“It’s not unusual to see kids described as baggage on traditional dating apps.”
Zoe Desmond with her son Billy.
Forget our ‘progressive’ society, Zoë Desmond — founder of single-parent online hub Frolo — tells Marie Kelly that dating as a single parent is beset with challenges, not least when children are seen as a burden by potential partners.
When Zoe Desmond was navigating being a newly single mum in London, she craved the camaraderie and support of other single parents, so she did what any 21st-century, entrepreneurial-minded individual would do; she built an app for that. Launched in 2019, Frolo (a hybrid of the words ‘friend’ and ‘solo’) is an online hub that empowers and supports single parents by offering opportunities to meet other single mums and dads and avail of advice and assistance. It also features an optional dating service, where being a single parent is the norm, not something one has to tentatively navigate how and when to reveal.
“The idea of a single parent app didn’t begin as a business idea, but was something I had hoped already existed,” explains Desmond, whose son, Billy, now six years old, was just one when his parents split up. “I discovered that one in three families in the UK and Ireland are single-parent families – with one in three in the US – and yet it felt as if I was the only single mum in my London borough. Why couldn’t I find all of these single parents?” The daughter of businessman Dermot Desmond maintains there’s still a sense of stigma and shame attached to not being in a traditional nuclear family. “Even in 2023, nobody’s shouting about being a single parent,” she admits.
Desmond recalls how she used to wish away the weekends when she first separated from Billy’s father. “All you see is happy families everywhere. It’s so easy to feel lost and isolated. I think if I had known other people who were going through the same experience it would have helped me to cope with the loneliness of being a single mum, as well as navigate the throws of new parenthood.” The 42-year-old searched desperately for some kind of online group that would offer her the opportunity to connect with others in similar circumstances, and throughout what proved to be a fruitless pursuit, she became convinced that an online single-parent community would be a game changer for her and others like her.
Desmond’s “lightbulb moment” was chatting to a local mum she knew in passing and discovering not only that she too was single, but that her son was a similar age to Billy. “She had just arrived home from a holiday alone with her son. A range of emotions hit me that day,” explains Desmond. “If only she and I had known the other was single, we could have connected earlier and offered each other the kind of friendship and support you really need as a single parent, especially in those early months and years of a separation or divorce, or when you have really young children. Sometimes, all you need is somebody to enjoy Sunday lunch with.” Entrepreneur Richard Branson’s famous refrain: “There is no point in starting your own business unless you do it out of a sense of frustration” was never more apt than in Desmond’s case.
So the Dublin native set out to build a community herself as a way to connect single parents in the UK and in Ireland, but especially those who lived locally and could meet up and offer support and friendship to each other in person. With the backing of investors, including Flickr founder Caterina Fake, who as a single parent herself immediately understood the premise and promise of Frolo, the platform was born. “I had a number of different investor conversations to begin with,” explains the entrepreneur, “and certainly some individuals simply didn’t understand the concept of or need for Frolo. It was intimidating,” she adds, “and dealing with potential backers was an enormous learning curve. “The first round of investment I received was from a venture capitalist fund that focuses on underrepresented founders such as women, and then Caterina came on board. She just got it immediately, which was amazing,” says Desmond.
The community part of the app is made up of four parts: ‘Discovery’ recommends connections based on shared interests, your children’s ages, and where you live; ‘Feed’ offers expert advice and guidance on anything from legal issues to school lunches; ‘Chat’ facilitates private messages between Frolo users (similar to social media platforms like Instagram, you have to accept a connection request before you can exchange private messages); and ‘Meetups’ is used to arrange get-togethers, from supper and book clubs to barbeques and play dates.
Three years on and the Frolo community has 40,000 registered users (there’ve been 100,000 downloads of the app), with the ratio of men to women 40/60. The stereotype that all single parents are mums is, Desmond explains, completely outdated. “Frolo dads are incredibly active on the platform and super-engaged,” she says. “Many of them have had the same negative experiences with online dating as women. They, too, would prefer to date another single parent.” Last year, Frolo won the Social Media App of the Year at the UK App Awards, and last July, the app’s dating service launched. It was originally planned as a subscription service, but this was shelved in the face of the cost of living crisis. Within a month of going live, there were over 3,000 matches made, while in its first six months, more than 35,000 dating messages were exchanged. There has even been one Frolo engagement, although this couple met through the community hub without even registering for the dating service.
