Hilary DeCesare has achieved great professional success, first as a sales executive in Silicon Valley, then through her work as a life transition and executive coach. But when it came to finding a new romantic partner following a divorceDeCesare for years dating appssites and other avenues without realization.
Then it hit her: She needed the same kind of help she would receive if she was trying to accomplish something in another area in which she was not an expert.
“I’m going to be in a pickleball tournament in three weeks, so what should I do? I arranged a lesson with a pickleball coach,” says DeCesare, 55, who now runs it RELAUNCH Colorado company. “You don’t try to do it yourself. You go with the best.
Enter the matchmaker.
Through a mutual acquaintance, DeCesare met Shannon Lundgren, a Harvard MBA living in San Francisco who had recently launched her professional matching service, Shannon’s circle. On the third date arranged by Lundgren, DeCesare met her future husband, to whom she has been married for almost 11 years.
“Why do this on your own when you can increase success and get there faster?” » said DeCesare. ” It is what it is. Start living and start living faster.
Matchmaking is big business
Although it represents less than a quarter of a dating industry estimated to be worth $4 billion in 2024 in the United States alone, matchmaking – not just dating coaching, but true one-on-one matchmaking – has made a pronounced comeback over the past two decades. Long relegated to the shadows of dating sites and applications, this centuries-old practice has re-emerged as an option favored by those who have the necessary resources to pay for it and are willing to integrate the human dynamics of a search for love by a third party.
“People are becoming more comfortable with outsourcing their love lives, like hiring a personal trainer at the gym or a private chef to cook meals for them,” says matchmaker Rachel Greenwald based in the United States and director of Harvard Business School. comrade, whose elite services order between $10,000 and $75,000 per month and a minimum commitment of three months.
Of course, not everyone can hire a personal trainer or private chef. But even at the lower levels, personal matching is not at all the same as dating through an algorithm, and the prices — almost always thousands of dollars or more — reflect that.
Exact numbers are elusive, as I discovered when interviewing several professional matchmakers about the industry’s growth. Among other things, no license is required for this work and it is largely unregulated. “It’s basically what I would call the Wild West,” Greenwald says. “These are a lot of family businesses.”
Yet, say those in the know, business is booming. In the United States at the turn of the century there were perhaps fifty individual matchmakers; according to New York matchmaker Lisa Clampitt, there are now more than 5,000. in the United States only. “The industry is growing 100%,” she says.
Many clients, matchmakers say, have become tired of the online/app dating approach, or have decided that their investment of time is not paying dividends. At the same time, for some services, helicopter parents trying to match up with their adult children — or advise them on dating skills themselves — can make up a third or more of their business. (Parents can pay the fee, but they have no say in the process, matchmakers say.)
Clampitt, a former social worker, got into the business in 2000 by creating his eponymous company connection company, which caters to New York’s wealthy elite. A few years later, she founded the Matchmaking Institute, now known as World Love Institute, which offers matchmaking and coaching certifications, suggests ethical guidelines, and essentially functions as a professional association for matchmakers to share resources and best practices. May 8 from the Institute World Conference on Love in New York was billed as the largest gathering of its kind ever held.
Modern matchmaking doesn’t have much in common with its predecessor “Your aunt has someone to meet.” Matchmakers say that while their clients are generally looking for a committed relationship, marriage is not always – or even usually – the goal, one reason why a thorough vetting and interview process is required from the outset. departure. Someone who has just gone through a divorcefor example, may simply want to meet diverse people and feel good about themselves again, says Greenwald.
While most services accept clients from all backgrounds, some work in very specific niches, whether religious, geographic, sexual preference or otherwise. Michael Naisteter runs a service with a strong emphasis on Jewish matches in Philadelphia – “an interesting microcosm for dating,” she says. “It’s a very diverse city and the birthplace of America, but it’s very much a ‘local’ city: people live there for a long time, buy homes and stay loyal to their teams. I can’t tell you how many people I meet who feel like they already know everyone, but that’s not the case.
With price estimates ranging from around $10,000 to $300,000 or more, matchmakers often operate as relationship concierge services, helping clients avoid the time wasted of channeling online or web-based profiles. applications towards possible dates. Greenwald says she might screen and interview 10 to 20 people in order to present a profile that she presents to the client – a “curation” process as she calls it.
Elite matchmakers and their VIP clients
Elite level matchmakers to work with Fortune Speaking said they keep very short lists of clients at all times, sometimes half a dozen or fewer, so they can stay focused on and respond quickly to a VIP’s needs. (At the lower end of the cost spectrum, clients can expect a more agency-driven approach: less expensive, but also less personal.)
“If we search nationally, we’ll only look at a few clients at a time,” says Cat Cantrill, who runs an agency based in Iowa but capable of searching coast to coast for the right person for a client.
Cantrill coached women on how to navigate the dating world, online and otherwise, for several years before taking the plunge into matchmaking in 2020. She still does both, which seems to be common in the area. Several matchmakers said they also advise clients on clothing, personal branding, creating online profiles, and more.
And despite the lack of mandatory licensing or certifications, modern matchmaking is very clearly a commercial enterprise, with incomes for the upper echelons reaching seven figures. For this to happen, however, they must be mindful of their bottom line while seeking the right fit or successful experience for their customers.
Rachel Greenwald, for example, only works with male clients, in part because that’s what the math says to do. Many other matchmakers do the same.
“The average matchmaking service customer is over 40, because the price is so high that younger people usually can’t afford it,” Greenwald says. “Above 40, there are many more fantastic single women and a small amount of fantastic men – and many of these men want to date women 10 years younger because they want to have children. There is therefore a compression of the market for women.
Matchmakers, Greenwald says, sometimes have to weigh the opportunity cost of introducing a client to a potential partner over another client whose must-have list may be much longer. She says successful ones think like lawyers when it comes to the hourly rate they want to achieve and the likely workload required.
They must also be ruthless, in their own empathetic way. Greenwald says good matchmakers are careful, connected listeners who may ultimately turn away 50% or more of their potential clients simply because they don’t believe they can help those people find a match or have a positive journey.
“We are not magicians. It’s really important that people know about this sector. It’s not like we give someone a menu and allow them to order à la carte, All they want.”
On the other hand, when it works, it can be beautiful. Most matchmakers agree that “success” is in the eyes of the client, whether it is a mutually satisfying relationship, marriage, or simply a process of self-evaluation.Discovery. But seeing people click and fall in love, they say, never gets old.
“People start to become so successful that they find themselves alone at the top of the mountain – and I find that dilemma so compelling,” says Clampitt of New York. “I really help people learn another skill, which is completely different from being successful in business.”
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