From the original article by Matthew Malone for the Elk Grove Citizen, a primarily print-based publication
An Elk Grove matchmaking startup recently won first place in a competition at California State University, Sacramento, and the founder hopes her company can “make a dent in loneliness” in the Sacramento region.
ValleyMatch took part in the Startup Challenge, a two-day competition organized by Sacramento State’s Carlsen Center For Innovation & Entrepreneurship. About 18 teams competed from Oct. 13 to Oct. 15 to see who could best develop and pitch a startup business model to local venture capital investors.
The competition was “tiring,” ValleyMatch CEO and founder Rebecca Nguyen said in a recent interview, noting that she is eight months pregnant. “But it was a really cool experience.”
And ValleyMatch took home a $1,000 check.
Nguyen said she started ValleyMatch this year to “make online dating less online.”
“We’re trying to make it offline so that you aren’t judging people by little boxes on your phone, that you get to meet the person and try to form a human connection in person,” Nguyen told the Herald.
Before meeting her husband, Nguyen tried multiple dating websites and matchmaking services but found it to be a “tiresome and lonely process.” She said she wanted to help others form long-term connections, so she quit her job with a technology company to start ValleyMatch.
She identified several problems with dating apps and matchmaking services that she wanted to remedy. Nguyen felt that dating apps have a “marketplace mentality” that encourages a user to reject someone based on little information, a heavy gender imbalance among heterosexual users, and an emphasis on online messaging that doesn’t translate to in-person chemistry.
Matchmaking, Nguyen said, is very expensive and incentivizes matchmakers to set up dates even when they aren’t likely to pan out.
ValleyMatch works only with people who are looking for a long-term relationship, Nguyen said, and it currently serves the region from Sacramento to Modesto, and the Bay Area. It uses an algorithm to match members up based on their preferences. The matches are reviewed by human employees, who also consult with members to verify their information and assess their experiences on dates. Nguyen said there are currently “hundreds of people” in ValleyMatch’s database.
Its main subscription package costs $250 per quarter, with the payment period starting when the service finds the first match. A free tier allows a user to be matched with ValleyMatch’s paying members.
“We’re not a dating app. … We’re trying to be a more affordable alternative to dating apps, so there is no constantly logging into my platform and checking things,” Nguyen said. “I’m not trying to monetize your attention, basically. So because of that, my incentives, I hope, are lined up with their (users’) goals, unlike dating apps.”
For more information about ValleyMatch, visit its website valleymatch.com.