Cupid Entrepreneurs: App for British & Irish Expats Downunder

 Two Brits living in Bondi, coastal Sydney, co-founded a dating app exclusively for British and Irish expats living in Australia.
 
 Natalie Smith originally from Sussex, South East England and Isla Cameron from Elgin, Scotland were both single and in their early thirties when they identified a gap in the market for expats looking for love & friendship down under.

A few years into their venture, the app now has thousands of members and hundreds of successful relationships - even with a wedding under their belt.
 
 Now Australian citizens, both Natalie and Isla have since spent time in the UK, where they hope to flip the idea on its head to Aussie and Kiwi expats in London. The vision for the app eventually is to be for Expats Everywhere to find Mates & Dates.
 
 Learn more about their backpacker-to-entrepreneur journey on this episode of BRITstralian.

This episode is sponsored by Swanned (www.getswanned.com); a British and Irish expat app helping people find dates and mates in Australia.

Download the Swanned Dating App here.

Follow Swanned on Instagram and Facebook.

NOTE: The views and opinions shared by the guest(s) in this podcast are the views and personal experiences of the guest(s) and are not necessarily representative of the views or opinions of BRITstralian or the host.

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Transcript

Anna

Picture this. Two single girls in their thirties; one Scottish, one English, both living in Sydney.

Natalie

We had to navigate the crazy world of dating.

Anna

So they came up with their very own app for single British and Irish expats in Australia.

Natalie

And what do people say ,you know, ‘Birds of a Feather flock together’? Also, I felt like you may as well have it tattooed on your head; ‘Where are you from?’, ‘how long have you been in Australia?’,  ‘how long are you staying for?’   

Hi I'm Natalie  

Isla

I'm Isla.

Anna

Isla and Nat - who became best mates in Australia, have now helped thousands of Brits looking for love down under.

Natalie

I'm originally from East Sussex in the South of England.

Isla

I am from a small town called Elgin in the North east of Scotland

Natalie

I moved to Australia more than 10 years ago. I'm very proud to now be a  BRITstralian.

Isla

And I moved out Australia in 2012, to Sydney. And I stayed for 7 years and I would now classify myself as a BRITstralian.

Anna

And Isla has proven that dating apps really can work after matching with her other half-

Isla

I met him on another dating app. Obviously I thought he was cute, but also I noticed that he went to Glasgow Uni. I thought 'oh, he's Scottish', which feeds into our thinking of, you know, ‘Birds of a Feather flock together’.

Anna

So girls, how did you end up in Australia?

Natalie

Did the whole backpacker thing in my early 20s and had been to Australia, but then always had the intention of going back and moved in the first place in 2011, went for 1 to 2 years and next thing I know, 10 years later, I'm still in Australia. So I was living in mainly living the cliché, in the Eastern suburbs with all the other Brits.

Anna

What visas did you both come out on I'm guessing you came on working holiday visas?

Natalie

Yes, exactly. Went down the typical path of getting a job that would sponsor me and obviously it's all changed now but at the time, 10 years ago, if you worked in a company for 4 years, that will give you a path to permanent residency and then you've basically got one more year and  become a citizen.

Isla

Yes. So again, I came out on the Working Holiday Visa. But actually, when I in arrived in Australia, I realised because I was an accountant I could apply for skilled PR. I didn’t have to do it on the back of a company. But my boss at the time, his parents were Welsh and I remember him saying to me 'Just get it, you never know when the rules are going to change, so right now you can get PR, because you're a chartered accountant, so go for it now.' I remember him pushing me for it, because I didn't really need it and it was the best advice. I would say that now, You know, if your applicable for the rules, as of today, apply for it because in that time things have changed quite a lot. I actually could have applied for citizenship before i did because I wasn't really thinking about it. I was just like, oh I'm fine, I'm fine and I applied for it I think mine came through around 2019 but since I've applied for it has all changed, so you need to have been in the country a lot longer than I think both of us had been now. I think it's much harder to get citizenship.

Anna

And Nat, you've just got back to Sydney after being back living in London for a while..

Natalie

I think I would consider myself one of those Ping Pom Poms, you know, where love Australia, you the life but you kind of belong in both places. But certainly going to give it a good go again. But  the pandemic hit, my company when we were all working from home, they didn't mind me working from anywhere, so  said could I go back to the UK and spend some time with family. and I think it's so hard isn't it? We all love the lifestyle, but it's so far from family - but the opportunity to be able to work from anywhere was amazing so the last  of the year, I've been in the UK but working for an Australian company.

Anna

What's your plans now, Isla? Are you sticking around in the UK?

