Dare Olatoye is the co-founder/CEO of the Trueflutter dating app, a dating app solving the puzzle of finding true love in today’s world. With over 107 weddings and counting and millions of successful matches, the most remarkable match of all is finding his wife on Trueflutter.
Dare is a love connection mastermind, bringing years of professional matchmaking expertise to the table. His dating app Trueflutter stands out because it was designed to help users express their uniqueness and connect in more natural ways.
One unique feature is the audio bio that lets you hear what a person sounds like before you connect. And if you are interested in the person, you can let them know by sending a Flutter – a voice text that lets you personalise your connection request.
In this exclusive interview with Today Africa, Dare dishes what inspired him into this career path, what it takes to find true love, and the best part of being a private matchmaker. With a success rate of matchmaking, Dare shares his secret to matching clients with the most compatible partners.
Watch the interview here.
Tell us a bit about yourself
My name is Dare Olatoye. I’m the co-founder of Trueflutter dating app and I’m also a professional matchmaker. We launched Trueflutter about five years ago. We started with speed dating events and that led to us building the app. We’ve had over 107 weddings, close to half a million subscribers. And we’re growing month by month.
What inspired you to venture into this career path and what problem were you trying to solve?
There are two things that made me go into this. First, I used to match make for the fun of it when I was in university. And I never even thought of it as a business. So after school I decided to work in an oil and gas firm, which I did for over 10 years. But at a point in time, I just decided, okay, I wanted something different.
But also one thing that also led me into wanting to do this was because my sister was single till 47. She got married at the age of 47. And the person she got married to just lived a few streets away from her. And I just told myself why can’t I solve this problem. Why can’t I solve the problem of connecting people? And that’s why I ventured into creating Trueflutter dating apps.
Being able to solve the problem of singleness, being able to connect people that are looking for serious and genuine relationships across the board in different countries. And so that’s how I started. That’s what inspired me to go into this.
What challenges did you face during the development of Trueflutter and how did you overcome them?
I’ll say that the challenges would have been the development phase. Because when we’re building with developers and we launched the MVP, there were a lot of bugs. Then we had to fix, continue fixing.
So basically when I started then, I was the CEO, the customer care, I was everything. At two in the morning, I used to respond to complaints and all that. I was doing all that myself then when we started. So those were the challenges we were facing. Challenges we were facing were basically from tech.
But we were able to resolve that over time, getting the right people, the right developers, the right people to help us build a better product. So I guess that was one of the major challenges.
But in terms of being a conservative country, I don’t think we’re as conservative as we used to be because right now there’s like, there’s the AI revolution, social media, where a lot of people use social media and a lot of people are open to expressing themselves.
So that has helped us a lot because a lot of people now are very open to using dating apps now in Africa and also in the diaspora. It’s not as challenging as it used to be when people never wanted to be seen on dating apps.
But right now, because a lot of people can be open to sharing their stories on Instagram, it’s very easy for them to just be on a dating app, especially for us because we are more tailored to more like an matrimonial app, not like a hookup app.
A lot of people tend to gravitate towards that because of what we stand for as a company. That’s just basically it. And a lot of people are open to using our apps now, our platforms now because of what we stand for as a company.
Can you share insight on how you’re able to raise capital for your business?
I always tell people that when you’re building something, you have an idea, try and get funds yourself to build an MVP. A lot of people have million and one ideas and a lot of people feel that those ideas will fly and investors won’t be convinced enough.
Unless it’s a novel idea, there are some novel ideas that a lot of people would say is a no-brainer. But if it’s an idea that you have as an entrepreneur, then I feel that you need to fund it through friends and family. Friends and family, those are people that are willing to take a chance on you, even though they know it’s just an idea.
But most investors do not invest in just ideas. They invest in something that’s already viable, something that’s already maybe generating some sort of revenue, and something that is gaining some sort of traction.
So what we did at Trueflutter was that when we started, we funded myself and my partner, who is also my brother. We self-funded the MVP, which we generated quite an amount of revenue and also quite some numbers in terms of users.
And that’s how we were able to demonstrate that we had a viable product. But also, everybody needs to be diligent. Entrepreneurs need to be diligent. Like I said I started with speed dating events and I was very diligent with all the speed dating events. A lot of people came there, they paid to come for those events.
And that’s enough to show even investors that people are willing to pay for it and it has the ability to grow. I was able to demonstrate that in this space that I’m in, people are willing to pay for this service. But also the product alone is viable enough to grow at a certain amount of pay.
So my advice to entrepreneurs is that when you’re trying to raise funds, it’s not not coming up with an idea. It’s also being able to demonstrate that idea is good by investing your money and also investing your family member’s money into it.
