Month: September 2021

Sex Equity: Owning Your Pleasure featuring an interactive discussion with Special Guests, Amy Andersen and Tyomi Morgan

Gather with Alphy 

Sex Equity: Owning Your Pleasure featuring an interactive discussion with Special Guests, Amy Andersen and Tyomi Morgan

Gather is excited to bring you an interactive event which will empower us around a topic we’ve not yet discussed—sex and relationships! Join us as we meet in the Alphy App for a conversation which may help us expand on forward thinking ways to live our best lives! 

Here’s what you will receive and why you should attend:

  • Engage with and learn massively useful, empowering tips from these two incredible women: 
    • Amy Andersen, Founder of Linx Dating, Silicon Valley’s Matchmaker
    • Tyomi Morgan, Sexuality Coach and Relationship Expert (she’s been on America’s Next Top Model!)
  • A limited edition, custom made bookmark which will be mailed to you after the event is over (please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery)
  • A private invitation to the Alphy app, where you’ll join an online community built to help connect and advance women
  • 15% off orders on Fort Point Direct with your special code
  • A free private info session for you and your friends to learn about egg freezing and fertility preservation
  • $100 off a consultation (cash pay patients only) with a Spring Fertility physician  

Register today, and we’ll send you your private code to join the Alphy App, where the event will be held. We’ll also include the discount codes and contact information for you to utilize the gifts from our incredible partners.

REGISTER HERE

Thank you to our sponsors and special guests:

Matchmakers as Brokers

Although matchmaking has been my profession and one of my greatest passions for the last 18 years, I have many other interests, and residential real estate is one of them… I love driving and walking around and noting homes that are for sale and, more so pre-COVID 19, touring open homes.  I believe deeply in serendipity – random discoveries on Sunday open home drives have led to my two home purchases.   There was clearly luck involved, but had I not put myself out there to get lucky, I would not have had the chance to get lucky.

Please humor me today as I engage in some residential real estate comparisons to shed some light on what I do at Linx Dating.  Please forgive any simplification in my analogies – I am simply trying to make a few broad points.

In the old days pre-internet, as a prospective home buyer, you generally relied on a broker to do even the very basics of your search, unless you were willing to settle for driving through neighborhoods looking for “for sale” signs or perusing the Sunday local newspaper real estate section.  A good broker would get to know you and your needs, would generate a list of potential properties to view from a listing service which was not easily accessed by non-brokers, and take you around to open homes and private tours until hopefully you found what you were looking for.   They would then generate paperwork to help you complete the various phases of the transaction, along with your bank if you were obtaining a mortgage, and then earn a brokerage fee calculated as a percentage of the sale price of the home. 

The question is, why, in the age of the publicly available and online multiple listing service and seemingly endless choices of secondary apps and services such as Zillow or Redfin, do we still need real estate brokers?   They basically do what they used to do.  

It’s a fair point.  Why should an agent, today, earn 2.5% for creating a list for you that looks like the MLS list and auto-generating paperwork from a repository of documents using “find and replace?”  Yes, they can get you into a home during non-open home times, etc. etc.   But what distinguishes them?  And why, somehow, in light of this, do only 7-10% of homes get listed directly by sellers, meaning they are not using a broker?  There has to be more going on.

The parallels to dating are noteworthy.   Why invest in a personalized concierge matchmaker when there is Match.com, Tinder and all of the countless others available like the MLS? 

Well, this is where it gets complex.

Are all of the available home properties on the MLS?  Many are, for sure.  But some of the best properties are “pocket listings,” “off-market listings,” or might never even make it to any listing.  A good broker has a strong local network and can hear about properties that might be coming on the market in the future, or even owners who might be worth proactively approaching about selling their homes.   You don’t get this on Zillow.   A great broker is worth their weight in gold – certainly 2.5%.

In the dating world, not all of the great “catches” are on the apps.  Why?  Maybe they are just uncomfortable with putting themselves out there publicly and they value their anonymity and privacy.  Maybe they don’t have the time or energy to invest in volume dating – to cycle through all of the prospects, messages, phone calls, texts, zooms, coffees, drinks, dinners and all of the rest.     Or maybe even if they *are* on the apps, their profiles are hidden or they are burned out on the games.  Or maybe they are *thinking* about trying online but haven’t yet.

At Linx Dating, we are discreet, we protect your privacy, and we tap our existing massive vetted and trusted network of referrals to find your match whether they are online or not.  We can also do highly tailored outbound recruiting on your behalf and come with a stamp of credibility for the “buyer” and the “seller.”


All of this aside, I still haven’t touched on what might be the most important function of a broker – something that for me can be the most frustrating and yet most fulfilling part of my job – and that is working to be a bridge builder, confidante, and psychologist to both candidates at the same time, nurturing the “transaction” and serving to smooth the lines of communication so that a potentially great long term match is not permanently impaired by some early turbulence, miscommunications, and reluctance for candidates to give each other the benefit of the doubt early in a relationship.  

I know this is true in dating – and I am told it’s true in residential real estate.   There are so many pitfalls that can derail a home purchase – problems with bank mortgage approval, a housing inspection gone awry, weird neighbors, or just the raw emotions of buying or selling a home.   This is where a seasoned broker with not only domain experience, but the right personality, can make a huge difference in closing a transaction that otherwise might have headed into the large abyss of the majority of deals that never get done.

