The coronavirus outbreak has spawned more meaningful connections online, say experts. Romantic dinners have moved to Zoom and no one worries about who is paying the bill. 



Slide or swipe. That’s what it takes to find a date online. And in these Covid-infected times, it seems, the love bug is also in the air.



Popular dating app Tinder reported that “quarantine became the world’s largest icebreaker” with 52% more messages being sent between users since early March.&nbsp;



“The combination of being stuck at home and the fact that we were all going through the same thing at the same time led folks on Tinder to get chattier than ever,” Tinder said in a press statement. &nbsp;



There are other platforms that echoed this reality through lockdown.



DatingBuzz Africa is an online dating site primarily used in Botswana, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Namibia but is very popular in South Africa, in three of its big cities: Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban. The site saw a spike in its activity on the app as well as in the duration of time people are staying online. Pre-Covid, the app saw about 60,000 to 70,000 active users online a month. CEO and Founder of DatingBuzz, David Burstein, says since the beginning of lockdown, there has been a 25% increase.&nbsp;



“Within a few days of the initial lockdown being announced, we suddenly started seeing a rapid rise in numbers. So on the first day or two of lockdown, people were wondering what is happening with the world. And shortly thereafter, we noted a definite upward trend,” says Burstein.&nbsp;



So what do these figures suggest about online dating during Covid-19, when social interaction has been at an all-time low worldwide?&nbsp;



“Some of the potential criticisms in the past [for] online dating is that it becomes very rapid that you exchange messages online, and then people want to meet, and that the slightly old-style of courtship has disappeared,” Burstein explains. “So, what we see now is greater messaging volumes, which implies that people are exchanging more messages with each other. And that’s because it’s not easy to now just say ‘okay, we&#8217;ve chatted online for a week, let’s do coffee’.”&nbsp;



The figures for Lisa50, an online dating site for people over the age of 50 primarily based in Africa and the United Kingdom, also show there has been a significant increase in the number of people using the system and that could be due to several factors.&nbsp;



The first is that internet usage around the world has soared as more people have had to stay home for longer periods. The second is being isolated for months. The final factor that CEO and Founder of Lisa50, David Minns, notes, is that there is less pressure for people to date.&nbsp;



“As many people are restricted in physically meeting people, there’s less pressure to arrange a date and meet up. Making that transition from chatting to someone online to meeting [them] is difficult, even for the most confident people. With this pressure removed, I feel it makes online dating sites less intimidating,” Minns says.&nbsp;



“There is now a tendency for a lot of people to be cautious. They don’t want to just rush into meeting someone and therefore, chatting online makes sense. It&#8217;s a comfortable, safe space,” Burstein adds.



According to Cape Town-based relationship expert, Dr Marlene Wasserman, the rise in the usage of dating websites and apps could be because those who are single “were cut off from their usual behavior”. Dating apps in the last few months have become the only safe and social place to gather publicly without fear of catching a deadly virus. She further elaborates that people are more inclined now to talk more than before as this unpredictable time has left them wanting to form more meaningful connections.&nbsp;



“So instead of just swiping, going to have a drink, going back, swiping, have a drink, what people are doing is lingering for longer with one person. And not only do they linger longer, but they also found that the levels of conversation got deeper. So it wasn&#8217;t just like, ‘what are you wearing?’ It&#8217;s more about ‘how are you feeling now, especially during this time of Covid-19’, which is profound,” Wasserman says.&nbsp;



Dr Letitia Smuts, a lecturer of sociology at the University of Johannesburg, whose research interest is (Hetero)Sexual Identities, Heteronormativity and Gender, agrees. She, however, adds that because human beings crave and need social interaction, having it taken away can be difficult. This difficulty has led to people finding innovative ways to connect with other individuals.&nbsp;



“For instance, a lot of people are trying to help those people who never wanted to join online dating sites. We have seen an upsurge,” Smuts says.&nbsp;



Those used to frequently meeting at restaurants or nightclubs, are now trying new things like Zoom dinner dates or going to the botanical gardens where they can ‘social distance’.&nbsp;



“They are finding other ways of dating. One of my female participants actually said ‘now, we don&#8217;t have to worry about who pays the bill’,” Smuts laughs.&nbsp;



Both experts state that intimacy has found new meaning.&nbsp;



