its revenue in 2017, and now serves 10 cities in the U.S. "The online dating thing never came naturally to me. I found the experience quite overwhelming," says Tina Wilson, CEO and founder of the matchmaking app Wingman. "Trying to describe myself for a profile gave me anxiety." Eventually, Wilson's friends got involved. "They had way better insight into who I should be dating and loved to tell me so," she says. She realized her friends could play a vital role in helping her meet a compatible partner, so she created Wingman, an app that allows users' friends play matchmaker. Text-based apps are also on the rise. A spin-off of the popular Instagram account @_personals_, the Personals app will allow its lesbian, queer, transgender, and nonbinary users to post old-school personal ads.

by Sofia Barrett-Ibarria
See full article at Men'sHealth

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Love Life Outsourced

WORLD MAGAZINE - Sep 13 - Talia Goldstein quit her job as a producer for E! Entertainment and started her own matchmaking company in LA in 2010. She started charging people $250 for three matches, then increased it to $500 as demand grew. When she hosted her first matchmaking party, she had 20 attendees. Two months later, she had 300, and soon 600. In 2013, Goldstein launched Three Day Rule (TDR). Today, TDR employs 50 matchmakers in 10 metropolitan areas. TDR's services start at $4,500 and can hike beyond $35,000 for the VIP package. Goldstein says ~70% of TDR's clients are in a relationship by the end of their contract. Half of the matchmaker's job involves coaching clients on how to date well. Julie Ferman, a matchmaker in Los Angeles and Santa Fe, N.M., has worked in the dating industry since 1990. She says she used to be able to count on men to call women to plan a date, but now she has to arrange the first date for her clients, from coordinating schedules to making reservations.

by Sophia Lee
See full article at World Magazine

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Three Day Rule Expands To Seattle

GEEKWIRE - May 4 - Three Day Rule (TDR) expanded to its tenth city. TDR combines technology with in-person vetting, said Talia Goldstein, who founded the company in 2013. "We meet all of our matches in person, so we're making curated introductions based on off-paper qualities rather than on-paper stats," she explained. Anyone can sign up to become part of TDR's database, which includes 100K members, and be eligible to be matched to paying clients. A paid membership starts at $4,500 for a three-month package and includes vetted matches, professional photography, post-date feedback, and coaching. TDR has raised $2.4M to date. Goldstein said TDR doubled revenue in 2017 and has ~50 matchmakers nationwide, including two in Seattle.

by Taylor Soper
See full article at Geekwire

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There Is Three Day Rule, When Dating Feels Like A Job

NPR - Mar 6 - Three Day Rule is a matchmaking company that is finding matches for their clients and offering date coaching while also helping to optimize online profiles. The company also has a database of 90k singles - and partnerships with online dating companies like Match, OkCupid, Christian Mingle and J-Date. Clients pay ~$6K for a package that gets them six dates over six months, as well as personalized support and advice.

by Ashley Brown & Alyssa Edes
See full article at NPR

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Young Single Americans Are Confused And Scared About Dating During #Metoo

MARKETWATCH - Feb 27 - #MeToo, a movement meant to highlight women's experiences with sexual assault and unwanted sexual advances, have put a damper on the dating experience. Single Americans say they are "extremely confused" about dating now, a recent survey of 3K singletons by dating service Three Day Rule found. Men are concerned about crossing boundaries, having their actions misinterpreted, or even adhering to traditional gender roles like paying for a date, said Three Day Rule CEO and founder Talia Goldstein. Meanwhile, some women said they were too worn out by inappropriate behavior or triggered by the news to want to spend time with men, and some worry about how and when to call out men they're dating for harassment.

by Kari Paul
See full article at MarketWatch

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Three Day Rule Is On Alexa

HAUTE LIVING - Jan 9 - Three Day Rule (TDR), a Match.com-backed matchmaking company, has announced a new partnership with Amazon's Alexa. Starting on Sunday, January 14, the TDR will offer a daily dose of dating every morning until Valentine's Day. Users can ask Alexa for the TDR tip and they'll get a quick 30-second tidbit that will boost confidence, provide data about dating, or teach them how to flirt.

by Katie Sweeney
See full article at Haute Living

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Matchmakers In San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - Sep 15 - A luxury matchmaking service, The Bevy, has launched in San Francisco. The Bevy, started in New York in 2014, compares its services to an executive search. It pre-screens and interviews potential candidates before setting up its male clients with a handful of curated contenders. The membership begins at $25k for a one-year. The company reports a 95% success rate. Three Day Rule has 8k members. Services for paying clients start at $4.5k, but the service also has a free database. 60% of it's clients are female. Both companies report that clients are seeking relief from dating apps. Still, free dating apps can be an equalizer. The newest such offering to San Francisco is The Inner Circle, an app founded in Amsterdam in 2012, whose founder, David Vermeulen, is looking for "inspiring and ambitious" members who are 25 - 45 and live in major cities.

by Maghan McDowell
See full article at San Francisco Chronicle

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team