And like I always say, if I were to be an investor, I would look at the amount of money you have invested in the company. Because you just can’t bring ideas and expect people to just invest in it. You also need to have invested time and money into your business. So that is what I always look at and that’s what investors look at in terms of fundraising.
As a professional matchmaker, what’s your biggest strength when it comes to matchmaking?
My biggest strength would be being able to identify personality traits. I’ve been able to identify the people that I feel that can be matched. The level of agreeableness will be high with another person. So I can tend to read people a lot. And just based on information I get from them, I can put it together to get to understand who they really are.
And I can get them matches based on their own, based on their life and on their personality traits. So I have the ability to do that as a matchmaker. And it’s also very important because over the years I’ve honed my skills over the years that I’m able to understand if this person will be able to work well with the other party. I have that ability to identify the right candidates and the right people to be matched successfully.
What areas do you work most with your clients?
I always tell my clients, I’m always available. I won’t say 24-7. But at least I’m always available most of the time. And the areas I work with are the areas of mentoring, the areas of counseling, but also the area of matching.
There’s a difference in also matching people. People have come with different personality traits. People come with different things that they think are right, but it might be wrong. They might not necessarily be bad people, they just have a certain mindset.
So for me as a person, as a matchmaker, I always try to make them see reasons why they should see things differently. Because everybody has a certain perception of who they feel that is right for them. Or they feel they should date. And I come in as a counselor, not only a matchmaker, but counselor to counsel them on making the right decisions in terms of matching and dating.
That’s basically what I do. Counseling and also matching. And the thing about it is that everybody has a history. You have a history in terms of your background, your family background in terms of where you grew up. So people have different histories and different mindsets.
Even if you have a brother in the same house, he tends to have different mindsets on certain things. Because you can like certain things, your brother doesn’t like. So I’m the one that comes to match people together based on their history. And see how I can correct some things for them in terms of their mindsets to make sure that relationship is successful and it works well.
How do you handle clients who come to you with unrealistic expectations?
That’s a wonderful question. And that’s what I go through a lot of times. Now, when I was younger, I had a crush on Brandy. A long crush on Brandy. I didn’t end up marrying Brandy, right? Because I had a certain expectation.
Also, I had a thing for Igbo girls. I know you’re an Igbo guy so I had a thing for Igbo girls. And when they served me breakfast like four times. I had to sit down and say okay what I want might not be what is right for me. I’m not shading Igbo babes. Igbo babes are still cool babes.
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What I’m saying is that I had a certain preference for certain people and it just never worked maybe because of the cultural differences and all that. Now, a lot of people tend to have these things, oh, they want this, they want this in a woman, they want this in a guy, they want this and that.
And I always tell them when people are not perfect, we’re all not perfect, we’re all imperfect. And a lot of people always want to see that perfect person. They always want to get that perfect person in their eyes. And I always tell them straight up, because I’m a very blunt matchmaker. I tell them straight up that you want certain preferences doesn’t mean that those people are right for you.
There’s going to be a lot of clashes. Let me give you an instance for someone that is from different socioeconomic backgrounds. The guy earns 200,000 per month and he wants to date a girl that earns five million per month.
Now the question is how would that work? Because there’s going to be a lot of issues in terms of you depending so much on the lady and it causing a lot of friction. Because everybody knows that one of the reasons why a lot of people get divorced is also finance and finance plays a major role.
So when you as a person know that you don’t meet up to this person in terms of status. How would you think that you’ll have a successful relationship? So those are the instances where people have unrealistic expectations.
They want to date someone that’s a trophy wife. Trophy wife that they cannot meet their needs. And it’s very difficult. And that’s why I keep telling them, I say, marry someone that’s in your same socioeconomic space. So you can manage these kinds of things.
Now I’m not saying that people that earn 200,000 cannot earn 5 million tomorrow. But it takes time to be able to do that. They should manage their expectations based on that.
Same way with ladies, ladies that maybe have some certain expectations of certain men. I always tell people that come, I believe a lot in trajectory and a plan for someone’s life. If you feel that someone is doing pretty well and is working is a really hard worker in terms of what they do.
Look at those kinds of traits in a man and see how you can measure up and try and just make things work. And in terms of age, in terms of all those things, I feel like age is nothing but a number.
And people might come with some certain instances of, oh, this girl is older than me with two years. I can’t marry her. I feel that it’s all tradition. And I feel that those kinds of things can sabotage a potential relationship.
If, for instance, Kardashian is five years older than you, will you say you’re not marrying her because she’s five years older than you? Because you know she’s very fine and she’s pretty. So you overlook those things.