I spend a large chunk of my day walking through my neighborhood with my Apple airpods cranked up, accumulating miles and steps and getting my exercise, as I talk to multiple clients, hearing how their early dates and communications with their matches are going, offering a listening ear, advice if needed or requested, and, on occasion, direct intervention if I feel it is warranted and can be helpful.

In the earliest stages of any relationship, when two people are just getting to know each other and to build trust, differences and misunderstandings can get completely blown out of proportion when emotions run high, and they can sink what could ultimately be a beautiful relationship.  It is often my job to steady the ship, to communicate with both people, and to help them see the big picture.   This can be as basic as my helping folks interpret signals from each other, or as in depth as providing “color” to both people if they might not initially be willing to give the other person the benefit of the doubt.

Just one recent example comes to mind – I was recently working with a successful 30-something male entrepreneur who had already successfully sold a company and had matched him to a 20-something female entrepreneur who was raising one of her first rounds of financing for her startup.  They clearly clicked, had chemistry, and long-term relationship potential.  However, a few of the dinners crossed over into business talk and, before you know it, he was giving her stern advice about the mistakes he thought she was making in her business and she, in turn, felt lectured, and that he was condescending, unempathetic in his inability to understand that she might not have the resources to follow his advice.  She was deeply hurt and needed to take a break.   He did not understand where he could have gone wrong as he was truly trying to help.  Enter Amy, as I tried to help them both individually understand how they could listen to each other and save something that could be really special and I am glad to say they are back on track.

I am not here to deny that homes can be bought and sold without a broker, or even that some home transactions use a broker who still basically only does what is available online with a little looking.  Similarly, online dating absolutely can work – with some luck and perseverance, there have been countless happy couples that have emerged from the apps.


But I am a believer in economics and survival of the fittest – ultimately, brokers need to justify their worth if they want their 2.5%.  This goes for residential real estate and elite matchmaking. 

Introducing our new male VIP….

Our client is a dynamic, polished, 33-year-old Caucasian former college tennis player, who stands at 5’11” with brown hair, blue eyes, and a contagious smile. He was born and raised in Southern California and likes to joke that (at least to this point) the best decision he ever made was picking his parents, who devoted themselves to raising a wonderful family and have led by example to show him how to live the most enjoyable and fulfilled life possible. His father is his intellectual inspiration, who helped instill in him a passion for all sorts of intellectual pursuits from mathematics to economics to politics to psychology. His mother provided him with his uniformly positive attitude toward life, best encapsulated by being bestowed the “This is the best day yet” award when he was 13 years old on a 3-week trip to Europe with a group of young teenagers. His parents first met on a tennis court, and his dream-come-true would be for his wife to share the passion for tennis that he inherited from his parents.

Our client is a renaissance man and decorated student-athlete. He was valedictorian in high school and had the top GPA of any student in his class at a leading US university, all the while doing among the most difficult set of majors and having the winningest record on his top Division I tennis team during his final seasons. Before launching into his career, he spent a year in the United Kingdom to get master’s degree in finance and write a couple of books about achieving peak performance on the tennis court, in the classroom, and beyond.

He has had a highly successful career to date, with stints in consulting and private equity before settling on public market investing, where his primary focus is high-growth software companies. He takes great pride in his work, but he is conscientious about maintaining a healthy work-life balance, which provides him with ample freedom to pursue his myriad of hobbies, from playing tennis to hiking in National Parks to participating in several conservative/libertarian political organizations to sitting on his balcony perched high above the Bay in his never-ending pursuit to figure out the meaning of life.

Given the wonderful upbringing he had from his loving parents who made raising children their top priority, he is uniquely focused on raising a family and being a devoted father. Having seen how much pleasure his parents had bringing up multiple children, he is excited about the opportunity to pay it forward to his children. A meticulous planner, he has a remarkable “lifestyle-oriented” vision for how he sees his life play out and is looking for an inspiration partner to join with him on the journey ahead.

His dream match is an intellectual and athletic peer, who also had excellent grades, played tennis at a top Division I school, and shares a similar passion for life and vivacious personality. She is an “All American girl” who is 23-27 years old, between 5’5”-5’11”, physically fit, and has light features. She is politically conservative/libertarian and comes from a stable, married family with parents who are still deeply in love after multiple decades of marriage. She is as close to her parents and siblings as our client is and deeply hoping to marry someone who adores her parents as she does. She desires to focus on raising a family as extraordinary as her own, alongside a husband who is equally engaged in her children’s development.

Her friends would describe her as proactive, cheerful, optimistic, judicious, and highly organized. She has a job that is intellectually demanding and ambitious, but also one that has (or at least will have) reasonable hours so she can live a balanced, wholesome life with plenty of time to pursue her many other interests.

On weekends, her favorite activities include playing tennis, hiking, reading, and socializing with friends. She enjoys taking trips to national parks and visiting new cities and towns. She is unafraid to be a globetrotter and to take the road less traveled to explore interesting far-fetched places that have their charm but are not the common spots that tourists go.

Our client has not been married before and does not currently have any children, but he envisions both in his future and plans to take this role very seriously.

If you or anyone you might know could qualify as a candidate to meet this extraordinary VIP, please submit your information here. There are NO fees for qualified candidates to meet our client.