The Story

JakeTM was born as a private network for the professional clients of Ivan Massow’s insurance group. Many years before Facebook and LinkedIn were created, Jake was designed to be an online-social-network where gay men and women could promote their work, network in unique real-world locations and of course debate the matters close to their hearts through online forums. We took the decision early on to expand the network to any gay man or women online who found value in having a place to express their individuality without taking their clothes off!

What started as a group of a few hundred people quickly became thousands and then tens of thousands. In one year alone, we sent over 1 million messages to each other. Over the next decade we attended hundreds of events in the best bars, clubs and forums the world offered. We travelled to New York, Sydney and of course across the UK. At times we travelled exclusively, others intimately, not always modestly. As with any wonderful baby, we had teething troubles- teams that didn’t always gel, sponsors who demanded changes to our core values, investors who came and went. As founders we changed too, like Jake we went through business boom and bust, hit the headlines, partied hard, sought solace, aged and matured. There were times when we wanted to pull the plug on what had become a feisty but lovable distraction from our daily lives. By launching a new version of the technology in 2010, we pretty much killed it ourselves without trying to.

Jake changes but just keeps on swimming. We realised this when the original team met up again in 2011 to share our stories. Alex had left London to travel, written books, settled in a new life away from the bright lights, but very much at the heart of the digital world. Ivan had moved abroad, come home, made movies, switched the hard-stuff for green tea. Our moderators, directors and events team had relocated to all four corners of the globe, but were very much remembered with fondness as we flicked through fantastic photographs and recalled memories. Lisa, Brad, Craig, JP, Graham, Sergio, Mike, Dom. As people passed us giggling a little too hard into our ice-creams, a few stopped to wave and share their fondness for Jake. It’s these little things that mean so much in a noisy world. We may have hosted Hollywood celebs, MP’s and billionaires, but we’ve also seen wedding days, entrepreneurial venues, babies first steps, cries of laughter and spilt drinks.

So Jake is reborn again today. Perhaps reborn is the wrong phrase as the poor boy didn’t ever die. He was always there in the “did you know so and so” conversations of Soho. None the less, he has a new home. A simple framework that re-invokes the original values of the project. A place to network, a place to express, a place to celebrate life and success. Abandoning bespoke systems, the original team reformed and plugged Jake into the technologies we know work well – Facebook, blogs, Twitter. The events remain the heart of what we do, coming together in the real world to be who we are in places that inspire and entertain us. If anything, Jake today is a more open place, accessible to all as it should be. We’re proud of what we’ve done over the years but we also recognise that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel to maintain passion in something. Jake is there, in the wink of an eye, the clink of a glass, the handshake. Long may he be.

Ivan Massow, Alex Sass, Lisa Thorne, Stephen Unwin, Simon Gage, Tim Laws & Friends