Bangalore-based FLOH is connecting people through workshops, rallies and barbeque sessions.
You are single and you want to meet new people but don’t want to go through the usual parents-relatives-friends or online routes. Neither are there any interesting prospects at work. What do you do? Siddharth Mangharam felt this seemed to be a genuine problem for the city-dweller — genuine enough for him to launch a company in Bangalore that would present a solution in the form of an invitation-only network of singletons who meet at events organised by his team.
The idea for FLOH (Find Life Over Here), he says, grew out of conversations with his and his wife’s single friends, all of whom had the classic question: where have all the single men/women gone? It came at an opportune time for Mangharam who had previously worked with McKinsey and Microsoft, launched a mobile startup and was now looking to launch his next venture. In two months, FLOH was up and running. “Our friends, ironically, were the hardest people to convince,” he says with a laugh, though he adds that was only till they attended the first event, a dance workshop by a choreographer. After that, says the founder-CEO, the requests to join kept coming in. Though just six months old, FLOH has a three-month waiting list.
To become a member, you need to clear FLOH’s vetting process, which starts with an interview on the phone. Mangharam says he looks for people who will be comfortable with the events and other members, though the demographic profile they look for is urban, educated, professionals, between 25 and 40 years — of course, who are single. The site says it organises events “...where you can meet other high quality like-minded people who share your interests and passions.” Isn’t there an elitist ring to that? Mangharam prefers to call it a ‘curated group’. “It’s a pretty heterogeneous group. We have investment bankers, pilots, professors, PhDs — professors are among the worst paid, you can hardly call that elitist!” defends the 37-year-old, adding that it is important to get the right mix. The easiest way to move up the FLOH waiting list is if you already know a member. The membership fee is Rs 6,000 for three months, Rs 9,000 for six months and Rs 12,000 for a year.
Apart from membership, the other emphasis is on the events. “We don’t want to bring people together and just throw a party — the idea is to get them actively involved in the event, so that they connect over something,” says Mangharam, who bonded with wife and co-founder Simran over their love of blue cheese at a party. Events have thus included a visit to a vineyard, a vintage car rally, a theatre workshop, a zumba session at a luxury healthclub, and a barbecue session overseen by well-known chef Manu Chandra. Each event has roughly 20 people attending and the organisers try to ensure at least half are new faces, and that there is a gender balance, even considering women account for more than half the membership. Members have to pay separately for each event. “The events are very interesting, and are things I would love to attend anyway. And I’ve met interesting people, like someone who is involved in theatre, a professor — people I would never have met otherwise,” says Rajnish, a 40-year-old tech entrepreneur, who says he found the business of searching for a partner on matrimonial sites clunky and demeaning.
The positioning of FLOH presents a bit of a paradox, he admits. The company emphasises that it is not a matrimonial or dating site but naturally, a lot of people would be joining in the hope of finding someone they can date. Once they are dating, they have to step out of the network. The company, he says, doesn’t keep track of the number of couples who have started dating. But he has just been invited to the first “FLOH wedding,” of a couple who met at one of their first events. “The wedding gives us a sense of validation, more than anything else,” he says. And in the firm belief that “FLOH is an idea whose time has come”, Mangharam and his three co-founders are already drawing up plans to expand to Mumbai and Delhi next year.