All those things that they’re valid questions. But I always tell people, look at values, look at values in someone. Look at the person’s background in terms of how they grew up, are they family-oriented. If you’re a Christian, are you looking for someone that’s also a Christian that will improve your spiritual life. So those things are very important.
Look at the things that you want your children to emulate, and they will live in a good environment where you feel that you can nurture them well. So those are the things that a lot of people need to look at.
Don’t have unrealistic expectations, oh, I want a touch of Kim Kardashian, I want a touch of Oyedepo’s wife, I want a touch of Mercy Chinwo all together. Just have a balance, don’t create unrealistic expectations for yourself.
One I also like to talk about and this is especially guys, a lot of guys that guys tend to marry late. A lot of guys tend to say, I’m enjoying my bachelor life, let me marry in my 40s. But I have a question, do you want to keep raising kids when you’re 70, 80?
Because it’s all a period, if you want to marry in your 40s, you have your first child, maybe when you’re 45 or maybe 49. Do you still want to be raising kids at an old age? So it’s very good for men to make decisions earlier in life and so they can actually raise kids at a younger age.
Since you started Trueflutter, what is your success rate like?
We’ve had over 107 weddings and counting. I’ll say the success rate is really high. In terms of the service itself, I think we’re the highest in Africa. We have the highest number of weddings in Africa owned by an African. So we’re doing pretty well in terms of matchmaking, in terms of getting people married. We’ve done quite a lot.
How does your matchmaking process begin?
If it’s the app itself, the process is quite easy. You can just download the app on Play Store or App Store. But if you want to use private matchmaking, which is for the elites and upwardly mobile people. You book a consultation. Then our customer representative reaches out to you and we pick a date for an interview or a consultation after the interview. The consultation is just basically getting to know who you are and trying to know more about you and also transition to getting matches for you.
You are a matchmaker, why did you match yourself or is it that professional matchmakers like yourself find it difficult to match themselves or what?
Funny enough, it was never difficult for me. I was more of a professional person and I didn’t want to date people that were my clients. I didn’t want to date people that came for my events. So I just had a certain rule that I never wanted to do that.
But also, like I said, it’s still the same thing that I tell bachelors now. I was so engrossed in my work and building the platform. So time went by in terms of being single and before I knew it, I was like 40.
And I realized that I needed to be more intentional about finding a match or finding someone. Now that’s exactly what I tell men, sometimes you just think maybe it’s comfortable being single, living in the same house, not being able to be accountable to anybody.
But at one point in time, you now realize that time has gone and you need to be very intentional about it. Like I said, you don’t want to raise kids at an old age. Like imagine having your first kid at 45, maybe even another three years, having another one child. And like in your 60s, you are still trying to have kids. It’s a lot of work.
Unless you’re a man that doesn’t want to have a family. But if you’re really serious about having a family, you need to be making those decisions early in life so you can raise kids and you can have a bond with your children, even at an old age.
I think I was also a victim of just being in my singleness and allowing work to take the best part of me. I also wanted to just be in my space then. But when I started becoming intentional, things changed.
Let’s talk about you finding your wife on Trueflutter. How was the feeling like that what you created is a tool that helped you to find your wife?
Funny enough, I was happy I was getting married. But it wasn’t in my mind that I met my wife on Trureflutter. It was just the happiness of being married or getting married was on my mind.
I wasn’t like, oh, I met my wife on the app. It was later that it was done on me. It’s a good story. Yeah, I met my wife on the platform. We got married in five months or thereabouts.
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And that’s what I tell people when you meet people on the platform and you really have a setting vibe with them. It takes a short while for you to know if it’s the one and of course the person knows they want to settle down.
So the question now is, are both of you compatible? And that’s what you need to find out over the few months and make decisions based on your level of communication and level of chemistry. And also a level of agreeableness to know if you’re both compatible.
It was quite an easy thing to be able to understand that. And yes, it’s good to know that I met my wife on the platform and it’s been smooth since.
You are married, so what’s your definition of true love?
I equate true love with the level of sacrifice. I equate love with how much you want to sacrifice for your spouse. Now, let me go back to the Bible. God loved us so much. Or God loves us so much that he gave his only begotten son. And when Christ died for us, Christ sacrificed himself for us on the cross.
And if you equate that to marriage, he talks about how much you can sacrifice for your wife or for your partner. How can you put your partner first in everything? So the highest expression of love is sacrifice. How much are you willing to sacrifice for them?
