*Please respond to your invite to RSVP or email mark@courtlandbrooks.com with questions
This IDEA Summit is on Tuesday 8th August, 2023 at Smitten's HQ in Reykjavik, Iceland. Also, we are having a World Officer's Weekend (WOW) on the Sunday 6th 4pm-9pm and all day Monday 7th and dinner.
This is an international gathering of by-invitation-only CEOs and leaders of leading Internet dating apps and services. Courtland Brooks / IDEA are inviting dating CEOs and leaders.
The IDEA Summit is designed to help you learn, share and connect with other leaders in the dating industry. This IDEA Summit is led by the CEO of Smitten, David Simonarsen, and Mark Brooks, CEO of the dating business agency-consultancy Courtland Brooks which operates IDEA and OPW.
The most unusual thing about IDEA Summit is everyone from IDEA contributes an idea. We invite everyone who is joining us from IDEA to present. So please consider and bring one idea on how we can improve our apps and communities, and innovate and grow in effectiveness. Slides are optional. Presentations will be just 10-15 minutes each.
The suggested topics for this Summit are Executive Leadership Performance, or the alternate suggested topic is Raising VC Money.
IDEA stands for the Internet Dating Excellence Association. 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 which is entirely free. Once you are confirmed we will add your profile below, and your talk or panel topic.
There is no price we can put on this event, so we do not charge an entry fee for it. We are being very selective to CXOs and leaders of dating companies. Smitten are kindly covering the venue. (You just cover your direct costs (i.e. hotel, dinner, ents, etc.)
The IDEA Summit will be like no other industry gathering. You'll meet fellow CEOs and strategy leaders from a diverse group of Internet dating companies from around the world. This event is for C levels, founders, and rising-star leaders who are exceptionally personally and professionally invested in the industry. This will be a unique, uplifting and essential event that will inform your strategy, and help you align with the best of what the industry is, and will become. We'll help you evolve with the benefit of perspective from your peers.
At each IDEA Summit we also try to round out your industry perspective by having a couple start-ups (that we can inspire), and a couple of supporting best-in-class vendors.
Please respond to your invite to RSVP or email mark@courtlandbrooks.com with questions.
This IDEA Summit is also sponsored by:
Livebox - The top livestreaming video and creator economy platform
Courtland Brooks - The Internet dating business consultancy-agency
Matchmaker.com - Raise your ARPU by referring qualified users to experienced matchmakers
Get your daily online dating executive news summary -> Subscribe to Online Personals Watch
David grew up in Iceland and studied Industrial Engineering.
Ten years ago, he co-founded Blendin, an app connecting friends, then Dusty Dots, an infuriating mobile game, and Watchbox, a photo and video-based social network for groups. Watchbox later became a tool for co-workers to connect via shared memories.
David fell in love with online dating in 2018 and started working on a serious dating app called The One. His team managed to raise an angel round. In 2020, they decided to leave serious dating and created Smitten, a fun dating app that allows singles to play interactive games.
Smitten raised $2.7M seed round in 2021 and a $10M Series A round a year later.
Fireside Chat Topic: Crafting Connections For a Decade (see article link for background reading)
Asgeir is the Co-founder and UX Designer of dating app Smitten. With a passion for creating games and experiences, Asgeir's journey in the design field started early on. From designing magazines and posters in high school to organizing events, it was clear that he had a knack for UX design.
Asgeir co-founded Blendin, a successful app connecting friends, and later ventured into the mobile gaming industry with the release of Dusty Dots. Following that, he delved into social networking with Watchbox, a platform for sharing photos and videos within groups.
After experiencing the ups and downs of startup life, Asgeir and his team pivoted to create The One, a serious dating app that eventually evolved into the incredibly fun and innovative dating app, Smitten.
Mark runs Courtland Brooks, an agency-consultancy focusing on strategy, marketing and bus dev for Internet dating communities. He's served POF, Meet Group and 120+ 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).
He heads IDEA.gp (since 2007) and the executive news summary service Online Personals Watch (since 2004). He also owns Matchmaker.com.
Mark is a grad of Harvard Business School (PLD, 2014) and London School of Economics (Exec. MSc Behavioral Science, 2017).
Mark helps dating and social leaders connect, learn and share for an even more effective and prosperous future.
Paul is the CEO and Co-founder of SALT, the dating and relationship app for Christians.
SALT launched in the UK in 2018 with an aim of re-imagining how Christians meet and build relationships. SALT is now live in over 20 countries globally and is responsible for helping start 1000s of relationships and marriages.
Prior to SALT, Paul was part of the founding team at Innovate Finance. Before that he was SVP Strategic Partnerships and Chief of Staff to the CEO at Monitise plc and he began his career at Deloitte as a Strategy and Technology Consultant working across a number of clients and industries across Europe. While at Deloitte, he also worked in Corporate Finance and trained as a Chartered Management Accountant.
Christof is a software entrepreneur, investor, and LGBTQ+ advocate. He is the Founder and CEO of Hornet, the world's leading queer social network with over 30 million users. He also founded Queer Spaces, a group chat platform for building queer communities. As President of the LGBT Foundation, he works to deliver equality and advance the cause of the LGBTQ+ community worldwide.
Christof is a Managing Partner at Strive Capital, investing in early-stage mobile applications. He played a key role in organizing the Gay Games 11 Hong Kong 2022, a world-class diversity festival.
Christof holds a Master of Science in Management from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, where he was a Sloan Fellow in the Class of 2004 and author of the case studies on MySQL and Google’s Android. He also holds a Dipl.Ing. from Technical University Munich.