“The intimacy is about a connection. So, in many ways, what’s happening now is people are establishing a connection through communication, through action, getting to know each other rather than rushing into any type of physical relationship. So in many ways, it&#8217;s actually contributing to a more healthy type of intimate connection,” says Smuts.&nbsp;



“It has now gotten to a deeper level of intimacy and that&#8217;s been very positive for many people who now feel like they are being held and being seen and noticed in a place and time which can be extremely lonely,” Wasserman adds.&nbsp;



This closeness has also increased between those already in relationships, according to Wasserman. She adds that this period has proven that people just want raw honesty when it comes to having or making connections.&nbsp;



“There was this fear of the unknown, but I think we all started looking and reflecting a little more and saying, ‘what is it that we really want out of life, out of a relationship and what is our purpose’,” says Wasserman.&nbsp;



Hinge, another dating app, notes their statistics show users want to form long and meaningful connections with people before meeting them, especially with their video chatting options.&nbsp;



“Hinge Labs uncovered from their first study that 44% of Hinge users have been on a video date, and of those users, more than 52% say they are likely to continue incorporating video chat into their dating process even when they can meet safely in real life,” Hinge says in a press statement.&nbsp;



It may be a while before the cozy candlelight dinners return to an offline world.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-style-default"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="704" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Screenshot-2020-10-23-at-14.22.21-1024x704.png" alt="" class="wp-image-48558" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Screenshot-2020-10-23-at-14.22.21-1024x704.png 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Screenshot-2020-10-23-at-14.22.21-300x206.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Screenshot-2020-10-23-at-14.22.21-768x528.png 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Screenshot-2020-10-23-at-14.22.21-600x413.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Screenshot-2020-10-23-at-14.22.21.png 1056w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption>(Illustration by Getty Images)</figcaption></figure>

PAKISTAN-MARRIAGE-DATING

Cupid Versus Covid: Not Lovelorn During Lockdown

Love is in the air at F8, the annual Facebook developers conference. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Tuesday, among other things, Secret Crush, an iteration of Facebook Dating, the mobile-only app that rolled out to a limited audience last year, much to the discomfort of Tinder, its parent company Match and other competitors in the crowded online dating market.



Secret Crush, like Facebook dating, is banking on the social circle, not to mention all that personal data its been collecting for years. Rather than swiping randos, Facebook Dating suggests connections based on logged likes and behavior. With Secret Crush, users now have the option of crushing on up to nine Facebook friends, whether those friends have Facebook Dating profiles are not. Those friends are notified that a mysterious someone likes them, and if that admiration is returned via the dating app, both parties are notified. &nbsp;



Whether Facebook Dating, with its Secret Crush option, poses a danger to the existing online dating market likely won’t be known until it reaches a larger market. As well as its original test countries, Canada, Colombia, Thailand, Canada, and Argentina, the augmented app is now available in 14 more countries in Asia and South America—but not Facebook’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.emarketer.com/content/the-social-series-who-s-using-facebook" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">170 million</a>monthly active users in the U.S.



That’s likely why Facebook’s new dating features haven’t yet threatened Tinder and its parent company, Match, which operates sites in 25 countries and also owns a majority stake in Hinge. Match stock [MTCH] fell 1.7%, trading at $60.40. And while many features of Match and Tinder are free, some users opt to pay for premium services. So far Facebook’s dating features will be free for users and will be available in the U.S. “within the year,” according to a company spokesperson.



Facebook’s scale may put it at some advantage, but the two companies will likely be able to coexist in the dating ecosystem.



“No matter what our competitors may do, or large internet platforms may announce, we have tens of millions of people all over the world who visit our brands every month,” Joey Levin, CEO of Match’s parent company, wrote in a letter to shareholders last year. “Facebook can give up and scrap their dating project anytime, but that&#8217;s not an option for us—it&#8217;s our life.”



And there’s something to be said for online anonymity.



During the first day of the two-day event, Zuckerberg announced that the company would be focusing on privacy. Which seems ironic now that it wants to be active in its user’s romantic lives.



“I get that a lot of people aren&#8217;t sure that we are serious about [privacy],&#8221; Zuckerberg said at F8. “We are committed to doing this well and to starting a new chapter for our products.&#8221;



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Other announcement topics include:



Messenger—In addition to a desktop messenger app, friends can watch videos in real time together, through a group message.



