OPW – Apr 7 – This is the 2nd IDEA Webinar. Now you can see as well as hear the participants. In this webinar, five leading online dating CEOs weighed in on some key questions in this very challenging time.
Panelists
~ Geoff Cook, CEO of The Meet Group
~ David Vermeulen, CEO The Inner Circle
~ Gloria Diez, MD of Mamba
~ Adam Cohen-Aslatei, CEO of S’More
~ Christiana Yebra, CEO of Vouch
Questions
– How are you encouraging your users to date safely right now? (4:55)
– Are you experiencing any app growth during the pandemic? Why? (16:30)
– What are your predictions for the dating industry as a whole during the next several months? (25:15)
– Do you think the way people are dating on mobile apps right now will end up changing forever because of this pandemic? In what way? (38mins)
*The Internet Dating Excellence Association exists to help the dating industry grow and deliver on its promise and full potential. See www.IDEA.gp.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
– Welcome everyone to the second ever IDEA webinar. We actually had one of these last month, and we were not so bold and brave to include video. So we’re actually progressing and doing video. So I’ll give you a quick overview of what this is all about. This is from a group called the Internet Dating Excellence Association. And we’re gonna be focused on one key question today. And that is how to meet people without putting your health at risk. These are indeed crazy times. And I think a change in behavior is something that we’re all considering right now, and certainly when it comes to meeting. But hold on, we’re in the internet dating industry, and dating’s all about meetings, isn’t it? Let’s get into that. I’m joined by a fantastic group of panelists. Just we’ll go around the room and do introductions. So I’ll start the ball rolling. My name’s Mark Brooks, and I head the Internet Dating Excellence Association, and we exist to help the dating industry grow and deliver on our promise. I’ve been around 13 years now. And I also head the leading, actually the only consultancy dedicated to the dating industry on the planet. So perhaps we can start, Geoff, your instruction.
– Sure, thanks for having me, Mark. I’m the CEO/Founder of The Meet Group. We’re a mobile dating portfolio, about four million daily active users, a little bit more than that. 15 million-plus monthly active users. We have five primary apps. Meet Me, and Skout, which is kind of a general dating audience, Tagged, a million-plus daily active users there with African-American dating app. Growlr, which is a gay, a dating app for gay bears. And then LOVOO, a substantial European dating app.
– Thank you Geoff, and David?
– Hi, guys, thanks for having me, Mark. So I’m CEO/Founder of The Inner Circle, founded in 2012. We focus on people that are a bit more serious about dating, and also want to actually meet up in real life. So next to the app and website, we also host offline events. But obviously not now at the moment. They are all postponed. We have a city-by-city approach, focusing ambitious professionals across the world, living and working in the big cities.
– Thank you, David. And Gloria?
– Hi, my name is Gloria. I work for Mamba Group. Mamba is the leader in the Russian dating market. It’s a premium dating, online dating service. I’ve been working on the online dating industries since I was one the co-creators, and now I’m focusing on marketing on the international side. So Mamba Group also like a new business and new services that we’re creating to make our portfolio bigger.
– Thank you, Gloria. And Adam?
– Yeah, thank you for having me, Mark. I’m Adam Cohen-Aslatei. I’m the CEO and Founder of an app called S’more. S’more stands for Something More. And we are an anti-superficial relationship app. What does that mean? We believe in getting to know someone before deciding if you like them and before you see them. And the more that you engage with someone on our platform, the more that you chat with them, the more their photos unblur and their private and visual content unlocks. So if you’re looking to interact with someone on a much deeper level, we are the app for you. And I’ve spent about 10 years in the industry working for some of the largest dating companies. I’ve worked and also consulted for some of them as well.
– Thank you, Adam. Christiana?
– Thanks, Mark, for having us. My name’s Christiana Yebra, and I am CEO of Vouch, which is a social matchmaking and dating app that was launched initially right here in Dallas by one of the most popular faces to come out of “The Bachelor” franchise, Sean Lowe. So he and a group of friends teamed up to launch this product just a few years ago. I took over last February. The cheesy marketer in me announced it on Valentine’s Day last year, so it’s just been over a year now. And we’re focused on allowing friends and family to be involved in the dating environment with single daters. As we know, it can be an isolating experience, and now more than ever, a very socially-isolating experience. So we allow friends and family to vouch for their single friends, which we hope allows for a more social, authentic, and safe environment on the online dating space.
– Great, thank you so much Christiana. And so the key and first question I have for you is, how are you encouraging your users to date safely right now? So Geoff?