Nicky Wake is a seasoned entrepreneur and a driving force in the world of digital event planning and management.
In 2005, Nicky founded Don't Panic Projects Ltd, an events agency that has achieved global recognition for its management of prestigious award series and conferences. The agency, under her leadership, organizes over 60 events a year, spanning from UK Search Awards to the US, MENA, European, Canadian, and soon to be APAC Search Awards.
In 2022, Nicky embarked on a new venture - founding Chapter2Dating Ltd. A project close to her heart, Chapter2Dating is an online community and dating platform created for widows and widowers to find their next chapter. This venture was born out of her personal experiences and the identified gap in mainstream dating services. The platform has seen a successful launch in the UK and is set to expand into Australia and the USA.
Nicky is soon launching Widowsfire.co.uk, a new dating app for widows and widowers who are not yet ready for a committed relationship but still desire human connection and comfort.
Jean-Marc is an entrepreneur and associated investor. He is the CEO of dating app Belovy, an innovative dating platform using astrological data to enhance matchmaking.
He is also the CEO of Stanford Nutrition Inc., a company that owns livestock food brands primarily distributed in Ivory Coast, and the CEO and founder of Ivoire Angels, a network of business angels in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, that facilitates access to the African market for Canadian companies.
He was the founding CEO of the matchmaking agency Intermezzo (Outremont) and its four websites for 15 years, before exiting in 2013.
Jean-Marc holds a bachelor's degree in business administration, two certificates (personnel management and finance), a diploma in securities, and has training as a practitioner in NLP (neuro-linguistic programming).
He has been a member of Anges Québec since 2013, where he has made several investments.
Brett is the CEO of Data Pacific Pty Ltd, the parent company of CitySwoon. Bringing a robust financial background to the tech sector, Brett's portfolio includes strategic planning, marketing, and R&D in the B2C tech space. He has worked with various organization sizes from startups to Fortune 500 companies.
Brett is a qualified accountant and digital project manager with proven expertise in driving products from conceptualization to full-scale consumer services.
He co-founded CitySwoon and has consistently forged business development opportunities and marketing partnerships.
Brett earned his degrees in Economics, Major in accounting and corporate finance from the University of Sydney, and holds both PMP and CPA certifications.
Unnur Aldís Kristinsdóttir is a seasoned marketing professional currently serving as the Marketing Director for Smitten. She has been with Smitten for over two years, initially joining as a Growth Marketing Manager before progressing to her current role.
Unnur’s expertise also includes project management, a skill she put to great use as a Project Manager at Icelandic Startups and Reykjavík Fashion Festival.
She earned a Master's Degree in Marketing and a Bachelor's Degree in Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services from Háskóli Íslands. Unnur also holds a Diploma in Fashion/Apparel Design from the Copenhagen Academy of Fashion and Design
Louise is the founder and CTO of CitySwoon, a dating platform now active in the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK. With over 20 years in software development, her experience spans various sectors such as banking, telecoms, and advertising.
Louise started CitySwoon in July 2010 and has since overseen its expansion and technological advancements.
She has a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Sydney. Based in the Greater Sydney Area, Louise remains active in the tech community.
The official hotel is Fosshotel Reykjavik which is 5 mins walk from Smitten's HQ.
happn hosted us in their beautiful Paris office for our 8th Summit. We were focused on innovation and M&A strategy. Our group included CEO & group leaders from Parship Meet Group, Jaumo, Salt, Online Persnals Group, Smitten, and Match Group along with a couple of promising startups. The event concluded with a soiree at happn which included a happn cocktail.
See event page here
Our 7th event was sponsored by Social Development Network (the Singapore Government) and led by Violet Lim, the CEO of Lunch Actually. This IDEA Summit was focused on Connecting in Asia. The CEOs of Matrimony, Paktor, Woo, Filteroff and the Global Love Institute contributed their ideas. Participants also included leaders from Datefolio and IB Japan, along with the SIngapore Government.
See event page here
Our May 2022 New York event was diverse in constituents and deep in learning and sharing. Geoff Cook, the CEO of The Meet Group, co-hosted. This event was focused on the topic of Human Connection. The speakers comprised CEOs from Happn, East Meet East, Swell, amnd RealMe, For the World Officers Weekend (WOW) we took in views from multiple skyscrapers, and dined at one of New York's best.
See event page here
We kicked off the new strand of real world events in Dubai. A relatively safe bet for what we hoped would mark about the end of the pandemic. This roundtable was hosted by the CEO/Founder of Matrimony, Murugavel Janakiraman, along with Mark Brooks. Speaker guests included the CEOs of ParshipMeet Group, Happn, The League and Woo.
See event page here
We had grand plans, but the pandemic stopped us in our tracks from 2020 thru 2022 so we started a monthly online conference. We've done ~20 online conferences to keep you satiated.
See the June 2022 online conference along with a list of all prior conferences here.
The first NYC SUMMIT was at Harvard Club New York with an all star cast. The CEOs of The Meet Group, Coffee Meets Bagel, Spark Networks, East Meet East, and Dating Group spoke among others. We also had the head of Match Groups skunkworks speak. On the weekend we walked the Highline in NYC and did a whiskey tasting tour.
See event page here
The second formal event took place in December 2019 in Berlin in the Spark Networks HQ board room and hosted by Jeronimo Folgueira, the outgoing CEO of Spark Networks, along with 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 event page 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 hosted by Muru, the CEO of Matrimony.com.
See event page 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 event page here
