"In the next three to five years, there will be a boom in the industry. Many people will elect to start a business in the sector, but only a couple of them will survive," said Gong.

Unlike brick-and-mortar educational enterprises, two or three businesses are enough in the online education industry, she said.

"I believe my company will be one of the last standing," said Gong, attributing her confidence to the excellence of her team, their strong execution powers and the market-orientation policy that she established earlier than any rivals.

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The challenge she is now facing is a race against time, she says. She has found a number of things are easier compared with the old days when she started Jiayuan.com, including raising capital, recruiting employees, corporate management and staff motivation.

"The biggest difference is that this time I was in the spotlight straight from when I started the business. A lot of people want to see how I end up with my second entrepreneurial effort," said Gong.

"I don't feel pressured because I have maintained my entrepreneurial passion and have now fallen in love with the business of online education."

Romance in a virtual world

Jiayuan.com was established in 2003 and went public on the Nasdaq in 2011. The number of its registered users is 100 million so far. Jiayuan.com generated net revenue of 492.6 million yuan ($79.28 million) in 2013, up 19.9 percent year-on-year.

Its net profit rose 8 percent year-on-year to reach 63.7 million yuan, according to its financial report.

Baihe.com was set up in 2005, with registered users of 70 million at present.

Zhenai.com was originally founded in 1998 under the name The Matchmaking Center but was officially named Zhenai.com in 2006. It now has 60 million registered users, statistics from iResearch Consulting Group show.

China's online dating market was worth 2 billion yuan in revenue in 2013, demonstrating a year-on-year increase of 31 percent, according to iResearch Consulting Group, a Beijing-based consulting firm. It forecasts the figure will be close to 3 billion yuan in 2015.