– Sure. So I think fairly early in the crisis we posted across the app portfolio messages along the lines of reminding users kinda earlier about hand washing, and reminding them things like this. In recent weeks, we upped that to dating is not essential messages, reminders not to meet in person, to follow all local guidelines in your area. So that’s, one effort has just been to simply make those announcements, make sure the user understands that, and then also survey the users to make sure they did. And we found that well over 80% of our users were practicing social distance protocols, which kind of is accords or is better than, kind of the average in these countries. And then what we also did, and probably more important is really accelerate some of the capabilities that we have around video so that these users who are looking for some connection, they’re stuck at home, they know that they can’t meet anybody, so they could find some community and socialization in the products. And so we, really across all of our apps, we accelerated, or in some cases changed our plans with respect to live streaming video. For example, just yesterday we announced we’re rolling out live streaming video to Growlr, the only app in our portfolio that lacks it. That accelerates that by a few months. Something we weren’t planning to do was to make one-on-one video free on Growlr. Right now it’s a paid feature. That will be free. We accelerated the roll out of live streaming video on Puff, a brand that we don’t own, but that we power. On Tagged and LOVOO, two of our largest apps, we are also actually accelerating one-on-one video there. Those apps didn’t have it, as well as launching this dating game called Blind Date. On LOVOO, LOVOO is more of a traditional dating subscription app, we’re also making some activities free, like you get three ice breakers a day instead of one for free. So giving more, giving people more things to do, essentially, inside of the app, without having to go meet someone. That’s in the core of what we’ve been doing.
– Thanks so much, Geoff, that’s great. And games and video. I’m intrigued with the games. I’d love to dig in on that a bit more. But let’s just go around the room. We’ve got David. How are you encouraging your users, specifically, to date safely right now?
– Yeah, so obviously we postponed all our events. Canceled those. And but we also–
– So just to point out to our viewers, you do events. You’re a bit different from the others in the room because you actually do the live events in person.
– Yeah, correct. So we host events in about 25 countries all over the world. And it could be, like, from a small wine tasting to a big event with 800-plus members attending. And all these events have obviously been canceled. But what we’re now looking into, and that’s interesting, is to see if we can host online events. So we started yesterday, for example, in Paris with a Netflix party. So people can log in and watch at the same time a movie and talk about it. And another thing that we will host in London is Pop Quiz. And we’re gonna see if we can do that next week. So that’ll be interesting.
– All right, thank you. Gloria?
– Yes, so obviously amid the coronavirus outbreak, our priority has been keeping our users informed, engaged though the whole COVID situation. So basically we’ve been trying to inform users of what the situation was like trying to follow the updates of the World Health Organization, to give the best recommendations. We have been doing that on our online platforms and also in our social media. And yeah, we’re trying to be creative. Like, we created the new logo for stay home. And then on social media we’ve been sharing also some chats, like potential chats for users saying, like, oh, hello, do you want to meet for tea? It’s like, oh yeah, sorry, I want to meet for tea. Let’s have tea, chat in our kitchen. So people will really figure out their real situation. So we’re just trying to follow all the updates and trying to be very cautious, because even doctors don’t know exactly what’s going on, or sometimes they even change their recommendations. And yeah, try to keep it very simple, and just try to show the right way to act and be cautious.
– Yes, thank you Gloria. Things are certainly changing. I’d love to get the logo, by the way, the new logo. That’d be lovely to share. Adam.
– Yeah.
– Right. So we’re doing quite a lot. We are an app that really just launched in January, and we had a pretty extensive roadmap to exactly how we were rolling this new experience out across the country. As you know Love is Blind also was released in January, which is a very similar kind of user experience to our app. And everything changed with coronavirus, with COVID-19. Our users have been emailing us and DMing us like crazy, asking us for suggestions on how they can use our app to socially date each other in a way that’s keeping the distance apart. And so we created a campaign called social distance is not emotional distance. And I think it’s really important for us to remember that 50% of millennials in America are single. So while I live in New York City and people come from small and large cities, a lot of millennials are home alone. And this is, I think, the time in your life where you’re reflecting on what’s really most important. And hopefully we walk away from this with a different view on relationships. In terms of what we’re doing, we’re creating fun content for Instagram, we’re giving people dating tips with inside the app. So every time you log in, we’re giving you a dating, virtual dating tip of the day. Everything from do a virtual tour at Georgia Aquarium, which if you haven’t done, is really super cool. There’s video dance parties where you can be at a dance party with hundreds of people, but it happens to be in your own home. Obviously calls and FaceTime dinner dates, or sending your date your favorite takeout, those kinds of things are really important. But one thing that we’re doing that I’m very proud of, is we’ll be announcing on Monday that we’re partnering with the Hopeline, which is one of the oldest crisis prevention helplines in America. And for every new chat that’s started on our app, we’re making a $1 donation to Hopeline. We’re literally reallocating a huge portion of our marketing budget because our community has asked us, how can they get involved? So if our app was about creating community and creating important and meaningful relationships, if we do that, we then we can support as a collective group, other people in the state of, in the state that we’re in. So one community healing another community. Plus, last thing to note, we’re launching an Instagram live video series that begins tonight at 5:30 to create some fun video content so we can take a break from all of this COVID-19 focus. Sometimes it’s good to place energy somewhere else. So we’re creating a fun new dating television show that’s gonna live on Instagram. So tune in tonight at 5:30.
