On Friday, Compatico is running the icebreakers at our final Assembly event for the year. In preparation, we looked at what its CEO Elise Dalrymple-Keast has learned about why people struggle to connect. Her business is dating, but what she’s learned applies to any room where you’re hoping to meet the right person, whether that’s a co-founder, a client or a mentor.
Elise took over Compatico in mid-2025 after co-founding a marketing agency, Brandsitters. Since then the business has grown to two to four events a month in Auckland, plus quarterly events in Wellington and Christchurch, and it has made more than 1,200 introductions since it started.
More options don’t mean better connections
Elise is blunt about the apps: “The apps turn dating into e-commerce and you’re encouraged to be really shallow.” Compatico surveyed 400 New Zealand singles this year. Fewer than one in ten said dating feels exciting, and more than three-quarters said their biggest problem was not meeting the right people.
Swap “dating” for “networking” and plenty of us will recognise it. Hundreds of LinkedIn connections, a full calendar of events, and still only a handful of people you could ring for advice.
We filter for the wrong things
The same survey found men and women rank very different things at the top of their list when looking for a partner. Elise’s view, after more than a year of watching people search: “People get hung up on the stuff that doesn’t matter.”
In business we do the same with job titles, company size and sector. Some of the most useful people in your network are the ones you’d have skipped on paper.
Different views make better rooms
Compatico’s latest research found more than nine in ten singles have a political party they’d hesitate to date someone over. Elise thinks “we’ve become a bit allergic to being around those whose opinions we disagree with,” and says one of the upsides of her job has been talking with people whose politics are very different from hers and still finding plenty in common.
Business has its own version. Most of us spend the year at industry events, in rooms full of people who do what we do, think the way we think and already know us. It’s comfortable, and it rarely turns up anything new.
Revved is built the other way. The room crosses sectors, business sizes and stages, so a founder two years in can end up next to the CEO of a listed company, someone from government or a leader in the for-purpose sector. They see the same problems from different angles, and that’s where the useful conversations start. At this year’s Summit, 73% of attendees made three or more meaningful new connections.
The skills travel
Compatico pairs matchmaking with education sessions and relationship support. While Compatico has had many successful matches and recently celebrated its first engagement, Elise says that they also get people joining who haven’t dated in years, get back into the dating world with Compatico and then end up meeting a partner independently with the skills they have gained through their membership. The skills that help you meet a partner are the same ones that help you build a team, keep a client and back a friend: being curious, listening, and showing up more than once.
That’s the spirit of Friday. Grab a coffee, let Compatico get you talking to someone outside your usual circle, and start 2027 with a few more people in your corner.
Head to Compatico here.
