Welcome to Edition 12 of the LTR online conference experience. This time we're focused on startups and have three hot startups for you to meet.
LTR is a fast-paced 2 1/2 hours and starts at 11:30am EST (New York time) Wednesday 3rd November with a half hour of networking followed by 90 mins of presentations and then another half hour networking session.
LTR is designed to help you get to know other CXOs and fellow leaders of online social communities and dating companies, and inspire you to further business growth. This event is small, focused, and by-invite-only. Â
You'll meet CEOs and top flight executives from a diverse group of leading dating and online social communities. We have some brilliant speakers, and attendees, that can help you think outside the box and inspire you about the future.
The LTR conference is hosted and attended by the Internet Dating Excellence Association (IDEA) and the Online Social Community Association (OSCA).  If you got an email invite, you're in the group, and very welcome to join us. (Email mark@courtlandbrooks.com to inquire about joining IDEA or OSCA).
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Presentations are ~20 minutes each and will reveal a core idea. You'll hear ideas on growth opportunities and user experience, challenging issues worthy of collaboration, interesting new technology and inspirational and informative stories to help enhance your understanding and sharpen up your strategy.
LTR is a unique and uplifting and essential event that will help you and your company align with the best of what the dating and online social community industries will become. LTR will help you evolve and help you connect with and get more perspective from your peers.
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This is a closed-door session and is by direct-invite-only from your host and organizer Mark Brooks. Â
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PLEASE NOTE: LTR is by invite only.  Please reply to Mark's email invitation to RSVP.Â
PRIOR LTR EVENTS FILLED WITHIN 72 HOURS OF INVITES BEING SENT. Â
This LTR is kindly sponsored by:
  RealMe - Verifying users, making dating apps and social communities more trusted
  vPaaS by Meet Group - Video at scale
  Courtland Brooks - Internet dating and communities consultancy-agency
Mark runs the agency-consultancy Courtland Brooks (est. 2005) which is comprised of an elite team of 30 industry specialists focused on serving strategy, marketing and business development assistance to Internet dating companies and online social communities.Â
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He supports the dating and online social community industries by heading IDEA.gp (since 2007) & OSCA.gp, hosting LTR, and publishing the news summary services Online Personals Watch (est. 2004) and Very Social Network (est. 2006). Â
Mark graduated from HBS in 2014 and completed an Executive MSc in Behavioral Science at London School of Economics in 2017. Â
Mark is committed to helping dating and social industry executives connect, learn and share, and get inspired for an even more effective and prosperous future.
Fika is Vietnam's AI social & dating app, ranking #1 Best Free Dating App on Google Play and #4 Lifestyle App on App Store in Vietnam.
Fika just raised $1.6m.
Since its pre-launch in November 2020 Fika has gained over 750k downloads and is on a rapid growth trajectory in Vietnam and SE Asia.
Fika's mission is to help people create meaningful connections, with the vision to individualize the matchmaking process.
Denise speaks 6 languages and is trained in business and economics. Prior to starting Fika, Denise was National Sale Manager for Oriflame Cosmetics, heading a team of 30. Prior to this she was an analyst at Goldman Sachs and East Capital.
Oscar is focusing completely on technology and Fika user's well-being by extracting the core values of online dating and innovating with AI and Big Data Analysis.Â
He's making an app that gets people to create meaningful connections.
Oscar's background is in Engineering Physics and Machine Learning and he's worked in finance, marketing, as well as AI.Â
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The Sauce is a dating app where profiles are made up of videos. It allows users to create their own content and really see someone's secret sauce. The Sauce was founded in 2020 and is located in London, England.
Emma is co-founder and helped Sachin start The Sauce in May 2020. Prior to this Emma was Co-Founder of Goodfit, an app that pairs personal trainers with clients. Emma studied Law and International Relations.
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The Sauce is focused on bringing personality back into dating. Photos tell you absolutely nothing about a person. 93% of attraction is formed through body language and tone of voice. The Sauce is the first dating app where profiles are made up of a series of videos. TikToks, Reel, Stories, or just those random holiday videos tell you so much more about someone from the very first interaction. You can't fake personality. So meet people who have one.