There’s always that quandary about whether or not to mention that you have children on a profile page, and it’s not unusual to see the word “baggage” used to describe kids, which is not a nice thing when you’re a parent. On Frolo, nobody feels different or less-than because they are a single parent.
The dating part of the app came about purely out of user demand. “I’ve really listened to the community as I’ve been building Frolo and leaned into users’ ideas to get a sense of where to take the app,” she explains. So Desmond sent out a survey to the Frolo community more than a year ago, and to her surprise, the one thing they wanted most from Frolo was a dating service. “It was a real surprise to me – dating is the last thing on the mind of some single mums and dads – but the feedback I received was that traditional dating apps were a negative and stressful experience for single parents. There’s always that quandary about whether or not to mention that you have children on a profile page, and it’s not unusual to see the word “baggage” used to describe kids, which is not a nice thing when you’re a parent. On Frolo, nobody feels different or less-than because they are a single parent. It’s incredibly freeing,” explains Desmond.
But there’s a stronger USP to the Frolo dating service than simply its single-parent criteria. According to Desmond, what makes Frolo dating truly different is its mindfulness. “It offers a kinder dating experience,” she explains. “Every user signs up to the Frolo dating values of authenticity, respect and empowerment.” One example of how the platform enforces these values is with an anti-ghosting feature, which sends a prompt if a message goes unanswered for more than three days, encouraging the user to respond with a set of pre-written messages. “The prompt simply says ‘no one likes to be left hanging’, and includes a list of responses, which you can choose from, such as ‘I’m super-busy at the moment and don’t have time, sorry. I’ll be back as soon as I can’, or ‘I’m chatting to someone else who I have a connection with, but I really wish you all the best’,” Desmond explains. “This removes the fear and shame inherent in online dating. Nobody is left wondering, ‘Was it something I said?’”
Desmond has also put measures in place to ensure Frolo is a safer dating experience. There is an advanced two-step authentication process, similar to the likes of Revolut, so users need to verify logins through a mobile number as well as an email address, and a live photo is taken as part of the verification process to prove users are who they say they are.
Choosing a match when you’re a single parent is so much more complex than simply swiping right if you like the look of someone, explains Desmond, so Frolo dating profiles include each individual’s parenting circumstances – lone-, co-parent or widow, for instance – the ages of their children, whether or not they’d like to grow their family and what their key relationship values are. “There’s also an opportunity to answer a couple of ‘ice-breaker’ questions in your profile, such as ‘What’s your ideal family day out?’, or ‘What would you cook to impress a date?’. They just provide a context within which to start a conversation with someone,” explains Desmond.
This year, the intrepid entrepreneur has her sights set on launching Frolo in the US and Australia, hopefully this spring. “Frolo doesn’t exist anywhere other than the UK and Ireland right now, but I’ve had plenty of messages from people living elsewhere who want to sign up,” reveals Desmond. She has also just announced the launch of the Frolo Directory, an online one-stop-shop where users can buy and book products and services that are rated and reviewed. “There’s so much opportunity and so many resources the Frolo community is looking for,” says Desmond. The Directory will also serve as a space for advertisers and a revenue generator for the platform.
Like any good founder, Desmond has thoroughly tested out her own product. She now has a multitude of single-parent friends in her local community, which she has connected with on Frolo. It turns out that both Desmond and one of her “Frolos” (Desmond’s colloquialism for a Frolo friend) were walking their buggies along the same street in London at 4am in the morning a couple of years previously, trying to send their babies to sleep. “What it would have meant to have had each others’ support at that time,” she laments. “I’ve also been on plenty of Frolo dates,” she confirms “and I’ve made some really lovely connections and had only positive experiences. It’s so different dating another single parent because there is an immediate shared connection.”
Desmond says Frolo is changing lives through the support it offers; her’s as much as anybody’s. Whether or not she meets her Mr Right, it sounds like this single mum has already found her happy ending: a thriving business, a sense of purpose and her Frolo “family”.
This article was originally published in Sunday Independent LIFE, March 2023