Our Mission
For everyone to become and project the best version of themself, and find lasting love with a truly compatible partner.
What Do We Stand For?
Efficiency
Singles don't waste time browsing, messaging or dealing with fake profiles. Matchmakers quickly hone in on the right matches.
Compatibility
We are fanatics about pairing people so they truly last, based on relationship data we already know plus our own continuous testing.
Inclusiveness
We welcome all people, as long as they're open to a serious relationship. Anyone can sign up and be eligible to be matched.
Transparency
We have set pricing, share the names of our partner companies, display real couples on our site, and always tell the truth.
Innovation
We continue to develop the latest tech to help pair people best, from advanced filters to a helpful matching algorithm.
Team
Carla Swiryn
Carla combined her ten years of marketing, tech, and client service experience (mainly at Google) and six years as a professional matchmaker to create DateSpot in 2019.
She has the pleasure of running and growing the business, doing 1:1 consultations, and identifying matches for DateSpot clients and partner matchmakers.
Carla can identify with the dating struggle as she was 41 when she found her amazing partner. They now share a sweet life and daughter where she was born and raised, in the world's innovation hub of Silicon Valley. She has also enjoyed stints in Colorado (University of CO at Boulder), Florida, Spain, Brazil, and India, and appreciates the diversity and connectedness of people worldwide.
Kristina Southam
A trained relationship coach & former nonprofit leader who lends her amazing people skills to source new members.
Andrea Larson
A connector and community builder with an MBA and two successful setups before joining to find exceptional singles.
Elise Braunschweiger
"Professional Cupid" who used to oversee a team of matchmakers, and now recruits the best of the best for like-minded agencies.
.png)
Nico Werner
Our driven, strategic full-stack developer who continually pushes the tech forward for further efficiency.
Dinah Manongi
Highly skilled and intuitive UI/UX Designer who guides the visual flow of the site and look of internal dashboards.
.png)
Elsa Amri
An experienced Visual Designer & Webflow developer with a passion for designing for communities.
Greg Guarnay
Carla's fiance who helps make business decisions, armed with an MBA from UCLA and a VP role at a software startup.
Navin Ramachandran
Match.com's former COO who shares invaluable insight while empowering visionaries worldwide through Kanthari.
Founder's Letter:
The DateSpot Story
Most people don't grow up wanting to be a matchmaker, and I was one of them. The career wasn't presented as a viable option - at least not to me in the CA Bay Area. Advertising sounded fun, lucrative, and creative, so I pursued it. I worked as a copywriter developing ideas for print and radio ads, worked at Google for seven years creating and optimizing digital ads, and then ran my own online ad agency.
In 2013, my friend mentioned that someone was looking for help building her matchmaking startup. Thinking it could be an interesting side gig, I decided to help out with events and recruiting candidates part-time. After a few months, I realized that I was more excited to work on this other company than my own, so I shifted fields and became their first hired matchmaker.
I enjoyed growing their Bay Area member base from essentially zero to over 10,000 over five years. Even better - I successfully matched up multiple couples who would go on to get married - the youngest was in their twenties, and the oldest was in their fifties.
I loved it, but entrepreneurship is addicting. I started to think about allowing singles a fresh option for singles, that would also help matchmakers in a unique way. So I explored it, without an MBA, a co-founder, or any outside funding. DateSpot was founded in December 2019, focused on free matchmaking. In 2022 we added new services beyond matchmaking and expanded the geography to effectively match people nationwide (and even accept people internationally).
I bring my experience in marketing analytics to the matching process, being more data-driven than most matchmakers. I break up many answers to questions in singles onboarding into more options than most dating services have in order to pair people better. I continue to test many dimensions that could be measures of compatibility to bring fresh insight to the public.
There's no perfect algorithm for matching, but we can strive to get as much important data as possible to get close. We look at physical attraction, common goals, overlapping interests, lifestyle habits, being on the same “wavelength”, and a balance in energy. You don’t want to date yourself! I took this to heart and soon after founding my company, met my own amazing life partner.
My wish for you is that however you find love, you do find it. I also hope that you love yourself deeply as much as anyone else and understand its important role in attraction. While we’re all independent beings fully capable of living and thriving alone, and moments of singledom can be fun and healing, life is even better shared with someone else.
