Category: CoffeeMeetsBagel

Dawoon Kang, Founder of Coffee Meets Bagel: “This Is How I Work”

Posted on February 21, 2019

Coffeemeetsbagel dawoon kang linkedinLIFEHACKER – Feb 21 – After seeing the toxicity of other dating services, Dawoon Kang created Coffee Meets Bagel as a safer, friendlier alternative. "Dating apps have always had a huge imbalance in gender ratio. Because of that, guys get really frustrated and engage in behaviors that turn off women even more. So we wanted to create a great experience for everyone, and make a platform and experience that appealed to women," she says.

Q: What's your workspace setup like?
A: I have two monitors. My biggest "hack" is to put everything important on the calendar and to follow it to the teeth.

Q: What hacks went into Coffee Meets Bagel?
A: Manpower. In the beginning, everything on Coffee Meets Bagel was done manually. Manual matching. Manual approval. Matching was something that we quickly automated. Manual approving actually went on for quite a while, which was a real pain.

Q: Who are the people who help you get things done?
A: Everyone on my team, of course! I've started outsourcing more things that I know aren't my strengths, or that I simply don't enjoy doing.

Q: Do you have any dating hacks of your own?
A: Start by self-reflecting. We end up wasting a ton of time on the wrong people because we don't know what we want. Additionally, learn how to communicate.

Q: How do you recharge or take a break?
A: Exercise, meditation, and travel.

Q: What's your favorite side project?
A: Pole dancing.

Q: What are you currently reading, or what do you recommend?
A: I just read The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. It's a GREAT leadership book. I also just started reading The All-or-Nothing Marriage by Eli J. Finkel.

Q: What's the best advice you've ever received?
A: If you do whatever you said you are going to do every day, you will get whatever you said you are going to get.

Q: What's a problem you're still trying to solve?
A: I'm still trying to ensure that all singles out there get to experience connections that inspire them!

by Nick Douglas
See full article at Lifehacker

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Dating App Coffee Meets Bagel Sends Alert About Data Breach

Posted on February 15, 2019

Coffeemeetsbagel logo 2019FORTUNE – Feb 14 – Coffee Meets Bagel sent an email to users yesterday warning that some of their personal information may have been stolen. The company said it learned on Monday about an unauthorized access to a partial list of user data, but did not specify how many people were affected by the breach. The exposed information included names and email addresses used on the app before May 2018. The company reminded users: "we never store any financial information or passwords."

by Erin Corbett
See full article at Fortune

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What Will Online Dating Be Like in 2030?

Posted on February 14, 2019

Machine learning1MASHABLE – Feb 14 – Online dating isn't going away any time soon. If anything, it's likely to become further integrated into even more people's lives. "Online daters are exhausted," said Dawoon Kang, co-founder and co-CEO of Coffee Meets Bagel. "Machine-learning and AI may be able to help. People, a lot of times, don't know what they want. Better machine-learning could tailor your matches to your actions, rather than your stated desires", Kang said. Loveflutter, a UK dating app, has AI that matches people based on personality traits it decodes from their tweets. It also plans to use AI to coach users through meeting offline after analyzing their chats. Jean Meyer, the founder and CEO of European dating app Once, doesn't think the dating industry will crack the AI code. "The optimum for a dating service is to show you profiles of people that might be good enough, but not perfection," Meyer said. Pheramor, DNA Romance, and Instant Chemistry all analyze users' DNA to make matches. Video will play a larger role in dating apps, execs said, but how, exactly, is still unclear. Virtual reality in dating apps will also take cultural change.

by Brittany Levine Beckman
See full article at Mashable

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620M Accounts Stolen From 16 Hacked Websites Now for Sale on Dark Web

Posted on February 13, 2019

Data breach picTHE REGISTER – Feb 13 – For less than $20K in Bitcoin, it is claimed, the following pilfered account databases can be purchased from the Dream Market cyber-souk, located in the Tor network. Dubsmash (162M), MyFitnessPal (151M), MyHeritage (92M), ShareThis (41M), HauteLook (28M), Animoto (25M), EyeEm (22M), 8fit (20M), Whitepages (18M), Fotolog (16M), 500px (15M), Armor Games (11M), BookMate (8M), CoffeeMeetsBagel (6M), Artsy (1M), and DataCamp (700K). It consist mainly of names, email addresses, and passwords. There are a few other bits of info, depending on the site, such as location, personal details, and social media authentication tokens. There appears to be no payment or bank card details in the sales listings. The seller, who is believed to be located outside of the US, told us the Dubsmash data has been purchased by at least one person. Jenn Takahashi, spokesperson for the CoffeeMeetsBagel, said: "We are not aware of a breach at this time, but our security team is looking into this now." She also said they do not store passwords, and use third-party sites for authentication.

by Chris Williams
See full article at The Register

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Co-Founder & CEO of Coffee Meets Bagel on Reddit AMA

Posted on January 29, 2019

Coffeemeetsbagel dawoon kang reddit amaCMB BLOG – Jan 29 – Coffee Meets Bagel's Co-Founder and CEO Dawoon Kang braved Reddit's AMA (Ask Me Anything) on January 22 to answer the questions on everyone's mind: from tips for online dating, to where the name "Coffee Meets Bagel" came from.

