This week, we examine an Grampian business that aims to help people to feel the love - quite literally.
A Single Exchange, founded by Joanne Aitken and Julie Summers, is a dating agency that has been trading in Aberdeen since July 2013. However, this is a dating agency with a difference. A Single Exchange seeks to take the emphasis away from profiles and photos, with their clients meeting up at fun organised events. By doing this, Joanne and Julie are able to create a more relaxed atmosphere, with much less pressure. For attendees booking onto a particular event, this means they already start with something in common with the others.
These A Single Exchange events range from beer tasting, fine dining and cocktail making, right through to activities catering for the more adventurous such as canoeing and rock climbing. This sees dating and matchmaking re-imagined for the people of Grampian.
A Single Exchange was borne from the realisation that there were limited opportunities to meet other like minded people in the area. They identified this as a market gap, and decided that the time was right to take this challenge on. Joanne Said:
“If going to pubs and clubs every weekend isn’t your style and on-line dating isn’t for you then it seems somewhat harder to meet prospective partners. We therefore thought that we would try and do something about it.”
While the business has only been running for around 7 months, Joanne and Julie have already been able to arrange fantastic events with a number of organisations. Julie adds:
“We have been really encouraged by those willing to host events with us, like Adventure First and Brewdog, allowing us to offer a variety of events to suit all interests.”
Joanne and Julie are grateful for local Business Gateway support in helping them get their ambitions airborne, as they equipped themselves with as much advice and information as possible. Joanne said:
“This time last year we attended a lot of the free workshops at Business Gateway. We had little to no business experience and the workshops were really valuable to us in the ideas and planning stages of A Single Exchange.”
“We have also had one to one meetings with an advisor- once when we were almost ready to launch and again more recently for more specific advice on advertising. It is great that support is still available to businesses at all stages of their development as we have just booked on to some more workshops to help us with the issues that we need advice on now.”
A Single Exchange is also closely eyeing future developments and growth, Joanne and Julie commented:
“We would like to eventually be in a position to offer a membership to A Single Exchange and with that offer free events to members. Our first sign of growth however would be being able to offer A Single Exchange to a wider geographical area than Aberdeen city.”
In the meantime however, Joanne and Julie plan to continue in their passion for finding passion for others, as they look forward to bringing the people of Grampian together.
A Single Exchange
Enterprise Business Centre
Admiral Court
Poynernook Road
Aberdeen
AB11 5QX
Tel: 07701005744
E-mail: info@asingleexchange.co.uk
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