BNN BREAKING – Selective Search, founded by Barbie Adler, has a 33% success rate for matching clients on their first try. Clients pay $75K to $500K for services that use 225 factors to find compatible partners, focusing on deep connections and personal values. Adler emphasizes self-reflection and clarity on what's non-negotiable in a partner, advising flexibility on less crucial aspects.
Category: SelectiveSearch
Meet the Female Dating Business Founders Helping People Find Love
FORBES – Barbie Adler took her experience as a successful executive recruiter, helping executive talent find jobs at Fortune 500 companies, and applied the same methodology to launch the executive matchmaking firm Selective Search, which works with some of the top athletes, celebrities, and business executives across North America. Selective Search matched up ~4K couples, leading to 2K marriages and hundreds of families started. A third (34%) of clients met their match on the very first introduction, and Adler herself found love through her firm. Having grown up on a farm, sisters Lucy Reeves and Emma Royall were all too familiar with the challenges of meeting people in a rural setting. In 2006, they started Muddy Matches, a dating platform for people living in the country and looking for a like-minded match. Muddy Matches now has 330K active members and attracts 5K new monthly registrations.
by Alison Coleman
See full article at Forbes
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When the Dow Is Down, Love Is up
ESQUIRE – Dec 11 – VIDA Select is a modern matchmaking experience. It does match its clients with one another like a traditional service, but it also gets them set up on two to four dating apps. VIDA handling all the swiping and messaging, too. 15 people or more could be involved in the setup of an account. Its packages start at $895 per month. CEO Scott Valdez says his cheaper service is just as or more effective than expensive matchmakers, mostly because "the idea of relying on your own database of paying customers is something that made sense when there weren't huge online dating platforms available." Selective Search would disagree. "It's almost like self-serve at a grocery store versus someone that's actually making you gourmet food, organic, farm-to-plate, in your home," founder and CEO Barbie Adler says of how her team differs. Its custom programs can range from $25,000 to $1M. Amber Kelleher-Andrews, CEO of Kelleher International, thinks she knows why online dating doesn't work for everyone: There's no vetting. The company only makes matches for highly successful entrepreneurs, royalty, celebrities, and otherwise notable people, and only two percent of applicants are accepted. A Kelleher International membership costs $25K – $300K a year. In a pandemic-ridden world, the matchmaking industry is experiencing an unprecedented boom.
by Lauren Kranc
See full article at Esquire
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Courtney Mohr Appointed as CEO of Selective Search
PR NEWSWIRE – Nov 17 – Selective Search, the high-end matchmaking firm, has appointed Courtney Mohr as CEO. Prior to joining Selective Search, Ms. Mohr served as CEO of GrowthPlay. Founded in 2000 by Barbie Adler, Selective Search is North America's leading luxury matchmaking firm.
Selective Search – Executive Matchmaking Business
INC – Feb 14 – Executives and entrepreneurs pay upward of $250,000 for Barbie Adler's exhaustively curated matchmaking service. Adler, a former executive recruiter, founded Chicago-based Selective Search in 2000. The company, which employs 40 people, has annual revenues north of $10M. It claims an 87% success rate, which works out to ~4K happy couples–1,800 of them married–to date. Roughly a third met "the one" on their first introduction. The process begins with a tell-us-everything intake interview: 15 pages of questions. Potential matches undergo the same in-depth personal interviews as clients. ~30% of Selective Search's clients are women, who also make up the company's fastest-growing category.
After Ashley Madison Breach, Online Daters Check Credentials
NYTIMES – Oct 15 – In August, traffic on Spokeo, an online verification service, more than doubled. Others are using private investigators and matchmakers to do the vetting for them. Selective Search, an executive matchmaking firm based in Chicago, also reported a bump in calls after the Ashley Madison hack. And Tawkify received more inquiries from people wanting to meet someone who has been properly vetted, said E. Jean Carroll, a co-founder of the matchmaking service.
by Abby Ellin
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Online Dating Hasn’t Killed Matchmakers
CHICAGO TRIBUNE – Oct 23 – A matchmaking school is reporting growing enrollment. "People have dating overload – they're on Tinder, Match, OKCupid," said Talia Goldstein, co-founder and CEO of Three Day Rule, Match.com's "white glove" matchmaking partner. "People are getting so confused by all the options that they are looking for someone to help them." Three Day Rule charges $3,5K for three months of personal matchmaking and $5K for a six-month package that includes date coaching, styling and professional photography. Some matchmakers say their clientele is getting younger. Business models among matchmakers vary widely. On the high end, Selective Search, charges $25K. 90% of the clients are men, who are matched with dates who do not pay for the service. On the other end is Project Fixup, a startup that charges $20 per setup.
by Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz
See full article at Chicago Tribune
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Selective Search Charges $25,000 To Find Love
FORBES – Sep 4 – Barbie Adler, founder and president of Selective Search, has been helping find love for the wealthy for 13 years which led to 1,487 marriages and 459 babies. Her service costs $25K for a flexible, yearlong contract of seven to ten dates. Women don't pay but they have to go through a vetting process.
$100,000 Matchmaker
TIME – Aug 2 – In this economy, it seems unthinkable that people would pay up to six figures just to find a mate. And yet expensive matchmakers are reporting that business is up these days. Janis Spindel, who charges clients between $50,000 and $500,000 a year to find the "woman of their dreams," says membership jumped 41% in 2009 from the year before and is up 46% so far this year. Premier Match, a New York City–based agency where annual membership costs a min of $5,500, logged $1.5M in sales last year, a 30% increase from the previous year. Matchmaking agencies advertise different strengths to attract high-end clients. Barbie Adler, CEO of Selective Search, worked in executive recruitment before she started her agency in Chicago 10 years ago. "My experience has been crucial to looking beyond a résumé to make a good match," she says. Indeed, clients are willing to part with a minimum of $15,000 for Adler to work with them. Other firms take a scientific approach. The British firm Seventy Thirty, which charges its clients a min of $15,000, has a team made up exclusively of psychologists.
The full article was originally published at Time, but is no longer available.
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Matchmakers Cash In On Business Of Love
CHICAGO TRIBUNE — Feb 9 – "When the Dow is down, dating and love are up," said Barbie Adler, president of Selective Search, a matchmaking service based in Chicago. Selective Search charges $15,000 fee for a full year of service. The personal touch is also fueling growth for It's Just Lunch, a matchmaking service launched in Chicago seventeen years ago with offices in 100 locations. Members pay $1,800 a year to be matched for lunch, drinks or brunch. Chicago sales climbed 8% in 2008, and January was up 4% from the prior year.
The full article was originally published at Chicago Tribune, but is no longer available.
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