Bumble’s Founder Wants You to Solve the Problems That Break Your Heart
Whitney Wolfe Herd founded Bumble to change gender dynamics and to encourage people to be kinder on the internet.
In the wake of Blackstone’s $3 billion acquisition of Bumble’s parent company MagicLab, Whitney Wolfe Herd was named MagicLab’s CEO. Today she leads more than 700 employees and over a hundred million users across Bumble and Badoo worldwide. The 30-year-old new mom says she’s determined to build a powerful brand that impacts lives in a positive way. Herd shares lessons she’s learned from starting two successful businesses (Tinder and Bumble) in her 20s and the importance of staying true to yourself, despite the outside pressures we all face.
Build a business around something that feels unfair
There's this whole notion in Silicon Valley of going out and building your passion, I disagree. Ask yourself what keeps you up at night. Consider what you hate. Find something that breaks your heart; maybe it's a certain illness that somebody in your family has suffered from; maybe it's the way your window shuts. Figure out what makes you mad and then build a solution.
Bumble grew out of a personal low point. I really wanted to build a powerful product for women in order to change gender dynamics and encourage us all to treat each other better on the internet.
With the rise of dating apps came the rise of women being abused on the internet. As Tinder gained popularity, we started to see the negative consequences of social media and technology. They were inundated on dating platforms and getting a lot of unwanted, abusive messages. I had this theory that the abusive behavior started because males tended to make the first move. They had to go and be the aggressor; they had to go hunt. And when they got rejected, that rejection led to aggression and obsession. When you can hide behind your cell phone, everything gets more intense.
“I want to be part of rewriting the narrative of how we communicate with each other in a more positive way.”
I experienced that abuse firsthand. I was a 24-year-old cofounder of [Tinder] one of the hottest companies on the planet. I was on a rocket ship, and I basically fell flat on my face. When you spend 24 hours per day for your first two years out of college grinding, launching, and being a part of this explosion, it hurts when it's over.
When I left Tinder, the internet turned on me. Journalists started calling me names. And I had this kind of aha moment. If I was being abused on the internet, what was the 13-year-old girl going through in middle school? She had to deal with Twitter and Instagram and all of these apps that never end. I wanted to rewrite social media to make things kinder and more bearable, mostly for women.
I believe you can tweak human behavior through digital interaction. I want to be part of rewriting the narrative of how we communicate with each other in a more positive way. That’s what led me to start Bumble.
Don’t compare yourself to others
When people ask me how I’ve done so much at age 30, I tell them I didn't go and get some job that somebody said I should get. I didn’t try to work my way up the ladder. I was the last of my friends to find a job after college. I had friends take jobs with consulting firms, banks, fashion houses, and magazines. I felt like a big loser because I was getting all this pressure from my parents when they watched my friends get great jobs. Many people spend too much time focusing on what they should be doing. This is the time to strike. This is your chance in life to take risks. This is your chance to go out and go broke and make some money and go broke again. Don't feel immune to age and don't waste your time.
Hard work will set you apart
If I've been able to achieve whatever I've been able to achieve, I guarantee anybody can do it. There's nothing special about me; I wasn't an all-star student, I just put myself in the right position and worked really hard. You also have to be willing to make sacrifices. I've watched everybody I know go through their entire Netflix over the last three months of shelter in place. I think I've turned the TV on twice. If you want to be successful, you have to put in the work and you have to be fiercely dedicated and focused. Someone like Serena Williams is not Serena Williams by accident, she puts in the work.
Create your own destiny
You can engineer the right place at the right time for yourself. You can find the right opportunity in the most mundane things. Before the launch of Tinder, I went to dinner with a friend and ended up speaking to someone who would later become the CEO of Tinder. He had this opportunity to hire someone for marketing for another product. Rather than dismissing it as a nice dinner conversation, I followed up the next day. I was drawn to the open-endedness and the lack of formality, there was no structure to the opportunity, but I saw flexibility. I thought, maybe if I could just get my foot in the door. Step one was trusting my own instinct.
Be honest about what you don't know
Let go of your ego. Identify what you're good at, define what you personally bring to the table, and then look at the table and fill those other six empty seats. Put your business, your mission, and your users or customers first. You have to come second and you have to be willing to learn and challenge yourself. No matter which founder or CEO you're talking to, they did not get here by themselves. Running a company is a constant learning curve. You have to be willing to learn and to make mistakes every day. I thrive off of mentorship, teamwork, and collaboration. When I started Bumble, I knew I needed somebody to design the product, I needed somebody to actually code the product, I needed somebody to focus on front-end and back-end engineering, and I needed someone to help me understand my legalities, to think through HR, and to really formalize the company.
In closing, whether you’re starting your career or making a mid-career pivot, don't waste your time on things that don't feel right. Find the things that break your heart and go do something good for the world.
Bonus Answers from Whitney
How can I get more Bumble matches?
It’s pretty simple. Be more engaged on the app and fill out your Bumble profile so that it reflects the most authentic version of yourself. Bumble users can also adjust preferences through various features such as filters and badges, so you can be more intentional about the type of person you’re looking for. Filters and badges indicate a user’s values and lifestyle choices such as religion, politics, fitness, and even astrology sign.
What’s happening to online dating during shelter in place?
I think this period of social distancing and isolation due to COVID-19 has made everybody kind of reevaluate what they want out of a relationship and what matters most when it comes to finding a romantic partner.
Users are definitely using the product more and sending more messages than usual. They’re video chatting and using our voice chat—two products we built to make dating safer, long before this pandemic. Our average phone call lasts nearly 30 minutes, which shows that people are leveraging video chat and voice chat features on Bumble to go on meaningful virtual dates. It’s clear that Bumble users are finding virtual dating to be a great way to spend quality time getting to know their new and existing matches on a deeper level.
