Could a personality test find you love?
Sisters Jess and Lou Alderson are hoping to play Cupid to thousands of singletons – with their unusual love-match technique…
‘People shouldn’t have to leave love to chance,’ Jess Alderson boldly says. ‘There are better ways of improving your chance of finding your perfect partner.’
And she may have a point. In a world where everything is so uncertain, and changing so quickly, finding love can be tougher than ever. Yet the pandemic has taught us the importance of loved ones, and family.
It was because of her own broken heart that Jess – a former city slicker – decided to take matters into her own hands and help others…
With her sister, Lou, the pair launched a dating app called So Syncd, which became one of the fastest growing dating apps of 2020.
After following her heart to Sydney, Australia, back in 2017, Jess had hoped to make a life there with her thenboyfriend. But rather than secure her happy, fairy-tale ending, it merely highlighted the ‘vast differences’ between them, forcing the relationship to crumble.
‘ We weren’t an ideal personality match,’ Jess explains. ‘But we did have a great connection. If we had understood each other’s personalities better, we could have worked on things more. He liked to have a long-term plan, whereas I’m a bit more adaptable and didn’t want to plan things five years in advance.’
After going their separate ways, Jess spent the following year travelling the world, exploring the concept of personality matching and compatibility factors within relationships. It was on this soulsearching journey that she came up with the concept of So Syncd.
When she returned to the UK in February 2019, the first person she shared her idea with was Lou, now 27.
Based on the MyersBriggs personality system – using psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung’s theory of personality types – it gives potential partners a compatibility score.
Together, Jess and Lou dreamed up a dating app that specifically targeted people looking for a truly meaningful connection – and lifelong romance.
‘All my friends were going on these terrible app dates with people they had nothing in common with,’ Lou says.
‘ We realised we had a better way of matching people – and we couldn’t wait to get started,’ Jess, now 30, says.
They decided to go into business together, and from Lou’s flat in south-west London, they began building their dream platform.
Hiring developers to ensure they could build the app exactly as they wanted, they both continued in their full-time jobs – Jess at a UK start-up and Lou in property – to fund the project.
‘ We are polar opposites but luckily get on well,’ Jess says.
When the Coronavirus pandemic hit, the sisters and
Lou’s boyfriend, Charles, now 28, decamped to their parents’ seaside home in Cornwall before the first lockdown.
The sisters devoted evenings and weekends to fine-tuning the app, which they launched in January 2020.
Despite still working fulltime, they were excited to see their hard work pay off. ‘It’s gone much better than we ever could have dreamed of – it’s incredible,’ Jess says.
So Syncd works by pairing users through a unique matching algorithm based on their compatibility score.
After downloading, prospective daters fill out a profile and take a personality quiz, before being presented with partners to choose from, all with an individual compatibility score.
The app is currently free, but the sisters plan to launch a paid-for service later this year.
‘ We pair partners who have certain similarities and look at the world in the same way,’ Jess says. ‘It’s a mixture of connection, excitement and fun. Either extreme – too similar or too different – is not ideal and the aim is for people to form an ideal team, that’s better together than apart.’
Jess and Lou are honest about their venture, admitting their system is by no means a guarantee of a perfect relationship, but rather, a helping hand.
‘It’s nice to think everyone fits perfectly into these boxes, but it’s a framework and it’s about finding a sensible way to use it,’ says Jess. ‘ We’re not trying to say you should only date your “ideal” match on paper – but you are more likely to have a great connection with someone you are suited to.’
Lou says her relationship with Charles, who she met in 2015, was influential in her decision to join the project.
‘I was a bit sceptical at first, but I realised in my own relationship I was going out with my ideal personality match!’ she says.
She explains that her and Charles are quite different – he’s more introverted than her but loves how outgoing and sociable she is.
‘Even in lockdown we never ran out of things to say,’ she admits.
And while Jess is focusing on building the So Syncd brand, she feels her sister’s relationship sums up what dating app users are looking for.
‘Our goal is to bring happiness,’ she said. ‘A lot of other apps are more looksfocused and we wanted to get away from that… We get emotional at the messages we receive from success stories,’ – of which there are many.
The happy endings so far include couples moving countries to be together and the first So Syncd wedding, which took place in France in December between Ben and Indiana Fox.
They matched in April and married before settling to live on the outskirts of Paris, France.
Ben, 43, who is originally from Norwich, said: ‘The app helped us form a bond by slowing things down. We talked about our likes and dislikes over a longer timespan than is probably usual.’
He enjoyed an emotional first meeting in Paris with supply chain manager and yoga instructor Indy, 41, who was based in France, during a brief travel window in mid-July.
‘ We were walking and holding hands without even seeing each other fully, as we had to wear masks in the train station,’ he said.
Indy said they were so wellmatched that they quickly decided to marry.
‘ With everything that is happening right now, with Brexit and Covid, we wanted to make sure we could stay together,’ she said. So, they tied the knot in December, in an intimate ceremony, and haven’t looked back.
‘Everything seemed unsure, and the only certainty is that we love each other,’ Indy said. And that’s exactly what Jess and Lou created the app for…
l For more info, visit sosyncd.com or search for So Syncd in the app store.