Facebook Redesign—A new, more ‘immersive’ look and reimagined groups tab will be added.



Groups—New capabilities for specific types of groups, for instance, job groups will have templates for employers to post openings.



Marketplace—Paying for purchases and continental U.S. shipping will now be available directly through Facebook.



Instagram—Updates to Instagram include shopping from posts, a donation sticker for users to donate through the platform, and camera features with effects and interactive stickers.



Oculus Quest and Rift S—Facebook has opened pre-orders for new VR gaming system Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift S.



Spark AR—The interactive AR platform will now support both Windows and Mac and will include new features for creation and collaboration.



Portal—The video chat device will now be available internationally, include voice command and messaging functions and allow users to integrate photos from their Instagram feed.



&#8211;Monica Melton; ForbesStaff

gettyimages-98592727-594×594

Facebook Recommits To A More Personalized Dating App, Your Privacy

Swipe left or right for love at first site? While dating apps make money playing cupid in cyberspace, some users have burned their fingers flirting with danger.

A serendipitous meeting at the gas station, a chance encounter at a bar on a rainy Saturday night or divine intervention during church service on Sunday…
This is certainly not how the millennial generation finds love these days.
American artist Julie Dillon says: “Our universe grants every soul a twin, a reflection of themselves. The kindred spirit, and no matter where they are or how far away they are from each other, even if they are in different dimensions, they will always find one another. This is destiny; this is love.”
But that was before dating apps played cupid in cyberspace. Today, the smartphone-obsessed generation would rather enter the world of dating online.
Love too has officially been disrupted. The once-taboo subject is an online trend and businesses are cashing in.
According to Statista, revenues in the online dating segment are expected to show an annual rate of 3.9%, resulting in a market volume of $1.6 billion. And for those confident enough to enter this world, it has its own lingo that you need to master first.
Ghosting, for example, is the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone suddenly and without warning or explanation, withdrawing from all communication.
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Breadcrumbing refers to the act of sending out flirtatious, but non-committal text messages (i.e., ‘breadcrumbs’) in order to lure a sexual partner without expending much effort. Zombie-ing is when someone you thought had ‘ghosted’ you shows up unexpectedly again in your life (usually through texts or social media).
Benching is when you start dating someone you think is nice and who has potential, but you&#8217;re not crazy about him or her.
Orbiting is the term attributed to a form of behavior where you&#8217;ve been ‘ghosted’, but the person who ‘ghosted’ you still engages with you on social media. The latest new word is fishing, a practice where you send messages out to a whole lot of your matches on a dating app, wait and see which ones bite and then you select the one you want to pursue.
The online dating vocabulary is just as varied as the number of platforms to go ‘fishing’ on.
Tinder is perhaps one of the most popular dating apps, with enough takers across Africa. The app has a simple user interface that allows users to share real-time photos as they chat with their matches and swipe left or right to select who they are interested in.
Other apps include Bumble, Grindr, Speedate, Benaughty, Are You Interested (AYI), Tagged, Ok Cupid and many more providing singletons a never-ending stream of possible suitors.
“Do you swipe left or right? That is all it takes to find that perfect someone on Tinder. There are billions of people in the world and quite frankly, it is very unrealistic to think that you might magically bump into the one you are destined to be with without taking matters into your own hands,” says Ola (who did not give his full name for privacy reasons).
He has been an avid user of dating apps for the past five years. During this time, Ola has been on about 20 dates and had two relationships that lasted six months and eight months.
<blockquote>&#8220;I turned around to leave and he pushed me back into the room and locked the door behind me.&#8221;</blockquote>
“It all started out as something fun to do with my friends. At the time, we were looking for nice girls to hook up with and the idea of having a selection of girls who are also looking for boys at the touch of a button was perfect,” he says.
A couple of years ago, you would be scammed for dating online. But according to Ola, times have changed. This is now one of the best ways to meet singles in your area in part thanks to Tinder. These websites and apps widen the choice and provide a convenient way to match people with their ideal mates.
“If you were to meet a girl in a bar today, you will have to spend a fortune on drinks for her and her friends and she will probably still not give you her phone number. Why waste your time meeting someone who is not even interested in you. With online dating, they get to see your picture, read a little something about you and get in touch if they find you interesting. By the time you meet, you are no longer meeting a stranger but someone you have been talking to for sometime,” says Ola.
