This Ahmedabad-based Startup Develops a Platform for Exclusive Millionaire Matchmaking

Ultra Rich Match is a brand of ULTRA RICH WEDDINGS PRIVATE LTD, an ISO 9001:2015 certified company. They are an exclusive Millionaire Match makers for the Ultra Rich people, Top Business families, Elite people and Top Notch Professionals across globe. They have done a good number of matches of the elite across many countries, communities & ages. They aspire to give you one stop solution to all your matrimonial needs, right from finding your match to wedding planning, travel packages and endeavor to bring you together with your soul mate, and make this journey worthwhile! We are publishing an interview with Mr. Saurabh Goswami, Managing Director and Founder of the Company:

Please tell us about the founders.
I, Saurabh Goswami, aged 34, did my IT Engineering (2002 – 2006) from UPTU. From here I got placed with Tata Consultancy Services. After working for 3 years, I was got into the prestigious SIIB (Symbiosis Institute of International Business, 2009 – 2011 batch) to do MBA in International Marketing. But always an entrepreneur at heart, I finally started my venture, Ultra Rich Match – Matrimony for Millionaires from Ahmedabad. Mrs. Rashmi Rani, aged 62, the second Director in the company, is a very experienced, compassionate and pious lady who does matrimonial counselling for the clients.

Q.: What is the problem you are trying to solve?
Ans: People are becoming more and more progressive by day. And though the number of arranged marriages are coming back up vis-à-vis love marriages, the concept of ‘arranged marriage’ has changed a lot. The parents respect their children’s preferences. The young generation knows what they want, and are not ready to compromise. However, neither the parents nor the prospects are able to search properly for a life partner due to huge time constraint. The problem gets bigger as we climb up the financial echelon.

The local match-makers – the matchmaking ladies of the society, the local Pandits, the family Astrologers, are no longer as active as they once were as no one wants to take responsibility of such an important decision, thus creating a need gap in society. This is where Ultra Rich Match comes in. We provide personalized services to the match making needs of.

Q.: Can you share with us any insights that led you to believe that this is a big enough problem?
Ans: When I was younger, I used to see matrimonial advertisements that took half page on Sunday papers. These days, the matrimonial section comes in a separate dedicated supplement! So obviously, the need is growing.

Secondly, the number of arranged marriages are growing as youngsters are dedicating more and more time to their careers than serious romantic perusals.

Third, earlier there were joint families where they recommended matches as a part of their hobby or interest, but now no one wants to recommend proposals.

The number of Ultra Rich HNIs in India are increasing at the rate of 20 to 25% every year, as per a Kotak bank HNI report. These are, again, people with very less time, but enough money to hire someone to do all the ground-work. Ultra Rich Match is here to do exactly that – make this serious journey not so tedious.

Q.: Tell us about the Product / Solution. Explain how you went about the Product-Market Fit Process.
Ans: It all started while I was looking a match for myself after completing my MBA, I was 26 that time. That time I realized how tough it is to find a life partner, and grasped the need gap in the society.

To confirm further, I did a market survey, where I took a sample of around 125 Bungalows in a posh area of Ahmedabad to figure out the exact reasons of this problem. The study revealed that for the Ultra Rich, this problem was even bigger, as they had additional strict financial aspects in their criteria.

A) They were not getting the quality profiles as per their financial status through existing channels.
B) They were fed up with seeing profiles in physical files where the records were not updated and with no personal effort was taken. The agencies just handed over files, rest had to be done by themselves.
C) They want to keep their own profile confidential hence were reluctant to upload bio data on any website. Also, they faced the problems of fake profiles on online platforms.
D) They wanted the service at their door-step rather than having to travel to various marriage bureaus across the city or state.

This gave me the idea to create a platform that solves these problems.

Q.: What is your USP?
Ans: We do match Making for Millionaires only. Our clientele consists of industrialists, businesses owners, listed company owners, celebrities and top-notch professionals.

We are unique because of our approach towards our work. We work more like a family member to our clients. I personally talk to each and every client at least once to understand their requirements. Our team pays a personal visit to the residence or office of the clients to assess their lifestyle and to understand their requirements. Hereafter, our experienced Relationship Managers take things further to arrange the meetings and works till their match making is done.

We have a very transparent approach – we tell them upfront the number of suitable matching profiles we have for them, so there are less of surprises after a person becomes our paid member. We do not have the misleading policy of providing n number of matches per week or month, because frankly, this is not possible in the niche sector we are working for. If we do not have matches / proposals to show to the client, then we do not ask them to become our paid member.