– Great, thank you so much, Adam. That’s fantastic. I really like the, I think it’s a new mantra, social distance is not emotional distance. I think that’s very key, keeping our heads on. So let me, Christiana, how are you encouraging your users to date safely right now?
– We’re obviously paying attention to the guidelines that are being issued what feels like on a daily basis, and just staying in tune with that. But we know that prior to this current situation, dating can feel isolating. And so that’s, the premise of Vouch is to be more social. And so now we’re just leaning really hard into how to continue to fuel these social conversations and authentic conversations despite not being able to meet up. So we’re working on some pretty fun collaborations here. On a local basis, or kind of hyper localized in the markets where we’re most popular, to fuel small businesses by encouraging virtual dates where single daters can essentially pick up date food, or wine, or something fun where they can send it to each other in a localized basis, by fueling some of the small businesses that are struggling here. Especially in Dallas, we’ve been on a, we actually do quite a bit of in-person events that have been really, really helpful in fueling some of our, I don’t wanna use the word viral anymore, but some of our viral growth has been really, really fueled by some of the localized events that we’ve done. So obviously we’re not doing those. So we’re just trying to explore what we can do that worked well on and offline, but really fuel it virtually. The thing that I always wanna be really sensitive to, and we kinda talked about this before we got started, is that this is a crisis. Serious things are happening. We do wanna provide some comedic and social relief, and so we’re going to do some fun content on social, and we’re actually gonna put it into the hands of some of our users who are both single people and then a lot of them are their married friends. We’ve all got that one single friend who can’t figure it out. So by encouraging some fun dialogue between single daters and their friends, we’re gonna actually put some of our content into the hands of users and then their friends to create some fun social content, but also to apply real life elements, too, which I think are really key. I actually have a clinical background. Not like many of you, I haven’t spent 10 years in the dating space, so I’m very sensitive to what’s happening on a clinical level. So anything we do moving forward, I wanna be sensitive to what’s happening on a global level, but then also know that people are really desperate and excited to still continue conversations. And so our campaign is Vouch from your couch, which is, cheesy as is it, a lot of people are at home and continuing conversations. We’re hoping that they’re following the guidelines. So we, our big campaign is really focused on going more digital doesn’t mean less personal. So by including friends and family, we still wanna keep encouragement and spirits high.
– Wonderful, wonderful. Another lovely mantra, yes. And a very great spectrum of responses, I think. Just looking out your window, you’re in Dallas? Just so people will know where everyone’s at. We’re all over the map. Christiana’s in Dallas, and David is in the Netherlands, in Amsterdam, is it? No, not–
– Yeah, Amsterdam.
– Is it Amsterdam?
– Here, it doesn’t look like Amsterdam, but it is Amsterdam.
– And we’ve got Adam in New York, and Gloria is in London, and Geoff, I think you’re in New Hope, Pennsylvania.
– Princeton, I’m at home.
– Oh, Princeton, of course. Okay, yes, good. Right, so let me ask another question of you. Are you experiencing any app growth right now, and why is that?
– Sure, so I guess I’ll jump in on that. So I think–
– Thank you.
– Yes, we are, we are seeing some app growth, especially on the video side of things. We crossed a million, actually quite a bit past a million people a day engaging with our video solutions for dating and just community generally. We created some time ago, maybe six months ago or so, this Next Date Dating Game, where everyone can be the star of their own dating game. And we launched it into our apps Meet Me, Skout, Tagged, and LOVOO, and now we’re up to well over 100,000 of these Next Date Dating Games being played every single day. Since the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, which I think was some time mid-March, we’ve seen just in that short period of time, video minutes go up by 33%. And then chat sent in videos, so people send text chat inside of video, that’s gone up 37%. So we’ve absolutely seen just dramatic increase in video engagement. On the chat side, the chats, the text-based chats outside of video, hey’ve held up, but we haven’t seen significant growth there.
