Stealing Cupid’s Bow
February 12, 2009 by Gwendolyn Regina T
The dating industry worldwide isn’t new, neither is the scene in Singapore. Mr Ong Peng Tsin is one of those Singapore entrepreneurs who has made a mark in the dating industry when he founded Match.com in 1994. It is now owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp, a media conglomerate.
To date, there are about 200 dating and matchmaking agencies here in Singapore, and, according to Singapore’s Dating Industry Market Survey 2006, about 70% of them were established less than five years ago.
Why the boom?
With Singapore’s declining birth rate being a great national concern (it was 1.92 in 1990, 1.48 in 1999 and 1.24 in 2007), the government has doubled up its efforts to promote dating, marriage and babies. We have a government matchmaking organization (Social Development Unit), a nation-wide Romancing Singapore campaign, government grants for dating and matchmaking agencies (Partner Connection Fund) and now a formal accreditation process and designation in the SDU Trust Mark.
The dating industry is heavily supported and subsidized in Singapore, paving the way for enterprising individuals to capitalize on government resources.
(1) Partnerships: Setting up a formal organization like the SDU or running a campaign like Romancing Singapore requires many little cogs in the wheel for them to be useful to Singaporeans. If you’re a company that serves some of those many needs, you will have a ready partner in the government.
(2) Free marketing: You don’t need to have huge marketing dollars since you can ride on the government’s. Necessarily and too obviously, the government’s marketing efforts for their initiatives will span the right target segments nationally. Collaboration will enable you to not only gain you new customers, but also additional targeted reach.
(3) Funding: With the Partner Connection Fund, dating and matchmaking agencies can get some of their expenses reimbursed. This subsidizes their running costs and gives new entrants into the dating industry more runway.
Market size
In 2007, 19% of the resident male population aged 35-39 were single, while the number was 15.5% for females. For the slightly younger crowd of those aged 30-34, 35% of males and 22% of females remain single.
Out of a resident population of 3.6m (the Singapore Department of Statistics surveys the resident and not total population), there are about 300,000 males between aged 30-39, likewise for females. Taking a simple average of 27% single males, and 17% single females, this brings us to a market size of resident singles aged 30-39 in Singapore to be 81,000 males and 51,000 females – a total of 132,000. A pretty sizeable number.
But we must remember that a lot of the dating and matchmaking agencies in Singapore are also beginning to target the younger crowd. Especially with the increasing inroads into online dating, a segment that usually attracts singles who are in the 20+ age range. This expands the Singapore’s dating industry’s total market size.
The early years
Even though Mr Ong Peng Tsin started Match.com, it was based in Silicon Valley and was not targeted at Singapore. That was back in 1994. Fast forward ten years later, Violet Lim of Lunch Actually and Eteract became the first Asian to be certified by the Matchmaking Institute, an organization set up to promote quality standards in the matchmaking industry. You can look at Singapore’s SDU Trust Mark and Association of Dating Agencies and Matchmakers Singapore as having taken hints from the Matchmaking Institute.
SDU Trust Mark and its effects
The bad experiences of some have given dating agencies and the dating industry a bad name. Reasons range from unqualified dates to bad customer service. In the Dating Industry Marketing Survey 2006, it was formally revealed that 30% more singles would use commercial matchmaking agencies if they were accredited by the Government. Thereafter, the SDU Trust Mark was launched in July 2007.
Supported by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) in collaboration with the Social Development Unit (SDU) and the Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA), the SDU Trust Mark is a new standard of quality for dating agencies and practitioners. To be accredited, dating practitioners and agency owners have to undergo rigorous professional training. The target is to have 30 accredited dating agencies by 2010.
The first batch of dating agencies and practitioners attained the Trust Mark last November. Since then, some of their websites have seen an average of about 10% increase in traffic. Then again, it might not be fair to attribute this increase to the Trust Mark because traditionally Jan and Feb are busier months due to the upcoming Valentine’s Day. As for the effects on actual bottom lines, it is still too early to tell. Any positive real effect would probably be more apparent in the longer term.
Partner Connection Fund and ADAMS
Back in Nov 2006, the S$600,000 Partner Connection Fund (PCF) was set up to provide grants of up to S$50,000 for matchmaking companies. The target was to fund five or six agencies a year.
The first five recipients of the PCF were Clique Wise, Eteract, Go Movie Date, Singles Mingle and Who Works Around You. These five companies also went on to set up ADAMS ( Association of Dating Agencies & Matchmakers Singapore), a non-profit organization that aggregates dating companies that have been accredited with the SDU Trust Mark.
Moving forward
The increasing formalization and standards in the dating industry would speak to some of the concerns of single individuals and will hopefully gain the trust of those skeptical of dating and matchmaking agencies. With Singapore’s declining birth rate as a major concern for the continued well-being of our economy, I don’t see the government redrawing or cutting back their support and resources for the dating industry. We might even see it open up in more ways.
SGEntrepreneurs will be running a series of posts on The Business Of Love in Singapore. The posts will be focusing on the businesses, startups and entrepreneurs who are defining the dating and matchmaking landscape in Singapore. Follow all of the posts here.
Additional Links:
Singstat Population Statistics 2008
Interview with Singapore’s Silicon Valley success story, Ong Peng Tsin
History of Match.com
Registry of Dating Agencies
Registry of Dating Practitioners
Partner Connection Fund
ADAMS
Photos courtesy of nattu and devnull.
About The Author
Gwendolyn Regina T - Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief
Apart from SGE, Gwen is also a Partner at Thymos Capital, where she focuses on early stage investments in technology firms. She has had two exits out of her investments via the firm, one of which is iHipo. A frequent judge for business competitions both locally and overseas, she graduated from the National University of Singapore. Gwen also spent some time in Silicon Valley and studied in Stanford University under the NUS Overseas College programme. Gwen is a mentor at Spanish incubator Tetuan Valley, Polish incubator Gamma Rebels, the Singapore Ambassador for the Sandbox network and the Singapore curator for StartupDigest. She enjoys languages, travelling, dance and adventure sports. Gwen can be found on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Find more jobs at Triple Point Jobs
