Sounding Out the Singles Set

Neil Clark Warren, founder of the online dating site EHarmony.com Inc., does matchmaking by the numbers.

Subscribers fill in 436 answers on a questionnaire. The company’s computers then use a secret formula to match people using what Warren calls the 29 “dimensions” of a successful relationship, a system based on his decades of experience as a psychologist.

Although the site plays matchmaker without human intervention, it’s a personal ingredient -- Warren himself, known to millions for his folksy pitches on television commercials -- driving the business.

In person, as on the air, Warren, 70, comes across as warm and encouraging. His ebullient persona has become so well known that it has been parodied by a wig-wearing Jay Leno.

“At EHarmony.com,” Warren says in an ad that has become a cable-TV staple, “we only match you with other singles who are compatible with you in all the areas that matter most in life.”

But as EHarmony becomes better known, Warren has had to tread a careful line: He has strong ties to evangelicals, who were overwhelming responsible for the early success of EHarmony.

While maintaining that base, Warren now must ensure the service appeals to people of all religious persuasions.

EHarmony also faces more-mundane challenges: Although it attracted 2.7 million visitors in March, according to ComScore Media Metrix, the site lags far behind bigger, better-known sites such as Yahoo Inc.’s Yahoo Personals, which drew 5.9 million visitors, and IAC/InterActiveCorp’s Match.com, with 4 million.

Warren views it all with boundless optimism.

“We have a chance to change the world,” said Warren as he took a break from filming a recent commercial. “Never before in history has a psychologist had the chance to engage so many people.”

Then why not reveal his secret formula for the benefit of all? “I’m also a businessman,” Warren said after a moment. “All my life I wanted to be an entrepreneur.”

Warren grew up in Ivy, Iowa, a town so small it no longer appears on the map, having been absorbed into the suburbs of Des Moines. His father, who had ambitions to be a preacher, ended up owning several businesses, including a car dealership.

Warren married his Pepperdine University sweetheart in 1959 and Marylyn Warren is now head of public relations at EHarmony. They have three grown daughters.

Warren took a divinity degree at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1959 and his doctorate in psychology at the University of Chicago in 1967, while working for a short period as a pastor.

He began his private therapy practice in Pasadena and taught at Fuller Theological Seminary -- which serves the evangelical community -- where he was dean of the graduate school of psychology from 1975 to 1982.

Frustrated, he said, by stagnation in academia and by seeing the same marital problems in his clients, time and time again, he began writing self-help books, starting with “Make Anger Your Ally” in 1983.

He traveled the country to give lectures and workshops, mostly in church settings. More books followed, and in 1993 he hit the jackpot for authors: an appearance on “Oprah.”

He also made several appearances on evangelical broadcaster James Dobson’s radio program, “Focus on the Family,” in the 1980s. Warren eventually made a deal for his books to be distributed under the “Focus on the Family” banner.

Warren tried a few entrepreneurial ventures -- including organizing a group investment in an oil-drilling venture that failed and another in a credit card business that he would describe only as “embarrassing.”

“Finally, my wife said, ‘Why don’t you try something you know?’ ” Warren said.

He envisioned a mail-order matchmaking service. But in 1997, Warren and business partners met with investor and former MasterCard International Chief Executive Alex “Pete” Hart, who told them he would help them if they put the service on the Internet.

“I left there saying, ‘No way,’ ” Warren said. “To me, the Internet was almost all men. And it was sleazy.”

But Hart, who later invested in the company, convinced Warren that online was the only way to reach people in enough numbers to make the venture succeed.

By the time EHarmony debuted in 2000, Match.com and Yahoo Personals were already online with services that allowed visitors to post profiles and optional photos, and browse through all others posted in search of casual dates or more-serious matches. EHarmony distinguished itself by catering only to people who were serious about finding a mate -- and willing to pay for the extra service. While its larger competitors charge users up to $30 a month, EHarmony charges as much as $50, depending on discounts.

Unlike its competitors, the Pasadena-based company does not permit browsing. EHarmony evaluates the questionnaires, makes matches based on personality similarities and other factors and then sends the matches to subscribers for their review.

The subscribers can then choose whether or not they want to open online dialogues.

“EHarmony walked into a vacuum and created a brand that catered to serious daters,” said Nate Elliot of Jupiter Research. “They did a great job of differentiating themselves.”

And in grabbing the attention of venture capital firms.

Last year, EHarmony got the largest single VC investment doled out to any company -- $110 million.

Now EHarmony faces competition in the niche it created.

Yahoo, for example, in November introduced Yahoo Premier, a service that offers a more comprehensive personality assessment and suggested matches for an additional monthly fee.

EHarmony also must contend, along with its competitors, with a slowdown in growth in the online dating business. Industry revenue grew 19% in 2004 to $473 million, according to Jupiter Research, but the analysts predict that growth will slow to 9% this year.

Warren said that EHarmony subscription levels were growing faster than the industry norm, although -- like Yahoo -- he declined to provide hard figures. EHarmony, which is privately held, also declines to disclose its revenue or profit.

*

Helping Warren to sell EHarmony are dozens of satisfied customers highlighted in TV spots.

Among those appearing recently for the taping of a promotional video were Rebecca and Thom Skinner from the St. Louis area. They both signed on to EHarmony in 2001.

“He was my first match,” Rebecca Skinner, 29, said of her now-husband. “As we talked, it became clear how similar our interests were, our goals.”

While EHarmony is cagey about how it makes matches, it makes clear that one factor doesn’t enter into the process: physical type.

But this leads to criticism. “Most people have a particular physical type they do or do not like,” said Andrea Sandvig, 52, a legal assistant in New York. A widow, she describes herself as “size 16 and quite fit.”

After joining earlier this year, Sandvig was matched to about 15 men on EHarmony. But after her picture went up on the site, she heard nothing from them.

“It was a little hurtful,” said Sandvig, who had found two long-term relationships on other sites. “But mostly it was a waste of my time and money.”

Yahoo Premier allows for searches based on members’ self-described body types and other physical attributes. And it does not limit browsing.

“People want to be empowered, not to be just a passive recipient,” said Lorna Borenstein, a Yahoo executive in charge of the company’s new venture. She said the goal of the Premier questionnaire, taken online in a video-game-like format, is for users to get a better idea of who they are looking for as a partner.

With an eye on the threat of competition, Warren is full of plans for expansion. He said EHarmony would launch an online marriage analysis service -- complete with exercises aimed at strengthening the relationship -- by the end of the year.

One area into which they don’t plan to expand is matchmaking for gay men or lesbians. “I don’t know how to do these matches, the research has not been done,” Warren said. Yahoo and Match.com do accept homosexual subscribers.

EHarmony also rules out people who have been married more than twice because, Warren said, statistics show their future marriages also are likely to end in divorce. They also do not accept people who are, judging from their questionnaire answers, severely depressed.

Warren does believe the company must continue to broaden its base beyond the Christian world that gave it early support. EHarmony still gets e-mail from people who feel unwelcome because they believe the site is primarily for Christians.

Warren said the site is open to people of all religions, or no religion at all, but he acknowledges that his long association with Dobson -- a fellow psychologist who is active in promoting conservative Christian political causes -- could be a liability.

Warren is negotiating to buy back publishing rights to his books from Dobson’s organization, Focus on the Family.

“He wasn’t political when I knew him,” Warren said, picking up his own most popular book, “Finding the Love of Your Life.”

Across the top of the cover was a prominent banner for “Focus on the Family.”

Warren pointed at it: “That’s a killer to us.”