– Thank you, thank you, Geoff. David?
– Yeah, we also see a high increase in activity. We had of course Dating Sunday, that’s always a peak. The first Sunday of the year when everybody with new resolutions starts to go online. And we are already 30% now above Dating Sunday. So it’s a lot of people going online, a lot of messages. And it’s also interesting to see, we filter out words anonymously what people talk about. And we see, for example, a lot of people talk about Netflix, it’s used a lot. We see, also, toilet paper is used a lot in conversations. So a lot of funny things on the app. But activity is going up and up, yeah, definitely.
– Gloria? Thank you.
– Yeah, so we’re definitely seeing a big growth in the usage of our online platforms. In these times in which people, almost everyone in the world is in self-isolation, I think it’s one of the moments in which we have the biggest challenge for the dating industry. But at the same time, I think it’s the best opportunity we have to adapt and become a service for the community. And that’s very important because now we really need to be along together, like, people need human contact. And if you cannot have it offline, you need it online more than ever. So even when these times are very difficult, I think we have to stay strong giving services to our community. It’s like, maybe we’re not as necessary or heroes as our medical services or food providers, but it’s still something that is really needed because people are having a very bad time. So basically we’re having people using more, like, live streamings on our apps, they’re chatting longer, they’re having, maybe, more quality conversations, they are starting to ask for telephones or other alternative contact before, because I think they really want to be in touch with other people somehow offline. And yeah, we have more searches. People spend more time online. We’ve been experiencing, also, a bigger number of downloads of our apps as well. So yeah, definitely we’re seeing how people need our services. So yeah, and I think that’s the reason they need, human need of social contact as human, and as social animals that we are.
– Absolutely, thank you. Adam?
– Yeah, so once more, we’ve seen pretty dramatic increase in daily active users. So an over 20% increase in the last two weeks of daily active users on the app. Also, the number of sessions per day and time on app has increased pretty dramatically. I think, also, we’re seeing women starting more conversations. There’s been a 9% increase in women starting conversations. And I think what’s most interesting, we don’t have video in our app. You can add video to your profile for people to view once it’s unlocked, but the increase in conversation length is almost 2x, which is a very strong leading indicator of people who are really looking for a more substantial relationship. And so the question is, then, now, okay, well once people have been chatting and they’re having these very long conversations, how, in COVID-19, how are we transitioning them into a virtual date? And so this is the question. And so what we’ve decided to do, because we just launched now, ’cause we can’t add a million features right away, is to give them suggestions on what to do for virtual dates. So we’ve been doing a lot of in-app notifications, in-app suggestions leading people to really cool websites and even recommending other apps that they can use to go on dates, or a fun activity that you can do in your home. Because this is a time where we have to get creative. We have no choice. And we don’t have all the answers as an industry. So I think it’s a really good time for us to partner with other fun activities to make those recommendations. One such recommendation is this really fun dancing app, which I have, my issue is I like to work out, and I don’t know what to do anymore because I’m in New York and it’s always raining and there’s nowhere to go. So I have to turn on these workout videos. And I started with Jane Fonda from the 1980s. And then I ended up saying, okay, I need to do something more current. But there’s really fun dating and sort of dancing apps and workout apps that I would highly recommend.
– Thank you, Adam. Christiana?
– I’m gonna write that down. Jane Fonda, Jane Fonda will be my next workout. We’ve seen and as we expected, an increase in usage across the board. We actually, at the kind of peak growth period, had almost 70% women on our app compared to men, which was something we found to be pretty unique in this re-launch phase. But as the social isolation and social guidelines have been expanded, we’re seeing that we’re starting to really level out some more. Men are joining our app. We have really female-focused campaigns and the safety and authenticity messaging is really geared towards women, more often than not, but we’re finding that we’re really leveling out in terms of usage from male to female. And same with our non-binary category. So we’re really starting to get a good mix. And people are spending more and more time within the platform. We do not offer video chat within the app. We’re seeing an exchange of phone numbers, and people are leaving the app to then engage, actually, on Instagram more often than not. I think Instagram’s a good way for people to get a vibe on who somebody is, and then they can actually do video chat there, and exchange information, and show pictures, and then people keep up with all of the different stories that they’re posting. So we’re seeing a lot of engagement in and off the app, as well on our social platforms. We’re getting a lot of fun messages. We’ve been focusing, actually, on using this time as a listening opportunity to hear what our users are really looking for. And what we’ve found is that men and women both expressed that this might be a time to actually really get to know somebody before there’s that pressure to get off the app, and meet up, and spend money, and go on a date, and look your best. Rather, this is maybe a fun kind of old school courting timeframe where they can spend more time connecting and really getting to know one another before they go and waste a good hair and makeup day and meeting up on somebody they don’t actually have a true connection with. So some of the survey information that we’ve gathered is that both men and women are excited about having some of this opportunity. I know, though, that that will probably hit a point where there’s this desire to really get out and about, so we’ll continue to listen to both our users, and then with what’s happening on a local level and global level so that we can adjust and offer fun opportunities for our users.
