A certain high-ranking official with close ties to the clandestine dating/social-networking industrial complex has forwarded me top secret footage of recently-release video of Eharmony’s CEO speaking with Marketwatch’s Bambi Francisco.
Bambi Francisco :Have subscriber Acquisition Costs (SAC) gone up for eHarmony?
Greg Waldorf: No.
Dave, talking to monitor: Greg, what’s up with the eye roll? Looks like the prompter was up in the ceiling.
BF: Match grew 22% to $80 million last quarter.
GW: eHarmony is growing at about the same rate as Match.
BF: Revenue growth for 2007?
GW: Next year’s revenue growth will be most likely due to subscriber base increase, not price increase. Emphasis mine.
Dave to monitor: Bambi, ask him how much of that $110 million is left in the bank.
BF asking her usual questions. How many subscribers?
GW: We don’t break out our individual subscriber counts. Many hundreds of thousands.
GW: 14 million signups since inception.
BF: What is average lifetime of a subscribe and how to you value your subscribers.
GW: We value them on trying to make them successful.
Dave: Nice dodge!
BW: applying pressure…
GW: Lifetime value of subscriber is well over $100. We don’t break out into months.
BF: What new services are coming next?
GW: Serious R&D. New services for married couples in wellness space.
Dave: Nothing about expansion plans that have been pinging around the blogosphere.
BF: Spark has 26 niche sites. Talks about the network’s demographics, pays homage of sorts.
GW: eHarmony relies on an algorithm.
Dave: Wishes he could have coached Greg on that one. That was a giant softball question he totally threw away.
BF: Average subscription price?
BF: I can tell you that 90 people get married every day on eHarmony.
Dave: !!!!!
What did we learn during this interview?
We don’t know how many subscribers eHarmony has. Could be 300-700k.
We don’t know much about what they are going to do to grow the business.
The CEO refuses to quote how much he charges for his service.
That drove me particularly nuts. How can you not have a price? I hear unsubstantiated reports that they are giving away free and multiple months to people so who really knows except the CFO what’s going on there?
Eharmony spent more than $60 million advertising in 2005. It raised $110 million in 2004. EHarmony projected 100,000 marriages on the site in 2005. Looks like the actual number was about 17,000 people.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I tested Eharmony back in the day. It sucks, thats why they are loosing to Match. $60 plus a month to deliver people of no interest to me. Nuff said…
Thanks for watching. Sorry you didn’t learn anything from the interview.
eHarmony has questionable business practices. Their renewal “policies” are purposely misleading to defraud members of subscription fees. In calling customer service, they insist “It’s like a gym membership” – that you pay regardless of when you ask to cancel – even when their posted policy states members are allowed to “cancel at any time”.
Further more, the only 800-number available to complain, doesn’t handle refund requests. Those only go through a PO box in California. They will also not disclose the mailing address of the CEO. They are obviously trying to hide something.
I would highly recommend not signing up for a subscription. It’s a rip-off.
Just wanted to mention my experience with eHarmony–it worked like a charm. My third match was indeed the “love of my life” (to use Dr. Warren Clark’s words). We got everything the ads promised we’d get and a lot more.
I was the very last hold out to online dating. Thought I go with eharmony. The matches were very good for the msot part, actually met someone I went out with for awhile eailer this year. Didn’t work out. Then, the matches were started getting weird a few months ago, like other sites. Ok. “I’m in a relationship but there’s not romance, but I want to date.” Um, yeah. So is eharmony a wannabe-match.com now??
Hey People, i will share that i was on eharmony and i did meet someone special. we got married about 7 months after we met. it has been great. i encourage eharmony. its about $35 per month. yes you can cancel at any time. They don’t disclose pricing all over the place because they give away free memberships, etc for short times. They want you to try it. It really works. Dr Warren is an expert at successful relationships. the guy has written a bunch of books on it. read his books. He has invested a lot of time and money to create these books. many of his books are not in print anymore. you have to get them used. Finding the love of your life, i think is the best book.
anyway, that is my 2 cents worth. it is honest. i am married to the person i met on eharmony. we have kids now. i have met others in my area that met their spouse on eharmony. be patient with it, i was on it for almost 3 years. (that is longer than most people, but i am picky!!) the wait was well worth it. i met someone that i had a lot in common with, and it was special from the instant we met.
it is the biggest decision you will make, get it right. let eharmony help you