Isla

Well, I actually came back because my dad was sick and he got sick very quickly and very unexpectedly. I was absolutely loving my life in Coogee, in Sydney and loving my work and my social life, and then I came back and I think it was 12 weeks to the day of my dad's diagnosis that he actually passed away. I'd actually decided to base myself in London when I came back and work, and then I could just travel back at weekends and not long after that I actually met my partner Tom, we hit it off very quickly.  We actually came out for holiday to Australia in February 2020 and returned back to the UK and very quickly found out that I was pregnant. And then 12 and a half months later we had another wee boy. So 12-months on now we're just currently up in Edinburgh with our current application for Tom's visa to get PR. So I am a citizen and even though the boys were born here, they're actually citizens as well, so I applied for that their Citizenship and we're just trying to get Tom PR

Anna

Had Tom ever been to Australia before before he met you?

Isla

He had backpacked for a year after uni and doen the Australia bit and had never gone back to Australia

Anna

It will be a very different for you now going back with children in tow, wont it?

Isla

I know and I do think that and that's why I'm sort of, when I think about it, I'm trying to think where we want to be. I've got two small children, so I know that my life is going be very different. So it's trying to assess whether, you know, where we go back to and is Coogee the right place on now. I know it's amazing but is it the right place?

You know, my youngest has just turned one, but I'm changing their life. That's how I feel. So you know, they could be brought up in Scotland with their family near them and I do love Scotland but I don't think it's got the opportunities, the facilities, the infrastructure, which I would never have known and thought about before having not lived in Australia and seeing the opportunities there.  So, I feel that the lifestyle they could have in Australia is better than the lifestyle than they could have here.

Anna

Ok, so how did you come up with your app?

Natalie

So like Isla said, circumstances change. We were both in long-term relationships and then found ourselves to be single again in Sydney in our early 30s. And I think it brought us together. And we were talking about the trials and tribulations of dating and I think it was- we were stuck in traffic one day and we'd been away to the Central coast and we were literally stuck in traffic for about 3 hours, so don't you think you get into deep and meaningful in situations like that? And then we just were like ah, you know, we'd been on dates with people from all over the world but the dates that always seemed to go bit better were with people from back home. I think the British banter of the Irish craic where we were having the most fun. We just started coming up with the idea that maybe we should create our own app where we connected people from back home and that was where the app was born; stuck in traffic on the way back from the central coast.

Isla

We didn't realise this at the time but Nat and I have probably always had a bit of - wanted to do our own sort of thing. Like I've always felt like, in my head a little bit like, even my career that I have right now, I don't think that's my career forever. I still quite often think ' oh maybe I could do this, maybe I could do that'. So I think it was a meeting of minds. And Nat - who worked in digital marketing and had all that experience - and my experience from a finance background, so we had such different skills, but they actually worked really well together. So we were like getting excited in the car saying - well I was like thinking, well I could do this this, this and this because I actually know how to kind of set up a business from the finance and legal side then Nat had all the experience of how you set up a business from the marketing side and then we just need somebody to do it. And because Nat had another contact as well, We were just getting excited in the car, saying we can do this. It's not like we need to go out and find all these people to do everything, we can do this ourselves.  

Anna

Such a great concept.

Natalie

We started to go to events and talk to people and start saying, 'would this be something you'd be interested in?' If I had a dollar for everytime somebody said, 'I just wish there was an app that I can meet someone, like a Brit from home-' . And I thought, I think there's a demand for this. So, you know, it wasn't just a silly idea. We thought there it had some legs in it.

Isla

And do you remember Nat, that we kept it a secret for ages? So we made this pact in the car and we were adamant, we don't tell anybody, so I think-. I can’t remember how we actually did that-

Natalie

We thought people were going to steal our idea but in reality, going out and even coming up with the name, a logo, even coming up with the all the tech for the app. You know and everything that goes into it, it was very unlikely that it was going to be copied

Isla

Yeah, I think part of it, by keeping it a secret. I think it's almost, kind of made it quite exciting as well, so we weren't saying to people, 'oh we're going to do this'. So by keeping it our little secret at the start, we were able to sort of get established a wee bit.

Anna

It's just such a good idea. I mean I've been single in Australia and when I was using dating apps, I found that I was quite often looking for the symbol of the Union Jack in pofiles so that I would only match with people from the UK.

Natalie

I was always like the fear- if you do marry an Australian, there is always fear of- you'd lose your chance to go back to the UK. It's so funny isn't it? You kind of have that fear ofif I meet someone Australia, I'm here forever and you're so far away from family-. You love the lifestyle, but putting down roots in Australia is means oh, I've decided this is this is the place, and I've always really struggled with that.

Isla

I had an ex who was actually English but he had been in Australia when we met for about 14 years. His whole life was there and he was never ever ever moving back to the UK. I struggled with that  because I felt like I hadn't quite decided where I was going to settle but he he was so ingrained in Australian life and I do remember even though I thought at the time I was happy with them, I do remember  feeling I had had this choice taken away from me.

Anna

Yes, if you ever wanted to go back. My partner is Australian  so I have ended up with Ozzy and actually that was one of the first Big conversations that we had when we were dating, before we became serious, is I let him know that for me it's really important that I still keep in touch with my family, I may want to live in the UK one day in the future, and I had to know from him that he was willing and actually - not just willing but actually would want that as well. Fortunately, he did.