– Wonderful, thank you, Christiana. So what would you say, what are your predictions for the dating industry as a whole for during the next several months? How do you think things are gonna change, Geoff?
– So I think you’ll see a race to video enable as well as just create maybe text-based or other tools that are more about community and conversation and less about meeting up in real life. I think what we find when we survey our users is there is no new normal yet, right? Like, there was the old normal where people would actually meet and go out to restaurants and so forth. And now there is kinda this in-between state. And when we see this in the data, like we survey every week on various things related to the virus, and we found that 50% of our users still believe they think they’re going to go on a date in the traditional sense within the next 30 days. Now, that number is down significantly from where it had been pre-virus, but that’s not accurate. Of course they’re not going to be going on dates in 30 days. People think these restrictions will be over, maybe with the new month, and that’s not going to happen. I think what we’re going to see is an extended period of restrictions, and then following that, you’re going to see limited restrictions, but where people are not nearly coming together in-person in the ways that they had been. I think we start to, we’re trying to understand. We don’t see it in the data yet, but there’s an economic side of this whole crisis, of course. And depending on the size of that economic toll, there could be less discretionary money to go buy a dating subscription, or to go buy a virtual gift to give in a video stream. Right now we haven’t seen that, but I don’t think we’ve established a new normal yet. I think we’ve just closed the book on the old normal. So I do think you’ll see more live streaming, though. And you’ll see just more social community. But we view this as sustain engagement, grow engagement. Not particularly worried about the monetization side right now.
– Thank you, Geoff. And David?
– Yeah, I also believe that things are gonna change. And in the nearest of time, nothing will go back to normal, that’s for sure. I do believe, also, what Christiana already told, is that people do want to have meaningful connections. And now the challenge is to those online. So I believe people will start looking to create those meaningful connections, now, suddenly, online. And the standard swiping is not enabling that. So I believe the apps that can offer more than just swiping are in a good position. So I totally believe video is in a good position. But also, apps where you have ice breakers and other ways of connecting people is the way forward. That said, in the end, true love will happen in real life. The real magic happens offline. So I do hope, obviously, at one point this will be all over and people will start to meet each other in real life.
– Thank you, David, thank you. Gloria, what would you say are your predictions for the next several months, for the dating industry?
– The situation’s still changing quite quickly, so it’s quite difficult to predict totally. So I think the first thing we have to do as a service provider is to re-define our strategy one week at a time, or one day at a time. Because I think a lot of things are gonna change. It’s gonna change the way people are using it. People who prefer more serious relationships, they will try to meet less people if they really go out and meet people. And they will maybe just try to find someone to live together with because they feel lonely. And that’s a very big change of how the trends have been going on last few years. And then, also, we will have a totally different, like, suddenly there’s such a different audience. Like, there are people that were single and suddenly a short weekend became, like, a quarantine, and maybe love forever, where maybe people were just trying to have something casual. And then we have seen in China, that is forward in this crisis, like, the rate of divorces rose for around 30%. That’s a lot. So I think also there’s a lot of new people coming that maybe we were not expecting. Then, in terms of safety, it’s also something that we will have to walk by the hand together with our users. We will have to keep informed of all the information we have and give the best advices, because at the end, they’re meeting in our platform. So we want them to be safe in terms of health. And actually, right now, no one really knows how to date responsibly in the middle of the pandemic. And then, I think there are new safety issues. Like, I think, unfortunately, I think reading a lot of news how women are becoming more vulnerable these days. So we will have to keep an eye on women and kind of domestic violence issues as well. So we also have to maybe develop some kind of features that can help women that are facing a difficult situation, or maybe they decide it’s not how to go on a date, because now, unfortunately, things are going to be a bit different. So yeah, I think one day at a time and let’s see. But yeah, I think we will be there for a lot of people, and a lot of people will be happy that that’s a big, that the dating industry is quite mature right now.
