By Lina Das For The Daily Mail
|
167
View
comments
The year was 2002 and Amy Andersen, a budding entrepreneur from California, was nervously pitching an idea to her boyfriend.
During parties with his tech friends from Silicon Valley, she had noticed that while they were CEOs and company founders — ‘all perfect on paper’ — they were all, oddly, single. ‘They would ask me, “Amy, where are all the great women?” At the same time, I was meeting a lot of impressive women who were struggling to find good men. That was my lightbulb moment. I thought, why don’t I do something to bridge the gap?’
After noodling with the idea of setting up an old-school dating network, where Amy would connect these two lovelorn groups, she took the idea to her boyfriend, ‘thinking he’d be so proud of me’. Instead, Amy recalls, he looked at her and announced: ‘You are not allowed to do that as long as we’re together.’
‘He wasn’t comfortable with me working with these eligible men,’ she says. He ended their relationship soon afterwards. But it’s Amy who has had the last laugh. Her talent for finding true love for loaded-but-lonely tech gurus has become a multi-million-dollar global business called Linx Dating. Billionaires, CEOs and executives from companies including Google, Amazon and Apple clamour for her services, and in the 20 years since she started the company she has been responsible for more than 50 marriages.
Amy Andersen’s (pictured) talent for finding true love for loaded-but-lonely tech gurus has become a multimillion-dollar global business. The entrepreneur from California created Linx Dating in 2002
‘What’s fascinating to me is that while a lot of these tech types are immersed in every aspect of technology,’ she says, ‘when it comes to matters of the heart, they want a human to help them.’
The Linx offices, nestled discreetly in the San Francisco Bay Area, are a world away from the surrounding hightech complexes, with Amy, 45 — glamorous, blonde and immaculately put-together — the perfect figurehead for her business.
Her database contains captains of industry and stay-at-home mothers, doctors, actresses and lawyers, many of whom are from the UK and are ‘willing to take a gamble and maybe relocate to the States’ if a match works out.
‘I had one British woman in investment banking who was matched with a guy who worked for a software company in San Francisco,’ says Amy. ‘Both were in their 30s and he flew her out to the States to spend time with her.
‘That happens a lot. Many of the male clients will fly their date out and put her up in a hotel while they see if that connection is there.’
Certainly, Amy would encourage any British woman looking for love to consider aiming her gaze over the Atlantic. ‘I think British women have a great personalised sense of style that some American women just don’t have,’ she says. ‘A lot of American men also find the Brits very appealing because they’re hip and cultured and have that great sense of humour. To guys whose lives are all about investments and hard work, that’s really appealing.’
One client, who’s looking for a ‘young Angelina Jolie,’ has offered Amy a $1 million finder’s fee
But if matchmaking billionaires for a living sounds like fun, it brings with it its own peculiar set of problems. Weeding out the gold-diggers and chancers can be tricky; dealing with ultra – demanding CEOs and socially unsophisticated techies even more so. Women pitching up in Silicon Valley might do well to heed the region’s oft-quoted maxim.
‘The odds are good,’ it proclaims, ‘but the goods are odd.’
‘You definitely get guys in Silicon Valley who are nerdy and have no game with women at all,’ says Amy. ‘These are the geeks on steroids — the introverted types who live on their gadgets and have no idea how to have a conversation with women. But there are also the tech types who start the next Google or Airbnb and all of a sudden have the money to have anything they want.
‘They’re a tricky bunch to deal with because they’re not looking for a relationship — they still want to party. So there’s a lot of vetting.’
Amy’s own experiences of dating in Silicon Valley have helped inform her business. As a twentysomething on a date in Harry’s Bar with her then boyfriend, a venture capitalist, she was curious as to why he kept looking over her shoulder, only to be informed that he was scoping out the area for the ‘BBD’ — the ‘Bigger, Better Deal’.
‘He was looking for someone taller, skinnier, prettier than me… while I was sitting right next to him,’ she recalls. ‘On the one hand, I thought: good for you that you’re so direct. But on the other hand, it was a real punch in the gut.
‘That’s what helps me empathise with the women who find themselves on the hamster wheel of dating.’