Isla

Yeah, yeah actually when I think about it most of my friends have actually ended up with people from home, even though they are still out in Australia. I know a couple of friends who have ended up with Aussies because- And she had that conversation as well. She had the conversation of would you be open to living back in the UK, even though it wasn't what she wanted at the time, to know- . It was exactly the same.  That he would be open to leaving. Whereas the difference with my ex was that he was always adamant absolutely no, like I would never go back.

Anna

And he was British.

Natalie

Well, we've got it in the app, haven't we. I know an app is just an introduction but we do hav- it's one of the things that we wanted to put is your intentions and so- but it was yes, so in the app we have what are your intentions? Are you going to stay for a few months? Are you here on a working holiday visa or are you planning on staying in Australia for a long time?

Anna

So that's displayed on somebody's profile, Is it?

Natalie

Yeah, yeah, and one of the answers is how long is a piece of string, so you know,  you don't have to answer it right.

Isla

It was more just to sort of, yeah, to note - having been on dates - that is just, well, not even dates, when you meet anybody that’s not from Australia. It’s the question that you ask, repeatedly and you answer repeatedly, so we thought we might as well put it in the app.

Anna

What else is different about your app to other dating apps?

Natalie

To start off with, first off all, it did start off as purely a dating app, but this year we've launched mates and dates. So it's now for friends as well which is really good and I think really important.  And actually, the uptake on that side of the app has been really good.

Anna

Can you just explain to me what you mean by that?

Natalie

So our app has two different modes when you log in you can choose whether it's dates or mates, that basically means romantic or friendship. It means you don't have to be single to use our app, you can use it to find friends.

Isla

And also means that maybe people who maybe are over the dating scene, you could maybe go on, on the mate mode, just to genuinely meet some friends. because you know how many relationships end up coming from friendships anyway, so it can take the pressure off a wee bit as well, so-

Anna

Have you ever dated an Aussie? What are the issues that come with out with dating as easy as a Brit in Australia yes?

Isla

Yes. everybody's obviously different and you can't group Australians into one big bucket. So, I, you know, dated a guy for a few months from the country. We were probably a little bit more aligned because he wasn't surrounded by his family and friends, and he’d moved away. And even though he's only moved 6 hours he still didn’t live with his family all around him. So he was probably a bit more in tune with my life of living by myself and away from my everybody and looking after yourself completely, which is  very different to an Australian who had grown up in Sydney and hadn't moved away and-. I've probably never dated anyone seriously that has been born and bread in Sydney, probably  for that reason because your outlook in life is different. Not that it is better or worse. It's just different. So you're just probably not going to connect with that person. You know as well as you would do with someone who has travelled a bit more or moved away from home for those kind of reasons,  so generally the Australians that I dated were probably a bit more worldly and had travelled a bit more, or  I wouldn't have gone past a date with them.

Natalie

I just think anyone can relate to having a good date, when you have things in common,  you are gonna have a more of a connection and that's kind of where the idea for Swanned came about - is the connection to  bringing like-minded people together.

Anna

Yes, has it been successful? Have you, have there been any success stories from your app?

Natalie

Yes! We're very pleased to say we've got our first wedding, actually. We get downloads every single day. We've got thousands of users, we're not trying to be Tinder, we don't want to be this shopping cart of people who are swiping. We want to make real connections and help people find you know, mates and dates.

Anna

And I see that you've got plans to take this overseas, so are you, will you be introducing it outside of Australia?

Natalie

Well, you think it can work in other places. It could work in places where there's big expat Communities for example, the next place that we thought we would like to launch it is with the antipodeans in London. Having had conversations with, you know, just random Aussies and Kiwis that we've met. So we really think there is an opportunity there to introduce the concept over there and it be rea;;y successful. We've done the groundwork. So it wouldn't take that long to launch again to launch in another country but there's still a lot of work involved in doing it.

Isla

Yeah, every single day out say or at least three times a week or so, we get a message from somebody outside of Australia saying when you going to launch it in Dubai, or when you going to launch it in New York? And I'm always  like oh wow, how did you hear about our app?! We've aunched in Australia mainly only, like you're in America, how did you hear about us? This is cool. So that gives us motivation certainly to try and scale it up elsewhere.

Isla

We actually get quite a lot of feedback as well, which I just can't believe people take the time to message us. But we probably similarly get you know a message a week or a couple messages a week just from people saying we absolutely love this, this idea is amazing. I still get like excited seeing those messages, thinking wow, we have  actually  produced something and people are genuinely like-

Anna

It's helping them!

Natalie

At the moment, like Isla was saying before- at the moment we are still positioned ourselves as a British  Irish expat app, but whether in the future,  in the quite close future it becomes the expat app- but yeah, at the moment it's still predominantly  British and Irish.

Anna

So Nat now that you're back in Australia and single, will you be using your own dating app?

Natalie

I mean I think it's weird one isn't it to be on a date and say to someone  oh I'm the founder of an app.