Moreover, we take and share 3 references mutually – neighbour reference, business reference, peer reference, when talks get serious between two families.

Q.: What were your assumptions when you entered the market, learning that you have? Who in your mind is your ideal customer? Do you have at least one of them signed up?
Ans: At the time I had realized about this need gap in the matrimonial sector for the rich, there were hardly any specialized bureaus. Infact, I was amongst the pioneers for this particular sector. So, yes there were more assumptions than actual data when I launched Ultra Rich Match:
a) The Ultra Rich have more money than time. They will not hesitate to pay whatever the fee amount if quality service is provided to them.
b) These people have huge time crunch, they cannot be expected to go through hundreds and thousands of profiles by themselves. They would love to have someone who can dedicate time and efforts to sift through these numerous profiles, and dig out matching profiles only for their consideration.
c) The youth is becoming more and more aware about their own needs these days. So, if a person is Ivy-league educated, he/she will not be ready to settle with those less intellectually inclined. Same is the case with financial status. Earlier the priorities used to be social than financial, but for the Ultra Rich, both aspects are equally important. Hence, if there is a platform that provides all these filters, these clients would definitely register here.

Our ideal client criteria are very strict. We work for business families whose net worth is more than INR 15Cr or 10 million USD. For professionals, their per annum package should not be less than INR 50 LPA or 150 thousand USD. Apart from the financial aspect, we also visit homes of the clients to assess their life style to see whether they qualify to be one of our millionaire clienteles. While visiting a prospect, we have to keep in mind the highest standards our existing clients are expecting from us.

We have a current base of 2500+ clients registered across India and abroad.

Q.: What has been your biggest failure as an entrepreneur and what did you learn from it??
Ans: Entrepreneurial journey is always a roller coaster ride. Lot of things we learn as we progress. It was even more difficult for me, as there were not many existing players in the market to learn from.

The biggest mistake I made was assuming that with Ultra Rich people would pay any fee if I promise good services. I had kept an initial fee of INR 5100. But I soon realized that it was very tough to penetrate in the Ultra Rich segment without any references.

Secondly, Matrimony is synonymous of trust. Unless you are trust worthy people will not share the bio data, or pay any fee! So after not getting any client for almost a month, I accepted my limitations, and told my clients to pay only if they got married through my efforts. Also, changing my initial strategy, I started asking for requirements only instead of complete bio-data. Then accordingly if I searched for a matching profile, then connected the family back, arranged a telephonic conference between both the parents (bride’s and groom’s).

I worked free for 1.5 years to gain the trust of my clients and meanwhile create a good data-base. During this time, I started giving tuitions to senior secondary students. I also used to give personality development lectures in coaching institutes to make ends meet, while I pursued my entrepreneurial dream.

Q.: How are you pricing the Product? What is the logic behind it? What is the model you are following – Free / Freemium / Premium etc.? Explain your thought process.
Ans: Ours is a premium service so we have priced it accordingly:

• Our Royal package fees is Rs 118000, in this service we work for families having Networth more than 100 Cr + to 1000 Cr +
• Our premium package fees is Rs 59000, in this we work for the families having Networth 50 Cr + to 100 Cr +
• Our Standard package fees is Rs 29500, In this service we work for the families having a Networth of more than 15 Cr + to 50 Cr +.
• Our young achiever package fees is Rs 17700, in this service we work for the young achievers / professional whose package is more than Rs 50 lakhs per Annum.

Since the start of the company we have followed a value based pricing model. When we do not have any profiles to share with our clients as per their requirements then we do not ask them to become our paid member. So initially we have worked for free for 1.5 years then we had a registration fee of Rs 1000, after that next year we had it Rs 2100, and again next year we had Rs 5100. Then after one year it was Rs 11000. one year later we had Rs 25000 as our registration fees.

As we have increased our fees, we are delivering more profiles to our clients. Currently On an average we have 35 to 40 Ultra Rich profiles for every requirement that comes to us. Earlier while we had a fee of 1000 Rs I was having 2 to 3 profiles only for every requirement that was coming.

Q.: How did you get your first customer?
Ans: I got my first customer while I was taking the market survey in a posh bungalow scheme of Ahmedabad. The girl was 33 years old and running her own business and her father was an industrialist. I was lucky that they trusted me with such a huge responsibility, even though I was new. It is my greatest pride that I was able to find a match for her within 6 months, whereas her parents had been trying since more than 3 years! The satisfaction of seeing the happy parents and receiving their blessings was what confirmed in me that I was on the right path. Even though I was still working without fee, the emotional boost was huge enough to keep me going further. Her parents are still in touch with me, and have given me many-many references.