– Thank you, Gloria. Adam?
– Yeah, I think that purpose dating becomes much more important, dating with an intent. So I’m really looking to connect with someone on a deeper level. And I think that apps that are able to create brands around intent-based dating and purpose-based dating, I think will end up winning, to that end. And if you’re looking for something that’s more substantial, I think this is the moment in time. Again, we’re focused on more substantial relationships, but if 50% of millennials are single, and the oldest millennials are turning 40 in 2020, how are we gonna be transitioning them into these longer-term and more substantial relationships? So I think using brands that people really trust, and I think that starts with, what kind of features do you have to connect on a deeper level? Those apps will end up winning. I think superficial-based dating, honestly, is probably going to decrease in popularity. And I also believe that the security and the verification conversations that it feels like our industry continues to have, and no one, on a big level is doing much about it. We’re making some progress, I think that becomes increasingly important, and I think now more than ever, security and verification, we don’t need to be living in a world where we have all these fake people on our app, sexual offenders on our app, prostitution and sex trafficking, all of these negative things. This is a time that I think we should clean house. And I think that also helps to improve the trust that people have in your brand. On S’more, some of the things that we’re doing is we’re making sure that 100% of the people on our platform are verified. We have zero tolerance for people that are trying to game a system. We’re just not that kind of business. We also don’t believe in unsolicited nudes. So we don’t allow you to send photos inside of a chat, because that opens up the door. There’s reasons to do it for engagement, but it opens up the door to a lot of negativity to happen. And I think the third thing that we’re doing, and I think other brands are starting to think about ways to improve the behavior of some users inside of their app. We’ve introduced a rating score. And the rating score is basically in the midst of a chat between two people. The app asks you, is this person being polite or kind? Yes or no? And that score is quantified into a number that lives on the public profile of the person. The first thing you see when you get to the profile is a rating score. So we know from data that having a publicly visible rating score whether you’re a company or person, tends to change your behavior to act more positive to get a higher score. So I suggest, like, let’s think about ways of adding in these security parameters inside of our app so we can protect users better, we can give them a better experience, and hopefully connect on a much deeper and meaningful level.
– Wonderful, thank you, Adam. Christiana?
– From the start, we recognized that a lot of concerns about joining a dating app just to start with are fears of safety, authenticity, and maybe this isolating experience. Or fear that they might not find success. And built innately in Vouch is involving these vouchers, which kind of like Adam is saying, we’re letting your social circle vouch for you, which acts somewhat like a co-sign or a reference, but from the people who love and care about your most. And that lives on someone’s profile. And what we realize is by allowing that communication and engagement from a social circle of a dater, that that single dater is more inclined to be more authentic, more honest, and hopefully not join the app for reasons, to scam somebody or put them into any level of danger. We have yet to have a report of harassment or on or off the app, and we hope that that continues. I know it’s not 100% foolproof, but the likelihood of someone engaging on our platform, where you’re incentivized and encouraged to involve your friends and family to co-sign off on who you are, we hope that that continues where people know that they can join an app like ours because we’re verifying who a dater is by giving this almost review-like system, and encouraging that they be more authentic, and kind, and safe on our platform. What I realize is that people are gonna hit a point where they’re very desperate to reach out and meet someone face-to-face. And so we want to embed within our platform, again, these, it’s a digital interface, but how do we reflect real, live, offline kind of references, and personalization, and warmth within the platform so that people continue to follow the guidelines? And then when it is safe, they feel confident enough in who they’ve been chatting with or matching with to then meet up. So I know that things are going to change. I think there’s going to be a moment of time where this excitement we’re seeing in growth will maybe level off because now it’s becoming very real. Financial concerns, health and safety concerns. It’s no longer funny and it’s not just memes, it’s now very, very serious because we’re watching our friends and neighbors be affected by it. So I think that as a company, we want to continue to perpetuate what’s good about our platform, also do a ton of listening with what’s happening on a global scale as well as listening to our existing users, but then, again, to provide a level of warmth and safety so that users who are concerned about things happening out in the real world don’t have to be concerned they’re going to be scammed, or catfished, or ghosted, or assaulted on our app. And just making sure that safety is of the utmost importance to our users and to our company.
– Okay, thank you so much, Christiana. So let’s have a look into the future a couple of years. We look at the behavior of people on dating apps now and just before, a month or two ago. Let’s look down the road a couple of years. How do you think mobile apps are gonna change in two years time as a response to the change in behavior around this pandemic? Geoff?
– Nope, muted.
– I did mute? Oh, really?
