The CoronaCrush story begins in March 2020, shortly after Israel entered its first cornavirus lockdown, when six friends, while hanging out in a Zoom chat, decided they would try to help their single friends meet each other. Thus the CoronaCrush Facebook group was born. The idea was simple - friends would post dating profiles of their friends and then people would reach out if they or a friend were interested. The group's founders started inviting their friends and before they knew it a month had passed, media outlets around the world were covering the story, and there were 10,000+ singles in the group.

With so many singles in once place, one of group's founders, Ian Mark, thought he could do more to help people meet. A little less than a month after the group was created, Mark posted a questionnaire in the group to see who'd be interested in attending a speed dating event via Zoom. Hundreds of people filled out the form in the first couple of hours and the potential was obvous. A few days later, with the help of a free Gmail account, Zoom links the women provided (the men went to the womens' Zoom rooms), and a scheduling algorithm Mark developed, the first speed dating was held for 120 Jewish singles in New York City. There was much to be improved, but this first event laid the ground work for what was yet to come.

CoronaCrush has made a significant impact in the Jewish dating world. Since its inception, CoronaCrush Speed Dating has hosted 60+ speed dating events with 300+ people attending each event on average. Event results have been stellar with over 50% of participants having at least one match (both people said "yes" to a second date) in any given event and and daters giving an average score of 5.7 (out of 7) on how likely they are to refer a friend. All the events are 100% free, but require a refundable deposit to ensure participants take the event seriously and show up.

Speed Dating Demo

Mark plans to continue growing CoronaCrush and trying to help as many Jewish singles find love as possible. His goal is to keep running the events for free as long it's economically viable (CoronaCrush's revenue comes from donations). He also hopes to license out the speed dating software he developed to other communities and organizations looking to help their members meet. He is currently licensing his software to Chabad Headquarters under the brand name Met@Chabad.