Q: How can I increase my match rates on CMB?
A: Have an effective profile (longer profiles are better than short ones) and respond to chat requests when you receive them.

Q: Is Dating Sunday really the busiest day for online dating?
A: It was actually the biggest chat day in CMB history! The next most-popular day was the following Sunday (Jan 13)

Q: What are some of the best online dating icebreakers?
A: Jokes are great. Secondarily, commenting on someone’s profile is also a great way to hit it off.

Q: What's your online dating philosophy?
A: Quality over quantity.

Q: How does 'Discover' work?
A: The idea of Discover is to open up the pool of matches to people you might not consider otherwise.

Q: What are you doing about online dating bots?
A: This is a real problem on our app. This quarter, our goal is to get ourselves set up to use a third party safety specialists.

Q: What does the name 'Coffee Meets Bagel' mean?
A: We choose bagel as an homage to New York (where CMB started), and coffee just goes well with bagels.

See full article at Coffee Meets Bagel Blog

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Coffee Meets Bagel Goes Anti-Tinder With a Redesign Focused on Profiles & Conversations

Posted on December 12, 2018

Coffeemeetsbagel new screenshots dec 2018TECH CRUNCH – Dec 12 – Coffee Meets Bagel is announcing a significant makeover, which includes a change to the way the app works. The app has ditched the big "Pass" or "Connect" buttons. Instead, Coffee Meets Bagel's new interface puts more emphasis on user profiles – showcasing more of the text, and giving users the option to "heart" the profile or comment. Before a match takes place, users can tap a new commenting button that allows them to respond to the user's profile directly, before making a connection. Coffee Meets Bagel says that during its beta testing, members who sent comments to their matches had a 25% higher chance of getting liked back. And when comments led to conversations, there was a 60% increase in total messages exchanged. Coffee Meets Bagel has raised ~$20M since launching back in 2012, and has 7M installs to date, according to data from Sensor Tower, and ~$25M in gross revenue. Users spent ~$900K in the app last month, up 30% from Nov 2017.

by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch

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The Subtle Way Dating Apps Reinforce Our Racial Biases

Posted on November 23, 2018

Dating apps iconsHUFFINGTON POST – Nov 22 – A new study out of Cornell University suggests that dating app algorithms don't do us any favors as far as sexual racism goes. To conduct the study, the researchers downloaded the 25 top-grossing apps in the iOS app store as of fall 2017, including Tinder, OKCupid, Hinge, Grindr, Meetville and Coffee Meets Bagel. Then they looked for features that could affect users' discriminatory behavior toward other users. This included terms of service, their sorting, filtering and matching algorithms and how users are presented to each other. They found that most apps employ algorithms that cater to users' past personal preferences and the matching history. So if a user had matched with white users repeatedly in the past, the algorithm was more likely to suggest more white people as "good matches" moving forward.

by Brittany Wong
See full article at Huffington Post

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Coffee Meets Bagel User Files Suit Over Alleged Lack of Refund Policy

Posted on November 21, 2018

Class-Action-LawsuitCOOK COUNTRY RECORD – Nov 20 – Pandi Rrapo has filed a class action complaint in Cook County Circuit Court against Coffee Meets Bagel, alleging violation of the Illinois Dating Referral Services Act (DRSA). He alleges the dating app failed to offer a refund after he canceled premium services within three days of enrollment.

by Jenie Mallari-Torres
See full article at Cook County Record

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Coffee Meets Bagel Meets Redis Labs To Solve Performance Challenges

Posted on October 23, 2018

Coffeemeetsbagel logo Sep 15PR NEWSWIRE – Oct 23 – Dating app Coffee Meets Bagel has turned to Redis Enterprise to dramatically improve its app performance and smoothly scale operations as the company expands internationally and experiences massive user base grows. Redis Labs is the home of Redis, the world's most popular in-memory database, and commercial provider of Redis Enterprise that delivers superior performance, matchless reliability and unparalleled flexibility for personalization, machine learning, IoT, search, eCommerce, social and metering solutions worldwide.

See full article at PR Newswire

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Coffee Meets Bagel Hires New CFO And CTO

Posted on October 11, 2018

Coffeemeetsbagel logo Sep 15CHEDDAR – Oct 10 – Coffee Meets Bagel is adding two new executives to its C-suite. Dawoon Kang, CEO and founder of Coffee Meets Bagel, shares her news and explains what sets the app apart from others.

Q: What made you start CMB?
A: There is a gender imbalance on dating apps – 64% men and 36% women. In general guys are twice as active on dating apps as women. So they get frustrated because they don't get any replies to their messages and women are overwhelmed. So we decided to create a product that speaks to women.

Q: How are you different from apps like Bumble where women make the first move.
A: We are known to be app for people looking for real connection. We invest a lot of time and resources into our algorithm that selects the best quality matches for our users.

Q: You made ~50M matches. What contributed to this type of growth?
A: The big member base, of course. Lot of singles are tired of swiping and our users are really looking for real connections with fewer number of people.

Q: How much do you invest in your algorithm?
A: As you know, earlier this year we raised our B series and we are now building up our data science team.

Q: How much do you reach out to your users for feedback to see if your algorithm is working?
A: All the time.

Q: You have some big announcements for us…
A: We have hired our first CFO, Quincy Yang, who comes from OpenTable and new CTO, Will Wagner.

See full article at Cheddar

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