In 2014, Whitney Wolfe Herd created Bumble, former vice president and cofounder of Tinder, to change the power relationship between men and women in the dating world. Allowing women to take the first step and have control over who could approach them. “What if women made the first move […]?”
Make the first move
Bumble is a dating app that only allows women to send the first message after a match, “shifting old-fashioned power dynamics and encouraging equality from the start,” Following its founder’s philosophy of “When women are safe and happy, everyone else follows, and it creates a better relationship for everyone.” But its founder promises her commitment goes way beyond that, supporting social causes like the #MeeToo movement and Black Lives Matter. This philosophy influences their product and, most importantly, how the company is run; a female CEO, mostly female board of directors, and female celebrity investors are examples of this.
Whitney Wolfe Herd created Bumble in collaboration with Andrey Andreev, founder of Badoo, in 2014, the same year Wolfe Herd quit her job at Tinder and sued the company for sexual harassment and discrimination. The case was settled later the same year for 1 million dollars and stock. IN 2018 the companies also launched a foundation focusing on "[...]early-stage investments in businesses founded and led by women of color and underrepresented groups, with Serena Williams."
Seven years later, Bumble became public in 2021, taking the number of public female-founded companies over 20 for the first time following a three-year low in women-led start-up funding and exceeding all expectations after raising more than 2 billion dollars and valuing itself at over 7 billion dollars.
Even though the number of female CEOs doubled between 2007 and 2017, it remained extremely low at around 12% of all publicly registered companies.
A bit of context
Economical impact
After an incredibly successful launch as a public company valuing Bumble at 7 billion dollars, the platform has managed to stay competitive with “Match Group” despite some general skepticism about their female-first business model. “The bottom line is the vast majority of dating app users are men, and that fact alone makes a platform like Bumble, that are very female-focused, inherently market limiting,” the WSJ columnist Laura Forman told CNBC’s, Squawk Alley.
Like all other dating apps, Bumble had a resurgence due to covid19, lockdowns pushed the public to rethink how they meet other people and interact with each other, and these platforms promise a solution.
After its opening in 2004, Bumble has expanded to approach a larger market and positively impact more people. They created Bumble Bizz and Bumble Bff to allow the platform to grow from a dating app to a networking hub; they also added video call functionality adapting to global challenges and expanded into different markets, including India, a notoriously tough market for dating apps due to the cultural perception of casual dating.
Additionally, they expanded beyond their original cause, directly supporting the black lives matter movement and even changing the law in the united states to protect people from online sexual misconduct.
About Bumble
Reception
Positive
Right in the middle of the #MeeToo era, a female-founded application wanting to change the power relationship of men and women and allow women to take the first step, challenging the idea of women having to wait for men to approach them passively, Bumble couldn't have had better timing to come to the market.
Negative
Bumbles reception by the public wasn't perfect, from investors doubting the potential of a female-centric platform on a male drive market to the heavy controversy surrounding cofounder and leading investor Andrey Andreev. The company had lots to prove before even becoming public.
Define don’t limit
‘Don’t let your own brand identity limit your impact and growth. Rethink what it means, how the public perceives it, and how to expand upon it.
Find shared benefits
Supporting an idea shouldn’t be a binary division; try to identify how this idea can be beneficial for all parties involved.
Brand goes beyond product.
Don’t let your product be the only factor for change. Every member, every board decision, and every piece of communication should have your course as its backbone.
Build a team
Surround yourself with people that take your essence beyond what you could possibly do on your own. Collaborate and expand with them.
Set yourself apart
Make yourself unique and distinct through communicating of what you want to achieve clearly and uniquely.
Create the future you want
Maybe you can’t change the world entirely but creating a company that functions as you wished the world did as good of a start as any.