I’m not saying that, oh, you should write it down. It comes genuinely, it comes voluntarily. It’s not like you’re forced to make sacrifices. It’s something that you know that I love this person so much that I don’t want this person to get hurt. I don’t always want this person to feel sad. What can I do to make this person feel better? What can I do to make this person feel more comfortable? And what can I do to make this person feel happy?
Because the more they’re happy, the more you’re happy as a person. So I would say that love is about sacrifice. That’s why when I see people on the first day and they say, I love you, I say, you don’t understand what I love you means. You can’t be throwing love around just like that. Love is about sacrifice.
What are the signs that someone should look at when he or she sees true love?
The signs you should look at is how much does a person show for you? How much does this person communicate with you? Number three, how much sacrifice is a person making for you?
I always say a relationship is a two way street, not a one way street. Nobody’s trying to fool you. It’s two parties that are meant to put in the work. I’m not saying it should be 50-50, but there should be a level of input from each party.
That’s when you appreciate the relationship more when you put in a lot of work in that relationship. You don’t appreciate things you don’t work for. Let me give you an instance, you do a 9-5 job and you get your salary. You won’t blow it up in a lounge one night because you know how much you work for it in a month.
Unless some dash you money, you can blow it anyhow because you will say I didn’t work for it. But if you work for something you’ll know how to manage those things. It’s the same way with relationships.
When people work towards making their relationships better, they tend to appreciate it because they see the relationship grow. They nurture the plants, they nurture the relationship with water, they prune the plants. That’s nurturing, putting effort in making sure the relationship will grow better. So when the flower blooms, they’ll be able to appreciate that relationship. So both parties need to have an input in their relationships.
We are always faced with internet fraud. How can one trust the online matchmaking and equally matchmakers like yourself?
I’m always telling people never give anybody money. It’s already stated there. Even if you say you love me from now to eternity, and you just met me, and I just met you, do not ever send money to anybody. Because that shows that a lot of things will happen in the future like that.
We always state that we do not send money to anybody. Do not share with anybody. And we have a security system on the app itself that flags accounts. If someone asks you for money, you can actually report them in terms of what they said or what they’re asking for. And we deactivate the accounts based on that. We have zero tolerance for all those things.
The rate of divorce in Nigeria is skyrocketing almost every year. Why do you think that most ladies and guys remain single?
First of all, let me correct you. I feel there’s more negativity that’s out there and a lot of positivity in terms of news. Now there are a lot of divorces. There are a lot of good marriages too.
People don’t bring out those things. It’s only the divorce that people bring out. And there’s more negativity put out there than a lot of positivity in terms of marriage. So yes, there’s so many people that have had bad relationships or bad marriages. But there are also so many people that are happily married.
Now what is the cause of these things? I think it’s the level of exposure. You are exposed to so much that your level of expectation is very high as a person, it’s unusually high. And that is why things are different from the way our parents lived and the way we live now. The way our parents lived back then, we’re not so exposed to so many things and a certain lifestyle that is expected of them to live.
That is why even if they had 100k per month our parents were happily married and they’ll manage their lives and they’ll try and build on those things. Now, there are expectations that are very unrealistic. And if you don’t hit those expectations, it starts to cause friction. And that is why I always tell people when you always want to get married come as you are.
Don’t create a certain expectation that you can’t meet up to. If you earn 200k per month, tell your wife you earn 200k per month. If you earn 100k per month, be open. Do you know why? Because your wife can understand, okay, I’m going to get married to this guy. Do I love him so much that I want to get married to him and I can manage my expectations?
There’s so many things happening in this world now. Imagine people just walking around with cameras up and down like they’re acting like celebrities because they’re creating a certain expectation for yourself. And when people meet you, they think this person’s an eye flyer, but maybe they’re not.
And so when you create unrealistic expectations and you get matched together, you start having friction. Because this is not what I thought this person was or she was or he was, because it’s not a different ball game entirely. So make sure as much as possible always come clean if you are this, say you are this.
The person will make a decision. Can I marry this person like this or can I sacrifice my lifestyle that I currently have for the person I love. Those are the things that the person will now decide and that will now make them have informed decisions on if they’re going to be together. The key points would be, don’t create unrealistic expectations. Come clear, put all your cards on the table.
Let the person know you, this is who I am. This is where I’m from. This is the family I’m from. If my father left my mom or my mom left my father or whatever it is, this is how I grew up. But this is not who I want to be in life. Do you accept me for who I am? Do you still love me regardless of my inadequacies, would you still want to be with me regardless of my background or where I’m from. Then you can start having good conversations that will lead to good relationships, not deceptions and not all those things.
What are the qualities that the matchmaker must have?
