CNN MONEY – Feb 9 – "People on dating sites need a lot of help", said Scott Valdez, founder of Virtual Dating Assistants. Valdez was an active Match.com and POF user himself. "I found a writer on Craigslist and paid him to send my messages for me," he said. Soon, friends and family were begging to use his assistant too. So in 2009, he launched Virtual Dating Assistants. The business offers profile writing for $200 or communication, which runs about $23 an hour. Tinder packages run a bit more, $25 to $30 per hour. Writer Lisa Hoehn also became an online dating coach. Her "Profile Polish" offers three packages, which range from $48 for a "Tinder special" with photo insight and editing help, to a $98 profile analysis, to $198 for the "whole shebang." LiveDatingAdvice.com launched this month with $250K in funding from the founding team, friends and family. The founders — dating coaches Hunt Ethridge, Antonia Geno and Israel Irensteing — plan to make dating assistants virtually accessible to the masses. They are offering its services on pre-sale now for $49 a month, which will give clients live advice, daily access to a trained dating adviser, and a free profile review.
by Sara Ashley O'Brien
The full article was originally published at WPTV, but is no longer available.
See all posts on Virtual Dating Assistants
Summarized by 
WMUR – Feb 12 - Instant Chemistry offers a test that helps match singles, and assess couples' likelihood of staying together, by analyzing the DNA from saliva. Instant Chemistry's scores are based on the idea that the less similar a couple's immune systems, the better their relationship may fare. Since launching in July 2014, Instant Chemistry has sold 300 DNA kits. Fifty couples have taken the test, and most have received compatibility scores between 60 – 80%. The kit costs $199.