The business is flourishing. According to eharmony.com: “There are 40 million Americans using online dating websites and users range from young to old. Young adults account for about 27% of users, up 10% from 2013 due mainly to the influx of dating apps on smartphones.”
<div id="attachment_37468" style="width: 260px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37468" class="size-medium wp-image-37468" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GettyImages-183824635-250x300.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GettyImages-183824635-250x300.jpg 250w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GettyImages-183824635-300x360.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GettyImages-183824635-600x720.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GettyImages-183824635-768x922.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GettyImages-183824635-853x1024.jpg 853w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GettyImages-183824635.jpg 1654w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px" />Computer keys with heart connected by a cable.</div>
According to the Pew Research Center, the overwhelming majority of Americans suggest that online dating is a good way to meet people. Subsequently, more than 15% of adults say that they have used either mobile dating apps or an online dating site at least once in the past.
“There is no stigma attached to online dating anymore. Everyone is doing it: some people are lonely, some have hectic schedules so do not have time to meet suitable partners and many are just curious to see what they might find out there,” says Ola.
Online dating services are now the second most popular way to meet a partner. Another factor for the popularity of online dating is time. Online dating presents an effective solution by providing users the ability to browse profiles, which is not as time-consuming or scary as mixing with people in real life. According to Psychology Today, about one in five relationships begin online nowadays, and by 2040, 70% of us will have met our significant other online.
However, with the growing popularity of online dating, comes a darker side most people do not hear about.
It is 46 degrees in the residential neighborhood of Lekki in Lagos. The oppressive August heat hasn’t stopped my rendezvous with Miriam (real name withheld) this afternoon outside Harvest restaurant here.
“I first used Tinder three years ago. At the time, I had been single for about five years and after countless failed matching sessions from my friends, a friend introduced me to Tinder. I was initially hesitant but I decided to give it a try anyway. That is when I saw his profile,” says Miriam.
Her profile matched her to her ideal mate; a six-foot tall, dark and muscular man who had a well-paying job, loved kids and was ready to settle down within the next two years.
“He also lived on [Victoria] Island so it was perfect. We spoke online for about a month and moved the conversation onto WhatsApp and started video-calling each other. We finally decided to meet and he invited me to his place to meet his family for dinner. I was initially hesitant but he assured me his sister and her kids were also in the house so I had nothing to worry about. So I agreed,” says Miriam.
On arrival, she was warmly greeted by her date who escorted her into the house. Immediately, Miriam sensed danger.
“There were two other guys in the house and no sign of his sister or kids. I immediately felt like this was a mistake. I turned around to leave and he pushed me back into the room and locked the door behind me. One of the men held me down and they took turns to rape me,” she recalls.
The tragic ordeal has forever scarred Miriam. Her cries for help were heard by a neighbor who brought other security men to the house. Unfortunately, for Miriam, it was too late. The harm had already been done. The men were arrested and charged with rape and are currently serving 10 years for the crime.
“This is a serious problem that affects most of these women who look for love online. Even Uber drivers sometimes attack their passengers so you are really risking your life by meeting a stranger online. Most of these men lie about their profiles. They know what type of language will attract their prey and unfortunately, those who fall victim to this are sometimes very young inexperienced girls,” says Victor Oppong, a freelance investigative journalist in Lagos.
According to statistics from datingadvice.com, there are about 16,000 abductions, 100 murders and thousands of rapes committed by online predators. Also, in 2011 alone, online con artists duped their victims out of more than $50 million in money and property.
“I did a story last year on a man who was duped into sending over $20,000 to a girl in London who claimed she was using the money to pay her debts and return to Nigeria to marry the man. He sent the money and never heard from the girl again. I always tell anybody who is using online dating sites to be very careful and only use trusted sites,” says Oppong.
According to research by Michigan State University, relationships that start online are 28% more likely to break down in their first year, than relationships where the couples first met face-to-face. And to make matters worse, couples who met online are nearly three times as likely to get divorced as couples that met face-to-face.
But no matter the perils of online dating, its popularity cannot be ignored. It offers something important for the millions of registered followers and that is the possibility of finding your soul mate in a crowd of 7.6 billion people.

