GDI Leaders’ Lunch New York 2024: Insights Summary
Find it, build it, grow it, protect it and enjoy it.
The first Global Dating Insights Leaders’ Lunch saw some 20 dating industry leaders sit down and discuss the challenges facing the industry, as well as the many opportunities it presents.
The lunch saw a mix of start-ups, early growth and experienced leaders come together to share insights, experience and advice without sales pitches, or any direct reporting. The leaders represented apps covering both mainstream and niche audiences – even if those niche markets were themselves considerable in size – and the table talk needed little in the way of stimulating to find common interests.
A wide-ranging discussion covered the benefits of an advertising driven business model versus a subscription only model; maximising the value of your audience, the good and bad side of AI, the value of events, the risk scammers pose to trust, and how to mitigate against the threats and exploit the opportunities.
Sharing knowledge around the room and identifying opportunities for partnerships and data sharing was an obvious by-product of assembling the leaders in one room and facilitating the open discussion. But there were also plenty of business lessons being shared that wouldn’t necessarily require a follow-up meeting.
The insight that advertising revenues didn’t have to cannibalise a subscription model and could simply drive more revenue, more users and more subscribers within the user base certainty caught the attention of the newest start-ups in the room – especially when it was estimated that with a large target audience it was quite possible to make considerably more advertising revenue from the 90 per cent of the base that chose not to subscribe compared to the 10 per cent that went ‘ad-free’.
It was felt that identifying and exploiting existing events was seen as a good alternative to acting as an indirect facilitator or hands-on organiser. Hosting owned-events was seen as difficult to scale even if they had a good role to play in the early days in target markets.
Meanwhile the potential for AI to threaten app authenticity with countless fake profiles was balanced by the ability of an AI tool to help real users create engaging profiles based on 3 or 4 questions and one image. The view was that some of the biggest players in the industry will likely be conservative in their approach to allowing AI into their profile creation features, leaving the door open for smaller companies and start-ups to take good advantage of the technology.
But that AI threat was also seen as a key driver for greater use of verification tools to try to ensure that users are protected from scammers and platforms protect their trusted status.
The lunch finished with a message that seemed welcomed by all in the room – start-up and established businesses alike. Don’t get fixated on the acquisition exit strategy. When you have found your market and built the app, focus on growing it, driving revenue and increasing the margin. Protect and enjoy the business, and the profitable returns and lifestyle it can deliver. Strangely enough, if you do that, the offers to acquire it will come anyway; and you’ll be in a position of strength to either say no, or negotiate a great yes.
