This is the 9th edition of the LTR online conference experience. LTR is a fast-paced 2 1/2 hours and starts at 11:30am EST (New York time) Wednesday 7th July with a half hour of networking followed by 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. 80 places 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).
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.
This is a closed-door session and is by direct-invite-only from your host and organizer Mark Brooks.
PLEASE NOTE: ALL PRIOR SUMMIT & LTR EVENTS WERE FULL WITHIN 72 HOURS OF INVITES BEING SENT. LTR is by invite only. Please reply to Mark's email invitation to RSVP.
Kindly sponsored by:
RealMe - Improve safety with user access to background info and raise your ARPU
vPaaS by Meet Group - Video at scale
Real Gifts - Real gifts plug-in for online communities
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.
He supports the dating and online social community industries by heading IDEA.gp (since 2007) & OSCA.gp, hosting LTR, and publishing the daily news summary services Online Personals Watch (est. 2004) and Very Social Network (est. 2006).
Mark graduated Harvard Business School in 2014 and completed an Executive MSc in Behavioral Science at London School of Economics in 2017.
Mark is committed long-term to helping dating and social industry executives connect, learn and share, and get inspired for a more effective and prosperous future.
Yu-kai Chou is an expert on Gamification and Behavioral Design and creator of the Octalysis Framework. He authored "Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards" and is Chief Creation Officer of The Octalysis Group and Head of DIgital Commerce for HTC/Vive.
Yu-kai has spoken at Google, Stanford University, LEGO, Tesla, BCG, Turkish Airlines, Huawei, the governments of UK, Singapore, S.Korea, and Bahrain. Yu-kai started in Gamification in 2003. In 2015, Yu-kai was rated #1 in “Gamification Gurus Power 100” by RISE, and awarded the “Gamification Guru of the Year” in 2014, 2015 and 2017 by the World Gamification Congress.
He's helped LEGO, Uber, Volkswagen/Porsche, eBay, Fidelity Investments, AIG Japan, Verizon and his work has been featured in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, The World Journal, PBS, and NBC.
Dr. Sexton holds a Ph.D. in Population Genetics and is the founder of DNA Romance. He met his wife online and they agreed that a major frustration with 'online dating' was the mismatching, especially for chemistry. When you meet in person, you know right away if you have chemistry or not. But, you can’t evaluate chemistry online.
For his PhD at Southern Cross University in Australia and his Postdoctoral Research at University of British Columbia he analyzed the DNA of several hundred individuals that had also been phenotyped. He identified a set of genetic fingerprints that correspond to pathogen resistance.
Dr. Sexton launched DNARomance.com in 2017 with a mission to use DNA to forecast "romantic chemistry" between people online before they meet in person.
What are the key research findings that he is now using in DNA Romance? What does this mean for the future of dating? We'll hear from Dr. Sexton, an expert on this progressive subject area.
Simon started Global Dating Insights in 2013 as a way for the dating industry to get independent long form dating news.
He also runs Jargon PR, and speaks regularly at International B2B conferences and events.
In this unprecedented interview Simon and Mark will interview each other.
Specifically we'll discuss our positions, how we plan on supporting you into the future, and at the end of the interview, we'll reveal the next real world events. You'll learn when and where you'll be able to enjoy the next fabulous GDI Conferences and IDEA SUMMITs.
* supporting sponsors of LTR
Adryenn Ashley, co-Founder & CEO, Loly
Alex Leshan, Product Owner, DatingPro
Art Shapiro, Director, RealMe *
Bill Swartz, podcast host
Brett Couston, co-Founder & MD, CitySwoon.com
Carmelia Ray, CEO, Carmelia Ray Consulting & Matchmaking
Catherine Cook Connelly, CMO, The Meet Group *
Cheyne Cloe, Sr Product Manager, Reflex Media
Courtney Kovacevich, VP Partnerships, RealMe *
Damona Hoffman, Dating Strategist, Dear Mrs D
Dave Sanguinetti, CEO, RealGifts *
David Gottesman, CEO, Perchance
Eddy Ankrett, President of DatingAgencyAssociation
Heather Dougherty, CEO, Date Evolution
Hristo Zlatarski, CEO, Elitebook.bg
Hunt Ethridge, Founder, Hunt For Advice
Guillaume Asselot, co-Founder & CEO, Seeders
James Leftwich, Founder, NoLongerLonely
Jane Ramadan, Account Manager, Business Development, RealMe *
Jens Kammerer, CEO, Jaumo
Jessica Alderson, co-Founder, SoSyncd
Justyn Hornor, Head of Product, Reflex Media
Katia Loisel, Founder & CEO, The Love Destination
Katie Hartle, CEO, FriendMatch
Kevin Teman, Founder, AIMM
Kimberly Kaplan, Founder & CEO, Snack
Konstantin Poltoran, CEO, Meetville
Laticia Austin, CEO, Its A Real Date
Lemarc Thomas, Founder & CEO, Lemarc Thomas Matchmaking
Leslie Wardman, CEO, Ambiance Matchmaking
Lisa Butkiewicz, CEO, Meetopolis
Lluis Carreras, CEO, Mobifriends
Louella Alderson, co-Founder, SoSyncd
Mark Owen, President, Events and Adventures
Michael Carter, President, Passions Network
Michael O'Sullivan, Owner, Hubpeople
Michele Tobin, VP Partnerships, The Meet Group *
Neil Davis, CBO, RealMe *
Nick Tchir, Snack, Head of Design
Norman Petty, Head of Trust & Safety, The Meet Group *
Numair Qureshi, Founder & CEO, Mixo App
Paul Ergatoudis, Owner, Single Solution
Paul Uhlig, co-Founder, Lemonswan
Peter Christopher, Founder & President, ChristianFilipina
Rachna Sethi, Director, Product Management, Syniverse; formerly CPO, Spark Networks
Radha Patel, Founder, Single to Shaadi & The Auntie Network
Renée Piane, President & Founder, Renée Piane Enterprises
Rory McClelland, Head of Safety & Product, Bumble
Rowen Ash, CEO, Speakeasy Dating
Sid Klein, CEO, Matchmaker2Matchmaker
Tammy Shaklee, Founder & President, H4M
Talor Wade, co-Founder, Ambiance Matchmaking
Tommy Sanguinetti, co-Founder & President, RealGifts *
Trea Tijmens, Founder, SuccessMatch
Vivek Jain, co-Founder, LOKO
Yllkë Abdullahu, Business Development Officer, Dua.com
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.
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.
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.
See invitation site here: shows speakers and attendees
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.
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.
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