Q.: Please tell us about the investors (if any)
Ans: The company does not have investors currently. Only the promoter’s investment is there. Our model requires very low operational cost. And we are hopeful to take it to even bigger heights. The company is not having any loans also. We are a liability free company till date.

Q.: Is there any interesting success story? If yes, please write about it?
Ans: Matches are made in heaven, but actually arranging them sure is not easy!

For Aastha, daughter of a coal magnate and Dhrupad, heir to a huge conglomerate, it was love at first photograph. Aastha had already established her couture boutique, when her parents started looking for a suitable match for her, and registered with us. It was the first meeting itself, when we showed her a few matching profiles and she picked just one! The boy’s family was very well known and well-respected family in their circles.

Dhrupad, on the other hand, had been with us for a while. Being very busy with their huge business, it had been difficult for him to take out time to actually meet anyone. When we sent him Aastha’s profile, we really weren’t expecting a quick response. Imagine our surprise when he got back to us the next day itself, asking us more details about her!

It so happened that both the families had met each other earlier before. Rest everything fell right into place when both the families’ respective Pandits approved the horoscope. Within 6 months, Dhrupad and Aastha had their dream wedding.

Q.: What is the big picture of your startup? Is this Product/service leading to something bigger? If so, how?
Ans: The big picture of our start up is to take it towards making it a listed company. Currently we provide match-making services, but offload other matrimonial requirements like event planning, travel planning etc. Our aim is to become one stop solution for all the wedding needs, right from finding the perfect match to wedding planning and honeymoon package services.

We are thinking of opening ourselves to external investment in near future, because apart from the financial aspect, the experience and the guidance of the investors is what we will be needing to reach our ultimate goal of getting listed by year 2025.

Q.: Since inception, give us a sense of the value of business done by your venture? Please explain in details:
Ans: I am proud to say that we have added value to the business by doing 248 matches so far since inception. We are getting close to 1lakh hits per month on our website. Having more than 2500 registered clients.

Q.: What is the insight that you have about this market, which no one else has? Uniqueness about your Startup.
Ans: Match making for Millionaires is the uniqueness of our start up. I started in 2011, at that time I had assumptions:

• One, the market size of ultra rich is increasing.
• Second, people will be more and more dependent on the personalized services for matrimony.

So, I was lucky enough to have entered the market first.

At that time, there were online portals such as Shaadi.com and Jeevansathi but none of them were providing personalized service. These companies started with VIP Shaadi and JS exclusive much later.

Q.: List all the names of the core Team Members, along with their Designated Roles.
Ans: Sure. Here are the details:

• Saurabh Goswami : Managing Director, Roles : having first conversations with all the clients.
• Rashmi Rani : Director
• Roles: counsellor to the clients.
• Sonali Choubey : Senior Manager
• Roles : manages operations and admin work.
• Ankit Sharma : Manager
• Roles : Manages New York operations
• Mansi Sharma : Manager
• Roles : Manages New York operations
• Shamim : Manager
• Roles : Manages Australia operations
• Yash and Mansi : associates
• Roles : HR operations
• Hardik Mevada and Devang Mevada : Financial advisor
• Roles : CA
• Ankit, Nrupesh and Tushar: IT technical team.

Q.: Who do You Perceive as Your Competition? How do you differentiate yourself with them?
Ans: Our competitors are
1) Elite matrimony
2) Sycorian
3) Shubhlagan

We are unique because of our approach towards our work. We work more like a family member to our clients. We do not just make clients on financial basis alone. We personally visit to the residence or office of the client to understand them and their requirements in their comfort zone. That gives us a comfort also that we are working with genuine clients only, who are ultra rich and have a corresponding life-style.

We have a very transparent approach – we tell them upfront the number of suitable matching profiles we have for them, so there are less of surprises after a person becomes our paid member. If we do not have matches / proposals to show to the client, then we do not ask them to become our paid member.

Q.: What would be your goal to accomplish in the next six months?
Ans: We are expanding our horizon in South Indian metro cities. Also, we are in process of opening up an office in Canada within a year.

Q.: What message do you want to convey to fellow entrepreneurs?
Ans: Patience, honesty and transparency is the key for success in this domain. I am sure your will to add value to the society will keep you driving and achieving your goal.

Q.: Any other information you would like to share?
Ans: There are more than 5000 Matrimonies in India of which we are the only matrimony that is a case study in Harvard Business School. Moreover, we have also been covered by BBC for our work. In Matrimony Industry success ratio (number of successful matches / number of registrations) is less than 1% but for us it’s close to 10%.

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Thanks Saurabh. Best wishes!