FORBES AFRICA – Feb 5 – Whitney Wolfe Herd's dating app Bumble began monetizing via in-app purchases only in August 2016 and crossed $100M in sales in 2017. It has amassed ~22M registered users. (Tinder has 46M), and at ~70% YOY growth, to Tinder's ~10%, it's closing the gap quickly. More than 10% of Bumble's users pay $9.99 for a monthly subscription. At Tinder, just about 5% of users pay for a similar service, according to a report from the investment firm Jefferies. Herd turned down a $450M buyout offer from 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 $1B. 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.
Category: Outlets – Forbes
1.4 Billion Leaked Passwords Found On The Dark Web
Inside Dating App Hater’s Shark Tank Deal With Mark Cuban
FORBES – Dec 7 – Last Valentine's Day, Goldman Sachs alum Brendan Alper, 30, launched his new dating app, Hater, which matches people based on what they hate rather than what they love. At business pitch show Shark Tank that aired Nov 26, Alper struck a deal with Mark Cuban. He will invest $200k in exchange for a 10% stake in the company, valuing Hater at $2M. Just before the show, Alper had raised $500K from a venture firm called Sweet Capital, which bought a 12.5% stake, valuing the company at twice as much.
Q: How did your appearance on Shark Tank come about?
A: They reached out to us.
Q: What was the most challenging part about applying?
A: The application process is very difficult and lengthy. You have to pass several tests at various rounds to proceed to the next stage.
Q: What did they tell you about whether your segment would air?
A: That's the hardest part psychologically. You don't know through the entire process whether you’re going to make it.
Q: What was the taping like?
A: Very stressful. We rehearsed the pitch 100 times. But you don't know what they're going to ask. None of that is scripted.
Q: Which of their questions were toughest to answer?
A: How are you going to make money and what are you going to do about growth? Why should we invest in you based on your relatively small number of users compared to other apps? We have 750K users worldwide.
Q: Match.com has 21M users. How can you compete?
A: Our app isn't just for dating. It's for meeting in a social capacity. We can't compete purely from a numbers perspective.
Q: Why did you do a deal with Mark Cuban when other sharks were offering you more money?
A: To be honest, the one thing we didn't really prepare for was picking a shark. It's a strange thing to have to make a decision in 10 seconds. Also we'd just closed a $500,000 investment from another investor so the money didn't matter so much to us.
Q: But your other deal valued the company at twice the amount Mark Cuban's offer did. Why dilute the value of your company so much?
A: There are a lot of unique benefits that come from working with the right person.
Q: How did your other investors react to you selling a stake to Mark Cuban for half of what they paid?
A: No investor likes to see that happen but they understood the context.
Q: Where does your deal with Mark Cuban stand now?
A: We had to sign a non-disclosure agreement so I can't talk about it. But it's being worked out now.
Q: How has your appearance on the show affected your business?
A: We got a lot more downloads.
Ashley Madison Caught Exposing Cheaters’ Private Photos
by Thomas Fox-Brewster
See full article at Forbes
Matrimony.com: A Market Leader In Online Matchmaking
FORBES INDIA – Nov 30 – Murugavel Janakiraman's Matrimony.com, launched with an initial focus on the Tamil community, is now a market leader in online matchmaking. BharatMatrimony, has 15 language-based domains; there are other properties like EliteMatrimony, AssistedMatrimony and CommunityMatrimony, offering specialised services. According to comScore, matrimony.com is the leader in the online matchmaking service space in India in terms of the average number of website pages viewed by unique visitors. In June 2017, Matrimony.com's online properties clocked 991K unique visitors, while its competitors Shaadi.com and Jeevansathi.com reported 420K and 348K, respectively. In FY17, the company showed a profit of ₹43.78 crore ($6.6M) on a revenue of ₹292.9 crore ($44M). It also reported a ₹18.8 crore ($2.8) in profit for the quarter ended Sep 30 this year. However, it had a negative net worth of ₹26.79 crore ($4M) for having restated its losses for the financial years 2014, 2015 and 2106, which cumulatively amounted to a loss of ₹87 crore ($13M).
by Anshul Dhamija
See full article at Forbes India
Indian Dating App Inclov Is Helping Disabled People To Find Their Love Match
FORBES – Nov 1 – Launched in 2016, the app, which has ~19k registered users, has so far helped ~6k disabled people to meet their spouses. "Our algorithm matches on the basis of someone's level of dependence, cure availability, medications and therapy for their disabilities," says Inclov's co-founder Kalyani Khona. It's not surprising that Inclov has found resonance in a country where 59% women and 48% men refuse to marry anyone with a physical disability, and disabled people are considered ineligible to marry those without disabilities unless "adjusted" by high dowry. In September, Inclov, which plans to expand to other countries in coming years, raised an undisclosed amount in its pre-Series A funding round from a clutch of investors.
Happn Adds A Bit Of Gamification With CrushTime Update
FORBES – Oct 21 – Happn offers up people that you cross paths with on a daily basis. This is not a new feature of the app, it's the entire selling point of the app. The newly released CrushTime feature takes crossing paths with potential exes to a new level of user engagement, to lead matches to a real date. CrushTime randomly notifies users that one of four other Happn members they crossed paths with that day liked their profile. Users will then have a chance to guess which of the four members liked their profile. If they pick the right one, it's an instant crush. If not, they still sent a "like" to that user and hopefully, the user will "like" them back. Similar to Tinder, conversation will still require mutual likes.
All The Stuff That Tinder Knows About Its Users
FORBES – Oct 1 – In an article published on the Guardian UK, Judith Duportail made use of the European Union's data protection laws to request Tinder that they release all the data that they have available on her. She received eight hundred pages. Tinder managed to secure a staggering amount of data on her personal life, even her most intimate moments. Tinder makes it very clear from the get-go that information shared with the app is not certain to remain private. There should be laws to enforce this, but there really aren't any. A dating app, in the eyes of law, is just like any other app. Based on the information disclosed on its terms of usage, it has every right to use your information however it sees fit.
The League Is A Dating App That Doesn’t Play Games
FORBES – Sep 26 – Many dating apps treat users like children. Their designs feature bright colors and interactive gimmicks. "Are you trying to play angry birds or are you really trying to meet someone that is going to be your person?" Amanda Bradford asked. She's the Founder and CEO of The League. The app is integrated with LinkedIn because the educational and professional information is more accurate there. Having access to current employers allows The League to block coworkers from seeing each other. When new users sign up, The League adds them to a waitlist. Each user passes through a manual review to maintain a high standard for the community.
CEO Of League: Things You Should Know About Launching In A Crowded Market
FORBES – Aug 17 – The League, which is live in 16 cities and growing quickly, is one example of innovation in the dating space. It sets a daily limit of three to five matches. "You have to login every day. I like to think it makes you value each profile a little more," said the app's founder Amanda Bradford. Bradford herself is an alumnus of Sequoia Capital, Salesforce, Google, Carnegie Mellon and Stanford. She shared her top three strategies for building a company in an undervalued space at a recent brunchwork at Galvanize, the 21st century school for engineers, entrepreneurs and data scientists.
- Don't hesitate
- Invest in yourself Regardless of your industry, you have to "be okay with using your own funding," Bradford said.
- Get comfortable with hearing 'NO.'