Best Startup
Playdate is the UK’s first dating app for single parents.
A single parent myself, I struggled to meet like-minded people and putting myself out there again on existing dating apps was extremely daunting. Having to worry about how the other person would react when you mention you have children was really wrong and put way too much pressure and stress on dating.
That is why I created Playdate, a safe stress free platform for single parents looking for meaningful relationships.
A place where everyone is in the same boat and understands what being a parent means and takes!
My mission is for single parents to feel empowered and confident to find their next life partner through Playdate and for the app the become the world’s best dating app for single parents.
With Playdate, having children is an asset and not seen as baggage when it comes to dating.
Tell us about yourself?
I am a British/Egyptian single mum and entrepreneur. My background is mainly marketing, having started my career in my hometown Cairo in Egypt at Leo Burnett where I found my love for advertising and creative thinking, I then moved on to the client side and was head of Destination Marketing for one of the largest real estate and tourism developers.
I have a real passion for the travel industry and placemaking and led international teams to deliver world class campaigns.
I then moved to the UK in 2012 with my then husband and set up my own marketing agency, Vcom Marketing, helping start ups and businesses set up in the UK.
The business grew and we had clients from all over the world and we organised a lot of events for our clients. We also did quite a lot of fundraising for children’s charities back home in Egypt. Getting into Playdate was almost accidental, and I will have to thank the pandemic for that!
I’ve been divorced since 2016 and ever since I was baffled by how difficult it was to meet people and how little time I had to myself.
Between work, keeping house, and looking after my son, I had zero free time. I always had this idea to create a dating app for single parents but simply didn’t have the time for it. Enter Covid and my life turned upside down, as the rest of us, I found myself in lockdown, homeschooling, and with no income.
My business sadly was very badly affected by Covid as all events took a complete halt, all tourism stopped, and of course any fundraising efforts that were not related to the pandemic also shut shop.
I was left with no work overnight and all the time in the world. I knew that the time was now to create Playdate.
I spent the year of lockdown researching the market and developing Playdate. We launched in April 2021 having just come out of lockdown.
It was bittersweet, as difficult as lockdown was both mentally and financially, I took it as an opportunity to pursue my vision and goal: the create the UK’s first dating app for single parents.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
Be more open to advice and surround yourself by people that champion you. That’s 2 pieces of advice isn’t it? Sorry!
What problem does your business solve?
Playdate is the solution to single parents looking for meaningful relationships. It addresses the main issues facing single parents when it comes to dating: time and childcare.
Because Playdate is solely for single parents, you know that you are connecting with like-minded single parents who are after the same thing all with a shared experience. It removes the ambiguity that comes with mainstream dating apps.
Single parents also often to find childcare when they need it to go out on a date, that is why we partnered with Bubble, the UK’s leading sitter and nanny app, to provide our users with instant discounted childcare so that you can go on that date! No excuses 🙂
What is the inspiration behind your business?
Since I am single parent myself, I understand the struggle and I am trying to provide a platform for all fellow single parents to move on and find their next life partner.
If they don’t find love through Playdate, they would have at least connected with like minded single parents in the same boat who get it.
What is your magic sauce?
Our magic sauce would have to be that we are the first dating app for single parents in the market, filtering through the masses to provide a smaller pool of single parents after the same thing, and that we offer childcare solutions to make dating hassle-free.
We address the issues of this specific niche audience and we are simply levelling the playing field! No other dating app has done that. Out of the 1,400 dating sites and apps in the Uk.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
The vision is for Playdate to firstly become the leading dating app for single parents in the UK, covering the whole nation, then to scale the business globally, with our next stop being the US, followed by Europe and Asia.
My mission is for Playdate to become the world’s leading dating app for single parents, creating blended families across the globe.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
My biggest challenge so far has definitely been the tech and development side of things. A marketer by profession, tech is a new world for me.
Finding developers and tech partners that can deliver a seamless app hasn’t been easy. I have definitely learned a lot in the process and continue to learn and evolve.
With apps, you need to be constantly optimising and enhancing your offering to remain competitive. When we first launched, we had a working app, but it didn’t look great. We have had 2 revamps already over the past year to get it to where it needs to be.
How do people get involved/buy into your vision?
I would like all single parents who might be on the fence about putting themselves out there to take the plunge and download Playdate today, available on both the App Store and Google Play.
Down the line, I would love to partner with relationship coaches to provide in-app support to our users to help optimise their profiles and guide them through the dating process. Contact me through our website www.gotoplaydate.com.