– I’m sorry, sorry about that.
– Okay, all right.
– I was saying–
– Good stuff, all right.
– I was saying it was an interesting point that David made that I hadn’t heard before anyway, that maybe the most shallow of the dating apps, the most swipe-oriented of them are the most impacted. I think that’s interesting. That does stand to reason. And I will say, Adam, I’m going to have my kids go on that virtual tour of the aquarium. So as to your question, Mark, I was reading a book recently called “The Last Man” by Mary Shelley. And basically said something along the effects of, “All political systems prove themselves irrelevant “in the face of a plague.” And yeah, when we look at our data, our survey data, we see this dramatic political divide. Mostly I’m talking about US politics, where Republicans are more likely to go on a date, or to think that they’re going on a date soon. They’re more likely to be less afraid of the virus. Democrats are more likely to be afraid of the virus and to not want to date. In total, we’re seeing still, as I mentioned, more than 50% of users think they’re going to go on a date in the next 30 days. I think that, and then when we look at the economic data, we see that if this unemployment, if these shutdowns continue ’til summer, people are going to be unable to pay rent by summer. Half of the people who pay rent on our platforms. So if I look out a few years, I really see disruption for a long time. That political divide is going to make response to the virus exceedingly difficult. You’re not going to get a coordinated authoritarian response, even if that might be warranted. You’re going to get half-hearted responses all over the country. And if you’re dealing with the situation of constant rolling outbreaks, you’re going to, and economic growth slowed by that as well as meeting in real life growth, I think, and I’ll come back to the video theme, of course. I think what this is making everyone do is stream a lot more, right? Like, people who, people going out and streaming on a dating platform is scary. Most people don’t wanna do that, especially for the first time. But if you’re streaming for Zoom, for work, and you’re streaming on FaceTime with kind of a virtual happy hour, and you’re just using video in all these other contexts, then, and we’re seeing it. People are more likely to say, okay, well then I’ll stream for dating. And I think you’re gonna see people stream for dating on the other side of this because they’re gonna, they’re not gonna be as quick to wanna go get that coffee. They’re gonna wanna have some basic gate where they try to understand if this person’s even worth meeting, because now there’s a risk to every meeting.
– All right, thank you, Geoff. Now, David?
– I also believe for the upcoming years, it doesn’t look too bright, to be honest. We’re going into a recession, and it’ll impact a lot of lives. I believe that people will not go on fancy dates immediately and spend a lot of money. And as a result of that, people will think twice before they will meet somebody. I believe they will choose platforms and apps that have the quality. Well, for example, Inner Circle, where we do a screening of all the people and make sure the people are real and meet certain, well, what we try to do is connect like-minded people. So that’s something definitely is gonna change. But in the end, I also believe in a couple years from now, people will also start old fashioned way as people do now, one-on-one in an app, but maybe also the events online or offline that will become more popular because it’s an easy way to meet a lot of different singles all at the same time. And we see it’s working for us so I don’t in that.
– Thank you, David. Gloria?
– Yeah, so right now it’s kind of difficult to know how this situation is gonna evolve within the next two years, but it’s clear that this is not a think for one or two months. But I think that as a whole, the situation in the next two years will depend not only in the virus itself, but also on the recession that it’s gonna provoke, and the recovery speed of the economy. And I think, also, like there could be other problems, like other pandemics, or in general, the industry can be affected by climate change crisis that is coming and maybe we’re not paying enough attention. So different things that are exactly the same might happen, and that’s something to keep an eye on. I think, like, in the next two years, how it’s going to affect, I think the key to understanding is if we will be enforced to keep having, maintaining the social distancing. Because if we are, I think one very clear thing in any case is that people will look for more serious relationships. Like right now, we will see a huge increase of people looking for a quarantine companion. Also, we’ll keep seeing that people will take longer time for meeting. And also, yeah, there will be little littles that matter for everyone. Like, people will look for people closer. Like, maybe now if it would like to look for someone, I would try to look for someone within a mile instead of looking for someone that is, like, 20 miles, because at some point it will be much easier. Or maybe if I want to go back to another country, maybe where my family lives, maybe I will try to use some kind of service that will allow me to meet people there because I already know I want to meet there. Also if we are going to maintain the social distancing, I think there’s gonna be a lot of cross product or cooperations between online industries. Because when we’re dating, we want to share experiences and time with people. So maybe, I don’t know, I can imagine, like, food delivery companies sending the same dinner to both people that are in the same city but not together. Or maybe organize watch parties, like maybe people are watching together Netflix, or something different, or maybe just YouTube videos. Or maybe sharing game platforms. Like, in Mamba, for example, we have a lot of games online, but people maybe like to use games from other systems they really like. Or even e-commerce, or yeah. Maybe someone want to send a present or something different to the person they’re online dating. And yeah, right now I think we can also see, like, things, like maybe people showing their values, like maybe some people will be like, oh, okay, I don’t care, I really want to go on a date, let’s go, like, next week. And then maybe if you are a person that really feels that being outside can put other people’s health at risk, you will not like to go on a date. So maybe it’s also a good way to see red flags or maybe check compatibility levels. So yeah.