Prior to working on The Sauce, Sachin co-founded Goodfit with Emma. Prior to this, he co-founded Get Cooked, an app that connects chefs and caterers with unique events. He also co-founded Go-Tutors to connect tutors with students. He's a full stack Java developer with a background in economics and International relations.
Alain handles the "tech" aspects of Himoon, from setting up the infinitely scalable backend to building the apps on iOS and android.
He also contributes to the business perspective, leveraging his past experience as McKinsey consultant and Head of Product for a Marketing Automation SaaS platform.
Together with Louis and Michael, this cofounding team has all it takes to make Himoon a true success story!
Himoon's mission is to enable new dating opportunities, in which personality and
interests are valued as much as looks. Himoon enables users to reveal someone's picture progressively at every message exchange between people.
This new dating platform is focused on tailoring to the needs of the LGBTQ+
community. Himoon acknowledges that we all deserve to experience real stories and
strives to realize this purpose.
Louis started Himoon in September 2020 with co-founders Alain & Michael. He studied business engineering in Brussels and wrote his thesis about the dating industry.
From FMCG to dating. Michael and his team seduced professional investors for an initial €100k funding. They are currently in the middle of their 2nd pre-seed round to export their concept beyond France, Belgium & Luxembourg.
Michael has worked with Proctor & Gamble, Merck Group, Pepsi, and spent 5 years at Unilever. Michael likes to think out of the box, challenge status-quo.
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He is trained in marketing strategy and business economics.  After several years of ‘user experience’ on dating apps, he is now turning his ambition to internet dating and building online communities.
* supporting sponsors of LTR
Aida Bejgane, CMO, Africlick
Alex Leshan, Product Owner, Dating Pro
Andrej Matijczak, Co-Founder, Freeletics
Andrey Bronetski, General Director, Mamba.ru
Anthony Oyogoa, co-Founder & CEO, UrSafe
Arnel Guiang, Founder & CEO, ChatApp
Arvia Few, co-Founder & CEO, Dottie
Benjamin Vaughan, CEO, Disciple Media
Bernadett Simon, Head of Marketing, Dating Central Europe Zrt
Bill Alena, Managing Partner of CVC Fund, Dating.com Group
Blake Barrett Kuhre, Advisor, The Dating Group
Bradley Boyd, Founder & CEO, Set For Marriage
Bruno Mustone, Managing Director, Forcespenpals.co.uk
Bruno Ulmkalns, Marketing Consultant, Dating Options Ltd
Carmelia Ray, CEO, Carmelia Ray Consulting & Matchmaking
Catherine Cook Connelly, CMO, The Meet Group *
Courtney Kovacevich, VP Partnerships, RealMe *
Chara Dela, co-Founder, Nuit
Christian Mercer, Founder & CEO, Positive Plus One
Christopher Sommella, Marketing Director, Strategic Marketing
Dayo Akinridade, Founder, Africlick
Erica Arrechea, Founder, Cinqe
Felix Hoo, Head of Subscriptions, EME Hive
Guillaume Asselot, Founder, Seeders
Hal Burg, Founder & CEO, BRANDVIEW
Heather Dougherty, CEO, Date Evolution
Higinio Dillinger, President & Owner, Cebcor
Hristo Zlatarski, CEO, Elitebook.bg
India Simpson, COO, Dottie
Jane Ramadan, Account Manager, Business Development, RealMe *
Jean-Marc Larouche, entrepreneur
Jessica Alderson, co-Founder, SoSyncd
Julien Hamilton, Founder, Single Spot
Karima Ben Abdelmalek, CEO, Happn
Katie Hartle, CEO, FriendMatch
Kolina Kretzschmar, Head of Operations, Snack
Kris Covino, co-Founder, Date.com
Laura Ciccone, Co-Founder, Blinkdate
Lisa Butkiewicz, CEO, Meetopolis
Lisa Clampitt, President & Owner, Lisa Clampitt Matchmaking & the Matchmaking Institute
Lluis Carreras, co-Founder & CEO, Mobifriends