The qualities a matchmaker must have is basically knowing personality traits. Being able to study people’s psychology, study human behavior, and know the trends in certain patterns. Being able to identify certain patterns in certain people and how you can also get a course in counseling to be able to counsel people.
Because at the end of the day it’s also a mindset thing. You also have to imagine your own behavior. You have to change certain mindsets to be able to have a good relationship. So being able to be a counselor and also being able to be a psychologist. You can take courses on all those things and have better success in matching people.
Trueflutter is not an NGO, how do you people generate revenue to keep the business running?
We generate revenue on a daily basis. People pay for premium subscriptions, and people pay for flutters. What flutter does is that you can send an audio introduction to someone like you see a baby or if it’s Chinazom or somebody. You can send an audio introduction, “Hi, my name is Emeka. I love what you do and I think you’re in the tech space. I would really like to get to meet you.”
And that’s a voice introduction. And that’s what App does. App is the most unique app in terms of that. We do voice introductions. Those are paid services. You want to be a premium member, you only want to see premium people. You upgrade to premium and you can change your filters to say that you only want to see premium people and you only want to be seen by premium people. So that’s a paid feature.
And also we have a private matchmaking service. For those who don’t want to be on the app and want to use private matchmaking, it’s also a paid service. So there are different ways in which people pay on the platform. It’s not an NGO.
What advice would you give to others who want to venture into this career path? Like who wants to become a matchmaker or who wants to own their dating app?
First, are you committed to it? Are you committed to having a dating app because it’s a lot of work? I embrace more people coming to this space and it’s fine. I can’t be the only person. But I always tell people it’s a lot of work. So if you feel that you just want to use it as a business venture, you will encounter more obstacles.
It now depends on your love for the platform that will determine if you have a strong will to build or to own a dating app. But it’s a lot of work. In terms of the sector we’re in, I think it’s much more difficult compared to all the fintechs and all the other guys out there.
It’s easier to run those kinds of companies than run a dating app because it’s a B2C company. And number two, you need to do extensive research. And it takes a lot of passion to be able to do these things. I remember when I started, I used to go for interviews at 1 a.m. in the morning, like radio stations, and drive at 1 a.m. in the morning.
And people used to say, why are you driving at night? Aren’t you scared of driving at that point. I said, no, because I love what I do. You know most of these love programs are always at night. I used to do that a lot and it took a lot of sacrifice. It took a lot of work. And it took a lot of fact that I love what I do.
That’s why we are where we are now. Because if I were to be an average person that just said, let me just start a business. Then I don’t think Trueflutter will be alive now because I would have caved into certain challenges we faced in the past.
So you need to understand if you’re passionate about this thing and you want to go into it. Because it takes a lot of work, 24-7. Like someone reached out to me last week and said, he’s building a dating app. I said, fine. Is it a full-time job? He said, no, that he has other jobs he’s doing.
I told him you have to dedicate your time to this thing. It’s not something that you feel that you just do and it would be running on its own and generating the thing on its own. Because it has to do with human behavior and you need to check patterns. Patterns like are they enjoying the app? Is it functioning enough? How can we make tweaks? How can we make corrections?
So there’s a lot of work in it. So if you’re passionate about this thing. You can go into it, but most importantly, get a mentor that’s already been through this space before. I got a mentor when I started.
I got a mentor that’s built the biggest dating app in the world. They generate over a million pounds every month and they have millions of subscribers. So I got a mentor, I didn’t want to face the challenges he faced at a younger age. And I didn’t have to lose as much money as he did because it takes a lot of money to spend on research.
And if someone has gone through that process, why do you have to spend that kind of money? To get a mentor, make sure you’re passionate about it and make sure that you’re really dedicated in terms of building the platform and making it work.
What role does technology play in Trueflutter?
The role it plays is 80% because it’s technology that drives the matches. We built it, we created the algorithm, we created all those things but it’s the technology that works wonders. I mean it’s powered by machine learning so you know so it’s powered by machine learning and so there’s a lot of thought into it. Technology is 80% and the other 20% is us being able to iterate, being able to tweak and being able to do a lot of things.
What is your future plan for Trueflutter?
My future plan for Trueflutter is expansion. Trueflutter has connected people across the globe, across the world. We just need to be more present because we’re a dating app for Africans on the continent and in the diaspora. So we are looking at expansion in terms of expanding to America, expanding to Canada. A lot of people use that platform in those countries. But to have more presence and also other African countries.
How can single people looking for love access your services?
It’s easy. We’re on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. Also you can check our website. We’re on the Play Store and App Store at Trueflutter.
Click here to read the part two of the interview with Dare Olatoye.
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