Searching for the BBD is a phenomenon common to the successful Silicon Valley CEO, as is what Amy terms ‘hunting for the unicorn’ — the impossibly unattainable supermodel- slash-astrophysicist. One of her clients, a young billionaire, is looking for a beautiful and supremely intelligent woman, ‘and if she didn’t go to MIT or Stanford [two of America’s most elite universities], then he’s probably going to want to see her IQ scores.’
Amy’s own dating experience as a twenty-something-year-old in the Silicon Valley has helped inspire and shape her business
Another wants a woman who is ‘incredibly beautiful, has been educated abroad and speaks multiple languages, because he speaks five’.
In addition, he wants someone who is ‘with him for the right reasons’ — as a billionaire, that’s always tricky — and a woman, says Amy, ‘who he can geek out with and be himself. He has a couple of tattoos and is looking for someone with an edge — basically, a young Angelina Jolie.’
Amy informs her clients that such lofty demands will inevitably remove around 99.9 per cent of the global female population, ‘which is why the men are still single,’ she explains.
Occasionally the demands listed by Amy’s clients can be baffling.
‘Everybody comes with a checklist of what they want,’ she says, ‘with some lists running to 20 pages. I had one client who was very particular about their bedding and was asking for somebody who’d be comfortable with their 2,000 thread – count sheets.’
Some of the more eco-conscious individuals won’t even entertain a match who drives a gas-guzzler.
‘A lot of times I’ll have to narrow the lists down to the essentials. I’ll say to the client, “Yes, it would be lovely if your match plays pickleball or eats vegan food, but are those really your most important criteria? Isn’t it better to look for someone loyal or funny or smart?” ’
BE SOCIAL-MEDIA SAVVY
‘Make sure your social media profiles are topnotch,’ says Amy. ‘Posing while dripping in diamonds may look fun, but my clients will immediately think: gold-digger. No photos of exes, either. But do be true to who you are. If you love reading, post an image of you with your nerdy reading glasses on. That will cater to the right sort of guy.
BECOME A BRIGHT SPARK
‘Brush up on world events. My clients want a woman who is intelligent. When you’re matched with a guy, he’ll want to see you’re interesting and interested.’
SEND THE RIGHT SIGNALS
‘Be sure to give signals if you’re interested. Lean in, be flirtatious and yes, bat your eyelashes. He won’t ask you out on a second date unless he’s getting a signal.
‘Be open to the endless possibilities of an international match. A lot of the British women I come across are smart, have great jobs and are beautiful — why not have it all? Keep a foot in the UK by all means, but be open to taking a gamble on finding your Prince Charming overseas.’
The women on Amy’s books have their own sets of criteria too, which essentially boil down to: please can he not be a jerk?
‘These women have been dating in the wild,’ she says, ‘and the men they meet will google them and realise they’re the Number Two of a company and will use that to advance their own careers.
‘Some women have told me they’ve gone on a first date and the guy will say: “By the way, I was trying to submit my resumé to your company but nobody is responding. Could you pass this up the chain?”’
On the other side of the scale there are the many divorcées Amy deals with — ‘women who married their husbands at business school and gave up their own successful careers to raise the kids’ — only to be tossed aside once the husband has achieved success.
‘And while the plus side is that she’ll walk away with a lot of money, the sad side is that these beautiful, accomplished women now feel they have no purpose or value. The dating world can be brutal and it’s my job to help build up their confidence before we even get to the matchmaking stage.’
Naturally, love among the haveyachts doesn’t come cheap, with Amy’s customised two-year premium membership starting at — deep breath — $45,000 (£39,000). For this amount, Amy will secure eight hand-made introductions. ‘My service is about quality, not quantity. If a client is looking for 80 or 800 matches, I have no qualms about telling them that my service isn’t for them and they should try dating apps instead.’
The next level, premium platinum, includes ten introductions over two years and costs $55,000 (£47,000) and at all stages, male and female clients pay the same.
Joshua, 49, a client and CEO who met his wife through Linx, explains: ‘Amy cuts out a lot of the noise and downsides of dating. Through her, I met women I wouldn’t have met regularly.’
The service Amy provides is extremely hands-on and, for those who need it, she will also provide a couple of hours of coaching, ‘to make sure they feel ready and excited for the dating process’.
She advises on the importance of maintaining good eye contact and body language on their dates and will also provide wardrobe consultation for any boffins reluctant to ditch greying T-shirts for something smarter. ‘I have multiple stylists I work with who can put together date clothes.’