Blowing kisses by phone

The Profit And Pain Of Online Dating

When Whitney Wolfe Herd started planning an October launch party for a new product at Bumble, America&#8217;s fastest-growing dating-app company, she was deliberate in her choice of venue: the Manhattan space that for 57 years hosted the Four Seasons restaurant, where regulars like Henry Kissinger, Vernon Jordan, Edgar Bronfman and Stephen Schwarzman created the ultimate power lunch.
The space now has a new name, new management and a new menu. And, as Herd insists, a new perspective on business. &#8220;The power lunch is no longer just for men,&#8221; Herd announces to the mostly young, mostly female crowd, before ceding the stage to the popstar Fergie. &#8220;We all deserve a seat at the table.&#8221;
That table surely now includes the 28-year-old Herd, who has changed the tenor of dating dynamics. By letting women make the first move, Bumble has amassed over 22 million registered users, to closest competitor Tinder&#8217;s 46 million, and at more than 70% year-over-year growth, to Tinder&#8217;s roughly 10%, it&#8217;s closing the gap quickly.
Bumble began monetizing via in-app purchases only in August 2016 and crossed $100 million in sales in 2017, a figure that – aided by the introduction of tailored, hyperlocal advertising – is projected to double in 2018.
Herd turned down a $450 million buyout offer from the Match Group in early 2017, according to sources with knowledge of the conversations. And these sources maintain that Match approached the company again later in the year to discuss a valuation well over $1 billion. This 30 Under 30 honoree retains 20% of Bumble, a stake that makes her a centimillionaire. (Match declined to comment.)
It&#8217;s a stunning comeback. As cofounder and vice president of marketing at Tinder, which has reinvented how people date and mate, she was part of one of the great business success stories of the smartphone age. But then she found herself in one of the era&#8217;s great public dramas.
In June 2014, she sued Tinder for sexual harassment, alleging that her ex-boss and ex-boyfriend Justin Mateen called her a &#8220;whore&#8221; and &#8220;gold digger&#8221; and bombarded her with threatening and derogatory text messages, which she attached to her complaint. She also alleged that Tinder, owned by IAC and then by its Match Group spinoff, had wrongly stripped her of a cofounder title.
The company denied any wrongdoing, but Mateen was suspended and then resigned. Sean Rad, then the CEO of Tinder, told Forbes in 2014 that Herd bore part of the blame for the bad blood between her and Mateen. The suit was quickly settled for a sum that Forbes previously reported to be approximately $1 million. (The settlement bars the parties from discussing the case.)
There&#8217;s no question who the founder of Bumble is. Rather than sulk about Tinder, Herd decided to compete against it. In doing so, she belatedly entered one of the most crowded and established digital fields (over 90% of online dating start-ups fail) and nonetheless quickly carved out a lucrative space by focusing on the needs of one segment: women.
<div id="attachment_35221" style="width: 380px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35221" class=" wp-image-35221" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Whitney-Wolfe-Herd-Bumble-200x300.jpg" alt="Whitney Wolfe Herd Bumble" width="370" height="555" />Whitney Wolfe Herd in the Bumble headquarters (Photo by Kristen Kilpatrick)</div>
More than 10% of Bumble&#8217;s users pay $9.99 for a monthly subscription to access perks like extra time to decide whether a suitor merits a message. At Tinder, just about 5% of users pay for a similar service, according to a report from the investment firm Jefferies. It helps, of course, that her segment also happens to represent a majority of the population.
&#8220;I just don&#8217;t harbor resentment toward anything or anywhere or anyone – I&#8217;m too busy,&#8221; Herd says. But if success is the best revenge, then nine digits in three years flat offers the kind of vindication people make movies about.
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Herd’s path to Bumble was unintended. In the months between filing suit against Tinder and settling, she experienced the sort of online abuse that&#8217;s all too familiar to women who make public sexual harassment allegations. &#8220;I was being told the ugliest things by complete strangers, and they were having full debates about me,&#8221; Herd says. &#8220;I wasn&#8217;t running for office. I wasn&#8217;t trying to be on a reality show. I was just a girl who left somewhere.&#8221;
When that abuse turned into rape and murder threats from strangers, she deleted her Twitter account. Panic attacks and paranoia followed. A Salt Lake City native who attended private school and is a third-generation legacy at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, she retreated to Texas and the family of her then boyfriend Michael Herd, who&#8217;s now her husband.
