Welcome to Edition 14 of the LTR online conference experience. In this edition we'll learn about the meaning and future of Digital Intimacy, M&A, and about the Women In Dating initiative.
LTR is a fast-paced 90 minutes and starts at midday 12pm noon EST (New York time) Wednesday 5th January. There's a half hour of networking followed by 50 mins of presentations, and another 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.
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 typically ~18 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. After each presentation you'll have the opportunity to ask questions.
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 or email mark@courtlandbrooks.com to RSVP. Â
This LTR is kindly sponsored by:
 FaceTec - 3D face authentication software used by Tinder and MeetMe
  RealMe - Verifying users, making dating apps and social communities more trusted
  vPaaS by Meet Group - Video at scale
  OneRep - Making privacy affordable for everyone
 Courtland Brooks - Internet dating and communities consultancy-agency
Mark runs the niche agency-consultancy Courtland Brooks focusing on strategy, marketing and business development for Internet dating companies and online social communities. He's served POF, The Meet Group, and 115+ companies since 2005. Prior to this, he worked with Friendster, and ran an adventure club in Silicon Valley. Mark has been quoted in press 288 times (18 times in WSJ).Â
He heads IDEA.gp (since 2007) & OSCA.gp, hosts LTR, and publishes the executive news summary services Online Personals Watch (since 2004) and Very Social Network (since 2006). He runs BehavioralEconomist.com (130k+ community), and owns Matchmaker.com, since 2020.
Mark is a graduate of Harvard Business School (PLD) and London School of Economics (Exec. MSc, Behavioral Science).
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.
Bill has led SD Ventures investments for a little over a year, with the Cupid Media ($51m) acquisition being his largest acquisition in that time.
Prior to SD Ventures, Bill spent 11 years as Chief Revenue Officer at The Meet Group & myYearbook. Prior to that he was Director of Advertising for Scholastic, and spent a couple years at Doubleclick. Bill is a master of digital revenue, and social.
Social Discovery Ventures comprises Dating Group and SDV Labs. Dating Group has Int'l and traditional dating: Dating.com, Anastasia date, Cupid Media, Dil Mil and others. 23 brands. SDV Labs is the innovative group. These are the concepts we'll be talking about during this presentation. Some of the brands in SDV Labs are, iFriend, XOXO, Magnet, MetaDating, and Tubit.
Bill will present on how and why Digital Intimacy is the future. The next evolution of dating will focus on building intimate relationships within a strictly digital ecosystem. Current dating apps are very transactional, more social and engaging platforms will thrive as we build products to simply Solve for Loneliness. We'll dig into how video, AI and the MetaVerse will forever transform the space. Bill will also share SDV's vision and opportunities within SDV Labs.
Courtney founded Women In Dating, an initiative that is sponsored and supported by RealMe.
Prior to this Courtney was VP Partnerships at RealMe, Head of Key Accounts at social media influencer tech company, Influential. Courtney was VP at iHeartMedia, and also worked at Causecast and MTV.
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Women in Dating is for women, including trans women, and people of marginalized genders wishing to access a women-centered community. The mission is to work together to provide thought leadership and guidance to women in the industry, create a space where women can learn and inspire one another, and guide and shape the direction of the industry, and drive meaningful change toward a diverse and inclusive dating industry.
Courtney will present the vision and purpose of Women in Dating, and provide a roundup of 2021 initiatives, along with what's in store for 2022.
* supporting sponsors of LTR
Anthony Oyogoa, co-Founder & CEO, UrSafe
Bradley Boyd, Founder & CEO, SetForMarriage
Carmelia Ray, CEO, Carmelia Ray Consulting & Matchmaking
Catherine Cook Connelly, SVP Marketing & Co-Founder, The Meet Group *
Chris Wittlinger, Principal, Russmedia
Dayo Israel, Founder & CEO, Melanin Matchmaker
Dean Mericka, SVP Growth and Alliances, FaceTec *
Diego Lacerda, Founder, Ge2Gether
Dirk Wahle, Head of Product, Spark Networks
Eddy Ankrett, President, DatingAgencyAssociation
Eran Beris, VP Marketing, Astrodita
Erica Sinner, Founder & CEO, DanceKard
Erin Kapczynski, VP Marketing, OneRep *
Gary Metter, Events & Adventures
Geoff Cook, CEO, The Meet Group & co-CEO, ParshipMeet Group *
James Leftwich, Founder, NoLongerLonely
Jeffrey Tinsley, Founder & CEO, RealMe *
Karima ben Abdelmalek, CEO, Happn
Karinna Karsten, Founder & CEO, Relationship A.I.
Konstantin Poltoran, CEO, Meetville
Kris Covino, co-Founder, Date.com
Leslie Wardman, CEO, Ambiance Matchmaking
Lisa Butkiewicz, CEO, Meetopolis
Lisa Maria, COO, Sameera Sullivan Matchmakers
Marcia Rubin, CEO, Yak Network
Mark Kapczynski, CEO, OneRep *
Mauricio Botero, CEO, Prelinker
Michele Tobin, VP Partnerships, The Meet Group *
Mitchell Wapner, Sr. Account Manager, RealMe *
Murugavel Janakiraman, Founder & CEO, Matrimony.com
Neil Davis, CBO, RealMe *
Nicky Dunn, CEO, PiSociety
Norman Petty, Head of Trust & Safety, The Meet Group *
Punam Nanda, Founder & Managing Director, Tradition Reimagined
Radha Patel, Founder, Single to Shaadi & The Auntie Network
Ritesh Bhatnagar, Head of Marketing and Growth, Woo
Sabine Schoeler, CEO, LemonSwan
Saichitra Swaminathan, Chief Portal & Mobile Officer, BharatMatrimony
Sarah Louise Ryan, Director, Tailor Matched
Sid Klein, CEO & co-Founder, Matchmaker2Matchmaker
Simon Corbett, CEO, Global Dating Insights
Tammy Shaklee, President, H4M
Timothy Sexton, co-Founder, DNARomance
Viktor Cindric, Chief Design Officer, First Beat Media
Zackary Lewis, CEO, SayAllo
Hal Burg gave us an overview of how product placement works, and walked us through some examples in the dating and social space. David Siegel clarified on the meaning of Metaverse, and how it will warp and advance the way we experience social and dating. LTR online is now only 90 mins long. A networking session. plus two presentations.Â
This time we focused on interesting and inspiring startups. The CEO / Co-Founders of Fika, The Sauce and Himoon presented their founding and growth stories. Six co-founders in all. Denis Sandquist and Oscar Luo from Asian dating app Fika presented "How 'Real' is Better Than 'Perfect'". Emma Clark and Sachin Karia gave an overview of how they had integrated video profiles into The Sauce. Louis Dresse and Michael Couvreur from Himoon shared their founding story, challenges and vision.Â
See invitation site here with speakers and attendees
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