by Joanna Glasner
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Mark Brooks: Now the VC money is drying up dating apps will have to fend for themselves. It's time for profit over growth. 2017 will be a shakeout year.
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TECH CRUNCH – Feb 7 – A startup called Ona is offering professional support to online daters. "It's about learning how to date better, using specialists," said co-founder Eric Berkowitz. Ona offers date coaching, consulting, therapy and matchmaking. The startup will charge $75 and $200 for their "core service," with possible premium services for an extra charge. The app is currently available for iOS users in New York City.
by Natasha Lomas
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TECH CRUNCH – Jan 21 – The terms of the deal weren't disclosed, but the price was reportedly "several million". Colin Hodge, the founder and CEO of Down, will join the Paktor team and will run Down and Sweet apps. He will also be overseeing Paktor Labs and be responsible for acquiring other apps, amongst other things. Down started in 2013 (as Bang With Friends) and grew to 5M downloads, about 200k MAU and $1M annual revenue from in-app purchases.
by Katie Roof
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TECH CRUNCH – Jan 10 – Bumble is releasing BumbleVID, a feature which will allow users to record 10-second videos directly within Bumble, which will disappear after 24 hours. Users can also add pre-recorded videos, but only ones taken in the last 24 hours.
TECH CRUNCH – Dec 31 – For years, Oakland-based stand-up comic Stroy Moyd has been driving for Uber and Lyft part-time to generate supplemental income. In a video clip he self-produced and called "Rideshare the Love," Moyd set up singles for a speed date, while driving them to their destinations. He arranged the dates by putting out word to his personal network and mailing list of fans, and through the occasional Craigslist ad.
TECH CRUNCH – Jan 3 – Now that Bumble is just about two years ago, we can start looking back and comparing it to where Tinder was at its two year birthday. Back in 2014 Tinder was expanding beyond college campuses and set on becoming dating app for all. Two years in the company was seeing a billion swipes a day, and matching ~12M people a day. On average, active users were spending ~90 minutes per day in the app. Bumble, on the other hand, reported that just 18 months after inception users were spending ~100 minutes a day in the app. And two years after launching, the company is matching ~4M people a day and seeing ~220M swipes per day. Swipe-based dating apps are much more common than they were two years ago. There is much more competition, and when Tinder was young it was one of the only app-based dating platforms in the space.
by Fitz Tepper
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TECH CRUNCH – Coffee Meets Bagel, the dating app that shows you one match per day, has build new apps with the help of Yelp and Spotify. The first app is called DateSpots.co and it lets people search for the perfect spot for a first date. The second one is Mixtape. Using Spotify's public API, Mixtape lets users build out collaborative playlists with their dates.
by Jordan Crook
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TECH CRUNCH – Dec 27 - The app ecosystem is strong and growing. By 2020, App Store consumer spend is supposed to exceed $100B (App Annie). Mobile now represents 65% of digital media time; 86% of this time on phones is spent in apps (AdWeek).
Q: How did you start Tinder?
A: With Tinder, we fundamentally solved a basic human need that had been ignored. Dating apps specifically had a stigma, and were focused exclusively on paid acquisition which didn't really create the same community an organic user base provides.
Q: How'd you get the right users, organically?
A: We went after the hardest users; users that seem like they don't have a need for the product. These can either be your worst critics or your greatest evangelists. For us, that was college students.
Q: How about paid ads?
A: Paid ads can be worth it, but your ads have to be subtle, unintrusive and organic: Your eyes are trained to ignore banner ads. They feel impersonal and coercive. Nobody likes to be forced to do anything.
Final lesson from the Q&A with Justin, was just how important retention is. "No amount of growth can replace solid retention. You're shooting yourself in the foot if you're focusing too much on growth when you should be focusing on product."
by Jesse Michels & Sunil Rayan
See full article at Tech Crunch