Blast from the past: Offline dating is back

Gary Ferone”™s own personal dating odyssey planted the seed for a matchmaking company that in four years has expanded to nine locations. Ferone is the Founder of Great Date Now, an offline matchmaking company geared toward single professionals.

Ferone started the company four years ago with its first office in Mamaroneck, N.Y. It now has locations in Fairfield County, Westchester County, N.Y., and northern New Jersey, with a midtown Manhattan office set to open later this month.

Ferone worked on Wall Street as a broker for nearly 20 years and remembered the long and sometimes frustrating string of dates he went on before meeting his second wife on match.com, an online matchmaking service.

That experience, coupled with a conversation with a friend in Cleveland who was in the matchmaking business, led Ferone to start a similar company of his own.

“We”™re looking for people who want a discreet, dignified way to meet someone,” he said. “Not everyone is comfortable going online and posting a picture or information about themselves.”

Ferone said his client base, which now numbers about 4,500 people, ranges from CEOs, to financial analysts, to teachers and social workers.

He said there are slightly more, about 51 percent, women in the company”™s database.

He said many of the people who come in to use the service say similar things: They are tired of searching the “bar scene” for a potential mate; or they don”™t have enough time to “prospect” for a date.

Ferone said a recent study showed that 57 percent of people who buy homes in the New York metro area today are single, and these types of single professionals make up a large part of the company”™s clientele.

“Our clients look at the service as an investment in their future,” he said. “Most people use a Realtor to help them find a home or a headhunter to find a job. Some busy professionals use personal shoppers to purchase their wardrobes. We want our clients to consider their matchmakers ”˜personal shoppers for the heart.”™”

Ferone said the success in recent years of online dating services has not taken away from his business, but actually helped it, because it has removed much of the stigma that used to be associated with matchmaking services.

“A lot of people are really looking to settle down,” he said. “If you get into a good relationship everything around you begins to change.”

Each Great Date Now office has its own head matchmaker who takes a training course and is certified by the Matchmaking Institute in New York.

A prospective client would meet privately with a matchmaker, who would ask about his or her interests and the type of person he or she would like to meet.

Matchmakers carefully screen clients and conduct background checks to make sure their personal information is accurate, said Ferone.

Great Date Now then selects potential matches. And if both parties agree to meet, matchmakers arrange the date, including selecting a restaurant and making the reservations.

If the first date goes well, future arrangements are left in the hands of the clients.

“There”™s not an exact science to chemistry,” said Ferone. “But we really have a passion for putting people together.”

Ferone said the company has married at least 300 people since its inception and started “countless relationships.”

He said the company maintains a high standard for its clients and who is put into its database.

“We meet every potential client, but we don”™t take every one,” he said.

Ferone said Great Date Now is growing at a rate of about four new offices per year.

He has plans to expand out of the Fairfield County-New York metro area shortly, opening an office in Jupiter, Fla., in February and in Washington, D.C., after that.

Ferone said he is planning an initial public offering within the next five years and hopes to raise the capital to open up offices in every major city across the country.

The Web site is www.greatdatenow.com.