WMB Women Who Launch
In every edition of WMB, we are committed to assisting women entrepreneurs who have recently launched into the business world

I sat in the lobby of the hotel with copies of WMB in clear view. It’s a typical scenario - you’ve planned a meeting, you don’t know what the other person looks like. You always feel a little uncomfortable as you coyly watch strangers walk through the door. This could be a typical scene for a blind date - only that I’m already someone’s very happy ‘other half’. But strangely, I was meeting two ladies who were looking for LOVE.

I knew they were both in their thirties but that was about the size of it. However, it wasn’t hard to figure out my target when Caroline and Paula entered with full beaming smiles and matching T-shirts embossed with iloveyou.ie. Plenty of heads turned and of the male variety I might add! It’s hard to believe these two girls were single or as society would have it - gathering dust on the shelf!

I was here to primarily chat with Caroline - afterall she had the keys to the Love Bug, which was attracting quite a lot of interest in the car park. The girls met in their hometown Drogheda a couple of years back while working for the local newspaper. Having spent many years working and travelling abroad, they found that the social scene was quite different back home - especially for single girls in their thirties. It wasn’t long before they realised a gap existed in the market for an online dating service.

Last year, after many months of research, iloveyou.ie was born to meet the needs of a potentially very lucrative market.

To put this into context:

» 33% of Irish adults are single.
» 560,666 are aged between 25 and 45
» There are 61,500 more single women than men!
» 1 in 10 adults in Ireland use online dating
» European online dating revenue continues to soar and will grow 43% from €160 million in 2005 to €228 million in 2006.

Read more about iloveyou.ie in the October | November 2006 issue of WMB, subscribe now.