DECEMBER 2017 FORBES ASIA | 55‘I’m on this service,’ ” Evans says. “On the street, if I was wearing
an AdultFriendFinder shirt, it’d be a diff erent story.”
Th e bee theme and Bumble’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’s profi le, the
woman must send her potential date a message fi rst or the con-
nection is void. By giving women control over the initial contact,
Bumble feels more polite and walled-off than competitors, avoid-
ing the unsolicited photos—including the occasional male genita-
lia—that plague online dating. Last year Bumble banned shirtless
mirror selfi es (common in male profi les on Tinder); they were the
most-left -swiped photos. Th is doesn’t mean Bumble can prevent
all abuse or unpleasant experiences—but it does undercut them.
Th e more controlled environment has resulted in surprising
dividends. Hundreds of thousands of women indicated on their
profi les that they weren’t there only for love. Th ey also cared about
friendship and career. Hence BFF, an off shoot that focuses on pla-
tonic connections between women, and Bizz, which launched of-
fi cially at the October party at the old Four Seasons in New York
and off ers a challenge to LinkedIn, with the same women-fi rst in-
terface that Bumble’s users have grown accustomed to. “We’re tak-
ing out the soliciting nature and the sexism that exists in network-
ing,” Herd says. “We think we have a chance.”
Success for these off shoots 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.
“To be able to test at that scale is something most startups can’t
do,” says Evans, the consultant. “Th ey can seed that network with
millions of people on Day 1.”
Of course, there’s at least one other dating startup 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 acqui-
sitions arm, Swipe Ventures, declined to comment for this story
(as did Mateen). But the company is obviously taking notes on
Bumble’s moves: Last year Tinder also expanded into platon-
ic relationships with an investment in Hey! Vina, a fast-grow-
ing female-friendship network. And then there’s the keen in-
terest of Tinder’s parent, the Match Group, which remains the
biggest player in the online-dating business in the United States.
Th e 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.
“Look, Match has been lucky, because they have 45 diff erent
brands,” says Brent Th ill, who covers the dating-app market for
Jeff eries. “But probably the one brand that seems to have caught
everyone’s imagination is not theirs.”
Herd wouldn’t comment on the attempted buyouts, but selling
to Tinder’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-profi le Hollywood production company
that is contemplating making a movie about her saga. It is, Herd
acknowledges with a laugh, a pretty good story.ber of that year, Herd fl ew
between Texas and London
around 15 times. She and
Andreev brought in two
of her fellow former Tin-
der executives, Chris Gul-
czynski and Sarah Mick, to
design the new app’s back
end and user interface. (Th e
two left Bumble in April to
launch their own agency
but still share the 1% of eq-
uity not held by Andreev
and Herd.)
One night, over cock-
tails, Herd stumbled upon
Bumble’s special sauce. “I al-
ways wanted to have a sce-
nario where the guy didn’t
have my number but I had
his,” she recalls telling An-
dreev. “What if women make the fi rst move, send the fi rst mes-
sage? And if they don’t, the match disappears aft er 24 hours, like
in Cinderella, the pumpkin and the carriage? It’d be symbolic of
a Sadie Hawkins dance—going aft er it, girls ask fi rst. What if we
could hardwire that into a product?” It was the kind of brilliant
tweak that comes from someone who understands the target de-
mographic because they’re in it. Aft er toying with names, the two
settled on Bumble, confi dent that branding details like hives and
bees would prove a marketing boon. Th e app went live in Decem-
ber 2014 and garnered over 100,000 downloads in its fi rst month.
“Women were ready for this,” says Dave Evans, an industry con-
sultant who has chronicled hundreds of bad experiences women
have had with men on dating apps. “Women got scared years ago.
Th is goes way back.”
IT’S 105 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT OUTSIDE Bumble’s new head-
quarters in an otherwise residential neighborhood in north
Austin, Texas. Th e oppressive August heat hasn’t stopped pass-
ersby from gawking at the building’s exterior. For its grand
opening, artists have covered the sunfl ower-yellow roof and
walls with thousands of oversize pastel balloons. It looks like
the inside of a gumball machine. Pedestrians take selfi es 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.
Bumble has 70 employees, approximately 85% of whom are
women, including in all the top jobs, Andreev aside. Th e new of-
fi ce refl ects that, from posters and neon signs espousing vari-
ous Bumble mantras like “You’re a Queen Bee,” “Be the CEO
Your Parents Always Wanted You to Marry” and “Make the First
Move.” When Bumble hands out its cream-and-yellow sweat-
ers as gift s at events—the familiar honeycomb logo on the front,
along with the word “Honey”—there’s invariably a scramble. “I
think it’s part of feeling empowered, being proud enough to say
3O 3O
BILLION-DOLLAR BUMBLE“What if
women
make the
fi rst move,
send the fi rst
message?
And if they
don’t, the
match
disappears
after 24
hours.”F