Estimate the number of people in the world who use dating apps.
Remember, there are many different ways to approach market sizing questions; this is just one example of how you could solve this problem. If you are unfamiliar with market sizing questions, you can check out a quick explanation here.
Question: Estimate the number of people in the world who use dating apps.
Steps and Explanations:
- Assume that there are 8 billion people in the world.
In this example, we will use the top-down approach (a method that starts with a larger number then breaks it down). In this case, we will start with the population of the world, approximately 8 billion, to begin our market sizing. Remember, the true world population is 7.7+ billion, however, we use 8B because it is easily divisible.
- Segment the population
Generally speaking, most people using dating apps are of age (above the age of 18) and single (we hope!). Given this information, we can begin to segment our population. Remember, we segment our population to arrive at a more accurate answer.
The most common way to segment age demographics is by using 20-year age brackets: 0-20, 20-40, 40-60, and 60-80. Doing so means that each age bracket represents approximately 25% of the population. We stop at 80 because that is the average life expectancy.
| Age Group | # of People | Eligible | Single | Active Online | |
| 0-20 | 2B | 0B** | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| 20-40 | 2B | 2B | |||
| 40-60 | 2B | 2B | |||
| 60-80 | 2B | 2B |
**To simplify the math, we threw out the 0-20 age demographic as anyone under 18 is considered illegal and those between 18-20 years old will have negligible impacts on our final answer.
- Figure out the proportion of each age group that is single.
**Remember that as long as your approach is logical, there is no wrong answer. Use your personal experiences and observations to draw assumptions and always explain your thought process to your interviewer. Now let’s continue…
20-40: From our observations, many individuals in this age demographic are single. Therefore, we can estimate that 50% of people in this age group are either single or not in committed relationships.
Let’s apply this same logic to the rest of the age groups. Here are the assumptions we made:
| Age Group | # of People | Eligible | Single | Active Online | Total |
| 0-20 | 2B | 0B | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| 20-40 | 2B | 2B | 50% | ||
| 40-60 | 2B | 2B | 30% | ||
| 60-80 | 2B | 2B | 20% |
- Guesstimate the proportion of single individuals who choose to use an online dating app.
20-40: From personal observations, the younger generation is more technologically inclined, so they’d be more likely to go on online dating apps. My assumption is that around 50% of this age group uses an online dating app.
Let’s apply this same logic to the rest of the age groups. Here are the assumptions I made:
| Age Group | # of People | Eligible | Single | Active Online | Total |
| 0-20 | 2B | 0B | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| 20-40 | 2B | 2B | 50% | 50% | |
| 40-60 | 2B | 2B | 30% | 25% | |
| 60-80 | 2B | 2B | 20% | 20% |
- Calculate the total people who are active online in each age group.
20-40:
2B x 0.5 x 0.5 = 0.5B
40-60:
2B x 0.3 x 0.25 = 0.15B
60-80:
2B x 0.2 x 0.2 = 0.08B
- Add the totals up.
0.5B + 0.15B + 0.08B → 0.73 billion → 730 million people who use online dating sites around the world