Lorii Abela, Owner, Lorii Abela Matchmaking
Marcia Rubin, CEO, Yak Network
Maria Skarpaas Andersen, CEO, CU
Marie-Ann Prah, co-Founder, TENT
Matt Paoli, Founder, Flare Events
Michael Blakeley, Founder & CEO, CLiKD
Michael Carter, President, Passions Network
Michele Tobin, VP Partnerships, The Meet Group *
Michelle Wolters, co-Founder, Klup
Mitchell Wapner, Sr. Account Manager, RealMe *
Natalie Frangi, co-Founder & CEO, Nuit
Neil Davis, CBO, RealMe *
Numair Qureshi, Founder & CEO, Mixo App
Priyanka Sehgal, Founder, Sparkles Dating
Radha Patel, Founder, Single to Shaadi & The Auntie Network
Ruma Patel, co-Founder, UrSafe
Sam Moorcroft, President & co-Founder, ChristianCafe.com
Sarah Louise Ryan, Director, Tailor Matched
Sid Klein, CEO & co-Founder, Matchmaker2Matchmaker
Steve Ward, CEO, Master Matchmakers
Terry Murphy, President, Strategic Marketing
Thomas Nomaksteinsky, co-Founder, Mektoube.fr
Timothy Sexton, co-Founder, DNARomance
Viktor Cindric, Chief Design Officer, First Beat Media
Vivek Jain, co-Founder, LOKO
Zackary Lewis, CEO, SayAllo
At LTR 11 Geoff Cook, CEO/Co-Founder of The Meet Group gave us an overview of the creator economy and how The Meet Group is enabling companies to open up in one-to-many social/dating video. Then Neil Davis, CBO of The Real Me presented the year so far for advances in safety. We were then able to capture veteran Eddy Ankrett's personal story, and his thoughts on why the dating industry should work more closely with the matchmaking industry.Â
See invitation site here with speakers and attendees
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All LTR events are diverse. LTR 10 was no exception. At LTR edition 10 we heard from the amazing Professor Pepper Schwartz on the science of matching.  Then Sean Lawrence from The Meet Group gave us an overview of how The Meet Group made video fun with gamification. Finally we got clued in some current issues and growth opportunities on Facebook and Instagram marketing with expert Dennis Yu, who formerly worked in the dating industry many years ago at Yahoo Personals. Â
We enjoyed a phenomenal presentation by Yu-kai Chou, a gamification and behavioral design master, and author of Actionable Gamification. Then Dr Timothy Sexton gave us an overview of how he is on a mission to use DNA to forecast 'romantic chemistry.' Finally, Simon Corbett and Mark Brooks introduced the calendar of IRL GDI conferences and LTR Summits in 2021-2022, an entire year of events pre-planned, and then interviewed each other about their involvement with the dating and social industries.
See invitation site here with speakers and attendees
LTR Edition 8 welcomed author Jon Birger to speak about his latest book "Make Your Move" and the key relevant points for dating communities. Then Barbara Soltysinkska, the CEO of International influencer network Indahash, gave us the inside track on how to work with influencer networks.. Shauny Ullman then gave us an overview of her new service, Clean Bill of Health, (CBOH). There's a need for communicating covid status and other health information, and her platform is an example of one that fulfills that need.
See invitation site here with speakers and attendees
Another sold-out LTR, we were super thrilled to hear Dr Helen Fisher, a powerhouse top-flight anthropologist with a long history in Internet dating. She is Chief Scientific Officer at Match since 2005, and is Senior Research Fellow at Kinsey Institute. Then Carsten Boltz presented on growth strategy. He's CEO of Online Personals Group with properties in 37 countries and a team of 160. Carsten is a member of IDEA Ten Year Club, Anthony Volpe, CMO at Tawkify, overviewed how Tawkify has done well despite the pandemic.
