Tired of swiping, one woman builds her own dating app to find love

• Ms Vernice Yap, 28, became tired of dating apps after constant mismatches
• Her research showed that dating apps are designed to keep singles swiping
• In June this year, she designed a dating app called Lovenn which lets singles specify their deal-breakers
• To be launched next January, the app will show users their best matches first
• Besides matching others, she hopes to find her future husband through the app

SINGAPORE — Two years, five dating applications and a string of 50 unsuccessful first dates later, Ms Vernice Yap was “all swiped out”.

After putting up with a series of mismatches from dating apps — from men who only wanted casual sex to others who turned out to be attached or even married — the 28-year-old had exhausted all the available profiles that apps had to offer.

“It reached a point where apps would show that I had run out of profiles in the region… I was tired, jaded and frustrated,” said Ms Yap in an interview with TODAY on Monday (Nov 2).

Fed up with the fruitless swiping, Ms Yap decided to find herself a husband – by building her own dating app instead.

Called Lovenn, the app aims to help singles cut down the time they waste on apps by stating their deal-breakers up front.

The app, which will launch next January, requires users to answer a series of 20 questions about themselves and what they expect in a partner.

These questions range from a potential partner’s background, such as their race and educational qualification, to more personal habits such as how frequently they smoke and whether they would rather engage in sex before or after marriage.

At least two of these expectations can be listed as deal-breakers, ensuring that a user does not waste his or her time with matches that do not fit their criteria and vice versa, said Ms Yap, who founded the company in June.

The idea to come up with an app came after the former bank trader did some online research to find out if it was just her “unlucky aura” that was keeping her single.

Ms Yap believes it was the dating apps that were keeping her single.

“I read research which said that existing apps are competing to keep you swiping as long as possible,” she said.

“They have a vested interest to keep users single because the paying rate for users ranges between 1 and 10 per cent. And they still want to make money from the remaining users through advertising.

“So the more time people spend on apps, the more money these apps make.”

Believing she could build an app that could actually benefit users, Ms Yap, who had previously worked at local start-up PolicyPal, surveyed close to 300 singles in Singapore from May to June this year to find out what they disliked about apps.

Among the issues raised by respondents was the lack of meaningful conversations over apps.

Ms Yap attributed this to the ease of setting up profiles in existing apps, which reduces the incentive for users to cherish connections that they make through these platforms.

So she and her team of three full-time and one part-time staff, which she assembled through her networks in the start-up industry, set about in June to design an app which requires users to spend at least 10 minutes filling up their profile.

The app then generates a compatibility score with potential matches based on a user’s response to the questionnaire.

Unlike other apps that only filter profiles based on the preferences of a user, Lovenn ensures that the user also fits the criteria of their potential matches. This ensures a better match and saves time for both parties, she added.

Users are then shown five profiles a day, starting with profiles with the highest compatibility.

“In short, your best match is your first match,” said Ms Yap.

The app, which is in its final stages of design, has already garnered interest from the public. A fundraising campaign launched last Sunday on crowdfunding platform Kickstarter has raised more than S$9,000 from more than 100 people willing to pay for its premium services.

Premium service users will be shown double the profiles and get to list four deal-breakers. Those who purchase the premium service through Kickstarter by the end of November will pay S$9 a month.

From the app’s launch in January onwards, prices for the app’s premium service will range from S$19 to S$39 depending on the subscription duration.

The aim is to have at least 15,000 users in Singapore by the end of January, said Ms Yap.

To this end, the company is targeting “impatient and picky singles” in their late 20s and 30s who are willing to spend money to save time in their search for a partner.

But beyond generating profit, Ms Yap said that the true success of the app will come from the users it benefits.

“In the next one year, I will be the happiest when I see actual success stories of people getting together through the app,” said Ms Yap.

She is also hoping to be one of them.