&#8220;I was broken,&#8221; she says. Trying to give some purpose to this trauma, Herd began sketching out a women-only social network called Merci, which would focus on positivity. &#8220;No compliments on physicality,&#8221; she says. &#8220;Compliments about who they are.&#8221;
Then came an unsolicited e-mail from someone with an unfamiliar address and a Russian name, Andrey Andreev. Born in Moscow and based in London, Andreev in 2006 had founded Badoo, an online dating network that is today the world&#8217;s largest, with over 360 million registered users in 190 countries.
Herd had met Andreev at a dinner in 2013 while she was at Tinder, and she&#8217;d made an impression. &#8220;To be honest, I immediately fell in love with Whitney&#8217;s passion and energy,&#8221; says the thick-accented Andreev, who has acquired a reputation as a recluse because he rarely grants interviews. &#8220;I thought she was a very cool lady and that I should be watching her very carefully.&#8221;
When she didn&#8217;t reply, his team e-mailed Herd&#8217;s lawyers, wishing her well with her legal battle and adding that he&#8217;d like to work with her. &#8220;My original idea was to get her as CMO at Badoo,&#8221; says Andreev, who&#8217;s 43.
As it turned out, Herd had plans to visit her little sister at cooking school in Paris, and she made a pit stop in London. She didn&#8217;t want any part of his job offer. &#8220;Dream on – I&#8217;m not for hire,&#8221; she recalls saying. &#8220;I&#8217;m starting a company, and I don&#8217;t want to be in dating.&#8221; She did pitch him on Merci, though.
While Andreev liked the idea of a women-centric social brand, he thought Herd should stick to her forte and his: the dating sector. They spent days walking around London&#8217;s streets and parks together, exchanging ideas. Andreev told her he wanted to pair her innate talent for marketing and branding with the infrastructure, capital and resources at his disposal after almost a decade at Badoo.
After she settled the Tinder lawsuit in September 2014 – which, conveniently, did not contain a non-compete clause – she took Andreev up on his offer. He&#8217;d make an initial investment of about $10 million for launch marketing and commit additional funds to fuel growth, taking 79% of the company. She&#8217;d be the founder, the CEO and a 20% owner, with all the autonomy those titles imply, while tapping into Badoo&#8217;s infrastructure and Andreev&#8217;s know-how.
Both have come in handy. At Badoo, Andreev has a decade&#8217;s worth of A-B tests, data on the effectiveness of various monetization efforts and experience bringing a product to scale that have no parallel in the dating market. When the time came to start charging users for in-app perks, for instance, the team at Bumble was able to develop sophisticated technology to support subscriptions from day one thanks to input from Badoo.
From September to December of that year, Herd flew between Texas and London around 15 times. She and Andreev brought in two of her fellow former Tinder executives, Chris Gulczynski and Sarah Mick, to design the new app&#8217;s back-end and user interface. (The two left Bumble in April to launch their own agency but still share the 1% of equity not held by Andreev and Herd.)
<div id="attachment_35222" style="width: 380px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35222" class=" wp-image-35222" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Whitney-Wolfe-Herd-200x300.jpg" alt="Whitney Wolfe Herd Bumble" width="370" height="555" />Whitney Wolfe Herd (Photo by Jamel Toppin for Forbes)</div>
One night, over cocktails, Herd stumbled upon Bumble&#8217;s special sauce. &#8220;I always wanted to have a scenario where the guy didn&#8217;t have my number but I had his,&#8221; she recalls telling Andreev. &#8220;What if women make the first move, send the first message? And if they don&#8217;t, the match disappears after 24 hours, like in Cinderella, the pumpkin and the carriage? It&#8217;d be symbolic of a Sadie Hawkins dance – going after it, girls ask first. What if we could hardwire that into a product?&#8221; It was the kind of brilliant tweak that comes from someone who understands the target demographic because they&#8217;re in it.
After toying with names, the two settled on Bumble, confident that branding details like hives and bees would prove a marketing boon. The app went live in December 2014 and garnered over 100,000 downloads in its first month. &#8220;Women were ready for this,&#8221; says Dave Evans, an industry consultant who has chronicled hundreds of bad experiences women have had with men on dating apps. &#8220;Women got scared years ago. This goes way back.&#8221;