Many of her clients aren’t aware of the resources available, ‘so I’ll refer them to hair and make-up people, or fitness trainers if they’re complaining about their tummy, or a chef who’ll come to their home to prepare an amazing date meal.
‘I had one client who was feeling sick before a date, so I instructed him to get certain vitamins. Sometimes I’m like their mum.’
Like any good mum, Amy will also counsel male clients on etiquette, especially if the years spent hunched over their computers have led to rusty manners.
‘I have a guide that I give to the guys to tell them the basics, such as opening doors for the woman and making sure they pay for dinner,’ she says. ‘I’m a big believer that if you ask the woman out on a date, then you’re paying — but at a certain point, if she wants to pay, then that’s great.’
And if you think that might be slightly quaint, Amy also encourages female clients not to sleep with their matches ‘until there has been a discussion about whether the relationship is monogamous’.
Bearing in mind that some of the dates have involved wine-tasting weekends in Napa Valley, complete with five-star accommodation, isn’t abstinence too much to hope for? ‘Well, I always tell the man to book separate rooms and the woman always appreciates the chivalry.’
Certainly, it seems to work. One of her clients, Mona, 48, a former Hollywood actress who had dated ‘a lot of narcissists’, found the chaste approach refreshing.
Her match, a recognisable name in tech, courted her for three months before they even kissed.
‘It was very old-fashioned,’ she says. ‘He wasn’t a smooth operator in any way and I appreciated that because I got a sense immediately that he was truly looking for someone to share his life with.’ The couple eloped last month.
And for the ultra-ultra-rich? There’s VIP membership, which can cost between $150,000 and $500,000 (up to £433,000) and features a bespoke campaign with unlimited introductions, not solely limited to Amy’s database. Her recruitment team scours the globe to find ‘individuals who could be interesting matches for clients’. #
Do strangers mind being approached out of the blue? ‘They’re actually flattered,’ says Amy. ‘They’ll say: “Yes, I’m single — tell me more.” It’s like they’ve won the lottery.’
One client, with bases in Aspen, Colorado and Cabo, Mexico, ‘is looking for a beautiful, smart woman who can hold her own,’ says Amy, ‘and because his lifestyle is a global one, we’ll definitely be reaching out to women in the UK.’
Though one might assume that Amy would target model agencies in her search for attractive clients, ‘we actually reach out a lot to grad students at Oxford and Cambridge, especially if they have academic achievements in their profiles’.
Instagram models, on the other hand, ‘may look good but their images can often be so filtered’.
But while some Ultra-High-Net-Worthers will go to inordinate expense to secure their mate — the client after a pre-Brad Pitt Angelina Jolie has included the promise of a $1million finder’s fee to his already substantial VIP membership — Amy has a more affordable level of service in what she calls the ‘passive’ membership. There is no guarantee of matches, but still the option of meeting clients, even the VIPs.
‘They don’t pay up front, so it’s a little-to-no-risk programme,’ says Amy, though to qualify, the applicants have to be ‘quality, dynamic people, capable of holding their own when meeting my clients.
‘If money’s an issue, I’d rather they not pay me a penny and invite me to the wedding instead.’
Amy has thousands of passive members on her database (‘including a handful of British men, although I’d love more’). The screening process for premium clients is rigorous. The initial meetand-greet with Amy, which can take from 90 minutes to four hours, costs $5,000 (£4,300), with successful applicants signing contracts and non-disclosure agreements.
Clients also have to keep photos and information pertaining to the dates off social media. The process is designed not just to discover the client’s needs but also to weed out those with unscrupulous intent: ‘I’ll ask the women if there’s a net worth of the man they’re looking for and if they put a number out there, that’s an immediate red flag.’
Moreover, Amy will turn away anyone who isn’t serious about settling down — even billionaires.
‘If they’re partying on yachts and taking selfies with models, then chances are they’re not looking for something serious and I’ll turn them away. They’re surprised, but the women I work with have to be able to trust me. They don’t want men looking for hookups.’
And if they need proof that Amy’s methods work, she married her own ‘quintessential Silicon Valley geek’ 14 years ago and they have an eight-year-old son.
And what of the boyfriend who mocked Amy’s matchmaking plans? ‘He got married.’ She smiles. ‘Actually, the woman he ended up marrying used to be on my database.’
Published by Associated Newspapers Ltd
Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group
About Author
