“Forget access to finance, we’ll give you access to romance.” Understandably this would be meaningless nonsense to the average Joe, but those in the corporate world will have no trouble understanding what Founders In Love’s slogan means.
The new British startup wants to shake up the dating game with support for entrepreneurs, noticing a gap in the market given how existing channels like Tinder, Happn and Uniform Dating focus on niche sectors like looks, location and public services respectively.
Online dating is increasingly common, in fact, Founders in Love offered data that said 91 per cent of the UK public now consider it the norm. The findings are backed up by an app report on 31 March that said four of the top 20 grossing UK apps for iOS in early 2015 were represented by dating apps – Match.com, Zoosk, Tinder and Plenty of Fish.
Inspiration for the business came after co-founders Paul Enis and Barbara Rest discovered each other through online dating after a string of unsuccessful attempts in the real world.
“The most difficult part about the dating scene for an entrepreneur is finding someone that can relate to you as an enterprise, loving you in a way one loves their business, which is something that employees just can’t understand. However, we know that love needs the same approach as a business: strategy, commitment, growth and a hatred of rivals,” Enis explained to Real Business.
Despite the name, the company isn’t strictly just for founders, and also supports other C-level executives and board members that are foolish for love.
Read more on dating:
- How Sarah Beeny disrupted Valentine’s Day and online dating with MySingleFriend.com
- Tinder rival happn raises £5m to take dating app international
CTO Rest, said: “Whether it’s finance you fancy or technology that turns you on, our algorithm breaks down all of our users into refined sectors so that we can ensure our love fools have the best search experience possible.
“That means you can find a fellow CFO and crunch numbers while exchanging numbers, or trade opinions on the latest software from Apple to determine whether iOS 8 can secure you a date, using the best of your business experience to secure a new partner in love – and potentially work, just like we have!”
The revenue model works using a advertising format, through which users can secure memberships and access to the hottest business leaders in the country in exchange for paying to run media campaigns for their companies alongside the Founders In Love profiles.
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