It’s 105 degrees outside Bumble&#8217;s new headquarters in an otherwise residential neighborhood in north Austin, Texas. The oppressive August heat hasn&#8217;t stopped passersby from gawking at the building&#8217;s exterior. For its grand opening, artists have covered the sunflower-yellow roof and walls with thousands of oversize pastel balloons. It looks like the inside of a gumball machine. Pedestrians take selfies in front of it; cars linger, drivers asking the name of the company inside. At Bumble, even something as ostensibly mundane as a crosstown move is a marketing opportunity.
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Bumble has 70 employees, approximately 85% of whom are women, including in all the top jobs, Andreev aside. The new office reflects that, from posters and neon signs espousing various Bumble mantras like &#8220;You&#8217;re a Queen Bee,&#8221; &#8220;Be the CEO Your Parents Always Wanted You to Marry&#8221; and &#8220;Make the First Move.&#8221; When Bumble hands out its cream-and-yellow sweaters as gifts at events – the familiar honeycomb logo on the front, along with the word &#8220;Honey&#8221; – there&#8217;s invariably a scramble.
&#8220;I think it&#8217;s part of feeling empowered, being proud enough to say &#8216;I&#8217;m on this service,&#8217; &#8221; Evans says. &#8220;On the street, if I was wearing an AdultFriendFinder shirt, it&#8217;d be a different story.&#8221;
The bee theme and Bumble&#8217;s signature yellow are front and center in the app, which works like this: When two users of the opposite sex match by swiping right on each other&#8217;s profile, the woman must send her potential date a message first or the connection is void.
By giving women control over the initial contact, Bumble feels more polite and walled-off than competitors, avoiding the unsolicited photos &#8211; including the occasional male genitalia &#8211; that plague online dating. Last year Bumble banned shirtless mirror selfies (common in male profiles on Tinder); they were the most-left-swiped photos. This doesn&#8217;t mean Bumble can prevent all abuse or unpleasant experiences &#8211; but it does undercut them.
The more controlled environment has resulted in surprising dividends. Hundreds of thousands of women indicated on their profiles that they weren&#8217;t there only for love. They also cared about friendship and career. Hence BFF, an offshoot that focuses on platonic connections between women, and Bizz, which launched officially at the October party at the old Four Seasons in New York and offers a challenge to LinkedIn, with the same women-first interface that Bumble&#8217;s users have grown accustomed to. &#8220;We&#8217;re taking out the soliciting nature and the sexism that exists in networking,&#8221; Herd says. &#8220;We think we have a chance.&#8221;
Success for these offshoots has been modest so far. Bumble BFF has been tried by over 3 million users, but just 500,000 are active in a typical month. Bumble Bizz is too new to evaluate, but like taking on Tinder with a product customized for just under half the workforce, even modest success carries huge potential.
&#8220;To be able to test at that scale is something most start-ups can&#8217;t do,&#8221; says Evans, the consultant. &#8220;They can seed that network with millions of people on Day 1.&#8221;
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Of course, there&#8217;s at least one other dating start-up that also has the scale – and enough men and women – to delve into such areas. Rad, who is still at Tinder running its mergers and acquisitions arm, Swipe Ventures, declined to comment for this story (as did Mateen). But the company is obviously taking notes on Bumble&#8217;s moves: Last year Tinder also expanded into platonic relationships with an investment in Hey! Vina, a fast-growing female-friendship network.
And then there&#8217;s the keen interest of Tinder&#8217;s parent, the Match Group, which remains the biggest player in the online-dating business in the United States. The publicly traded company, which in addition to Tinder owns Match.com, OkCupid, PlentyOfFish and other niche dating sites, would clearly like to add Bumble to its roster.
&#8220;Look, Match has been lucky, because they have 45 different brands,&#8221; says Brent Thill, who covers the dating-app market for Jefferies. &#8220;But probably the one brand that seems to have caught everyone&#8217;s imagination is not theirs.&#8221;
Herd wouldn&#8217;t comment on the attempted buyouts, but selling to Tinder&#8217;s parent and folding Bumble under the same corporate umbrella would, of course, serve as a poetic coda to the ugliness of 2014. Indeed, among those at the headquarters dedication were representatives of a high-profile Hollywood production company that is contemplating making a movie about her saga. It is, Herd acknowledges with a laugh, a pretty good story. &#8211; Written by Clare O’Connor

Tag: Tinder

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