Gitte Bendzilla, the MD of public company, Spark Networks was interviewed by Mark Brooks about her 2 years at Spark. Alex Durrant, the CEO/Founder of Jigsaw talked about the rise and recent raise of Jigsaw. They just raised $3.7m. Henning Wiechers is a long term mega-affiliate in Germany who is an expert on the DACH market and he gave us the benefit of his insights on the DACH markets. All in all, another diverse and fascinating line up, enjoyed by a packed room of online community leaders and luminaries.Â
See invitation site here with speakers and attendees
Edition 5 in Feb 2021 featured celebrity matchmaker Patti Stanger, a.k.a. the millionaire matchmaker. Patti produced and starred in "The Millionaire Matchmaker" for 7 years and is probably the world's most famous matchmaker. Geoff Cook gave us an overview of the vPaaS product which enables PlentyoffFish and is opening up to work with more dating and online social communities. Zach Zhleien is a startup CEO with a penchant for data and video, and gave us his thoughts on video dating.
See invitation site here with speakers and attendees
Our 4th LTR featured noted conversions and digital design specialist Tim Ash talking through some fascinating pricing model designs. Ross Williams from White Label Dating appealed to the industry to work together more and gave some examples of lucrative ways to do that. David Minns of Platform Dating talked us through some of his extreme niche products and gave us insight on why the products work, and how well they're doing.
See invitation site here with speakers and attendees
LTR #3 was another landmark event. Harvard Business School's Professor Ashley Whillans gave us an overview of her findings from behavioral science on how our time can be used in a more personally fulfilling way. Dr Mari-Sanna Paukkerri, CEO of Utopia Analytics, shared how advanced language independent AI is being used for UGC review. Then Catherine Connelly, a notable long termer in the dating industry started her company at age 15, and has guided The Meet Group to it's current $360m a year.
See invitation site here: shows speakers and attendees
Once again, LTR filled to capacity within 72 hours of invitations being sent out. The CEO/Founder of Hornet explained how he transitioned Hornet from being a dating app to being an online social community. The CEO of RealMe defined how reputation data is making users safer. Professor Robert Metcalfe walked us through how we can measure consumer value. We also got a half hour networking session before and after the speakers session, so attendees could meet fellow industry leaders on small tables of six. Â
See invitation site here: shows speakers and attendees
The very first LTR online conference happened September 10th, 2020 and was attended by 99 leaders and luminaries (including 72 CEO/Founders of dating and online social communities). Professor Iyengar of Columbia University spoke about the Art of Decision Making. Geoff Cook, CEO of The Meet Group gave us the inside-track on the rise of video. The Godfather of reality TV, Jon Murray, was interviewed. Â
See invitation site here:Â shows speakers and attendeesÂ
The third formal event took place at Harvard Club New York in early March 2020 and was hosted by Geoff Cook, the CEO/co-founder of The Meet Group (NASDAQ: MEET). We enjoyed a wonderful prior evening of dining and full day of idea sharing and discussion, followed by an IDEA WOW (World Officers Weekend) in New York.
See invitation site here
The second formal event took place in December 2019 in Berlin at the Spark Networks (NYSE: LOV) board room, hosted by Jeronimo Folgueira, the outgoing CEO and Eric Eichmann, the new CEO. An all-star group of executives from some of the top dating and matchmaking companies on the planet were present, and presented their growth ideas to the group. See photo below. Â
See invitation site here
The first formal event took place in April 2019 this year in Chennai, India which is the home of Matrimony.com. The weekend prior to the event we held a WOW, World Officers Weekend, where we toured the sights and sounds and culinary delights of Chennai. Then the first IDEA SUMMIT was held in Matrimony's boardroom and was hosted by Muru, the CEO of Matrimony.com.Â
See invitation site here
IDEA mixers have been happening for the last 10 years but the first semi-formal event was in Malta in November 2018. The World Officers Weekend brought together a group of dating executives to learn and share and have a long weekend in Malta.
See invitation site here