– Thank you, Gloria. Fascinating. And Adam, how do you think things will change in a couple years, in terms of mobile dating and usage, and?
– Yeah, so I’m a big believer that intentional-based dating apps and more serious relationship apps will rise in popularity. I think that while the more casual dating apps are really fun, I think that we emerge out of this much more cautious in terms of dating, both in terms of the platforms that we select to use, there’s been so much negativity associated with some of the very large platforms. And so I think that people are, in a sense, fed up and want something that is much more engagement and deeper interaction. So I think that there’s gonna be explosion of more niche dating apps that cater to, whether it’s specific ethnicities, religions, certain kind of value types, et cetera, that are really catered to a very specific group of people that can do very well. And I think people will abandon, in some cases, some of the bigger dating apps because they’ve been using them for five, six, seven, eight years, and are still single. And I think that the need and the desire to be in a relationship is something that’s very important. I think to that end, verification and security become something that’s a cornerstone and sort of table stakes for these dating apps. So people need to implement different ways to ensure security and safety of people. I think that there’s gonna be a very low tolerance for people being catfished going into the future because we’ve had to deal with so much in recent time. And I think that the industry sort of converges with entertainment. Because I actually don’t believe that distance is as important today as it was a month ago. Because these relationships are beginning online, because we probably will be meeting fewer people in the real world, then distance becomes less important and connecting with someone that can give you that x factor that creates that spark is even more important. The question is, how do we cultivate the relationship in different ways to feel like we really know this person before we meet them in the real world? So I actually don’t think distance is gonna become, I think it becomes less important. And I think that we sort of implement new features in our app that feel much more like entertainment meets dating. And I think that you’re already beginning to see some of that take place.
– Fascinating, thank you, Adam. Christiana?
– I agree with Adam. I think proximity to a particular individual, I think the importance of that and priority of that will change. I don’t know definitely if it means that people care about someone being 50 miles away versus being five. We see that most of our matches happen within a 10-mile radius. But I’m very interested to see how, because we’re having to be distanced, just at a basic level, if that proximity priority will change. But I think on a larger scale, two and three years down the road, security and safety will, I don’t know if will for certain, but I hope become a larger priority of all companies to keep their users safe. I think in these particular times, I keep using this word desperate, and I don’t mean it in a negative way, but there’s this desire and desperation to want to connect with people. But I also see that there’s going to be struggles economically, which may lead to an increase in scams and people utilizing fake profiles to make money or send your to a scamming site. So I see that being something that will become of a larger concern. So I think there’ll be a larger call for transparency and regulation from dating platforms to protect users on both a safety, physical safety front, but as well as the monetary aspect of it. Vouch, right now, is free to use. We had some pretty aggressive goals to monetize our app this year, and obviously that’s shifted a bit. So we actually want to keep the app free for people to use for as long as we can, because we know that it might be difficult for them to be able to make rent and other things. So we wanna keep things light but also be very realistic with expectations. So I wish I could tell you exactly what things will look like, but if I had to suspect, entertainment, video, security, and safety will be ongoing themes that I hope that, regardless of a pandemic or not, are going to be things that dating apps and companies look for in the future.
– Great, thank you so much, Christiana. Thank you to you all for coming along to the second of the IDEA webinar. And I gotta say, I think this is quite a precedent, really. I mean, you heard us a month ago, now you’ve seen what I think are some of the most innovative CEOs and companies in the dating industry. And the personal business, we should be more personal. We should come out from behind our desks. And what I wanted to do is who you what I think are some of the most innovative, best folks in the dating industry. So here we are. And I look forward to doing it again this next month. If you’ve got ideas of things that you’d like to hear from from the dating industry, send me an email to mark@idea.gp, or you can jump in on Online Personals Watch and message me there. And I look forward to doing this again next month. Thank you so much for your time. Appreciate.
– Thanks, Mark.
– Mark, thanks, everybody.
– Stay safe.
– Yeah, stay safe.