Category: Reporters – Alyson Shontell

Tinder’s Clever Marketing Tricks, Q&A With Co-Founder Sean Rad

Posted on February 18, 2017

Tinder logo with backgroundBUSINESS INSIDER – Feb 15 – Tinder is now worth $3B.

Q: How did you know Tinder was an instant hit?
A: We texted 500 people. Immediately, 80% of the people we texted signed up. The next day, we grew 50%.

Q: Was there anything else you did to get that initial kick?
A: Yes. It was a funny story. Justin's younger brother was throwing a birthday party for his best friend at USC. We offered to pay for the party bus and call it Tinder party. Students couldn't walk in unless they downloaded Tinder. So ~400 people downloaded Tinder at USC.

Q: Did you intentionally do the college-by-college thing?
A: We realized after that event that it was an effective means for getting the word out. We also realized our harshest critics would be college students. And if we can win our harshest critics, then we can win everyone else.

by Alyson Shontell
See full article at Business Insider

See all posts on Tinder

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

The League’s Has Now 100,000 People On The Waitlist

Posted on March 5, 2015

The league craigslist adBUSINESS INSIDER – Mar 4 - The League is a new, exclusive dating app that only lets in the "most interesting" singles. The only way to get in is by applying to a long waitlist that's approaching 100K people, or with a VIP pass from someone who's already a member. A League member or employee recently posted a listing on Craigslist, offering a VIP ticket for $100. The listing has been pulled by the company. The app raised $2.1M.

by Alyson Shontell
See full article at Business Insider

See all posts on The League

Summarized by Courtland Brooks Internet Dating Marketing Consulting

Bumble Has Better Initial Traction Than Tinder, Witney Wolfe Says

Posted on January 28, 2015

Bumble whitney wolfeBUSINESS INSIDER – Jan 28 – In August, Whitney Wolfe was in the middle of a very-public sexual harassment lawsuit with Tinder, which is now valued at ~ $750M. She says she came up with the name and initially promoted it on college campuses. She was given a cofounder title. One person who reached out to Wolfe after the lawsuit was Andrey Andreev, the co-founder of Badoo. Now he’s partnered with her on a new dating app that resembles Tinder, Bumble. They recruited another Tinder co-founder who departed, Chris Gulzcynski, and Tinder’s former VP of Design, Sarah Mick. Bumble, like Tinder, uses profile swiping to match single people in the same town. But on Bumble, women are forced to make the first move. Wolfe says the initial traction is even better than Tinder’s was, with ~100K downloads in a little over one month and high user engagement.

by Alyson Shontell
See full article at Business Insider

See all posts on Bumble
See all posts on Tinder
See all posts on Badoo

Summarized by Courtland Brooks Internet Dating Marketing Consulting

Hinge Is Giving Tinder A Run For Its Money

Posted on October 23, 2014

Hinge logo new dec 13BUSINESS INSIDER – Oct 22 – Like Tinder, Hinge lets users see profiles of single people nearby. They can like or nix a profile. Unlike Tinder, Hinge only connects friends of friends. At the end of 2012, Hinge only had $32K left in the bank. Justin McLeod's, Hinge's founder and CEO, raised $100K a few months prior, but only a few thousand people were using it. $25,000 went to a hail-mary pass: a massive 2K-person launch party in Washington. Two weeks before the party, Apple rejected Hinge's app. The morning of the party, Apple finally approved the app. Hinge is now one of New York's hottest startups. In July Hinge raised $4.5M, bringing its total funding to $8.6M. The app makes ~8M matches a month. (Tinder, by comparison, makes 15M matches per day).

by Alyson Shontell
See full article at Business Insider

See all posts on Hinge

Summarized by Courtland Brooks Internet Dating Marketing Consulting

Tinder’s Pitch Deck When It Was A Tiny Startup

Posted on July 14, 2014

Tinder picBUSINESS INSIDER – July 11 – Here's what the $500M app was like when it was first starting out and how it planned to monetize. It used to be called Match Box. The company changed the name because it was too similar to Match.com.

by Alyson Shontell
See full article at Business Insider

See all posts on Tinder

IAC To Acquire HowAboutWe

Posted on June 28, 2014

Howaboutwe logo new dec 13BUSINESS INSIDER – June 27 – The deal has not yet been finalized. It's expected to close on Monday, at which point, a number of HowAboutWe employees may lose their jobs. HowAboutWe and IAC have been in serious deal talks for the past week. It's unclear how much IAC will be paying for HowAboutWe, or if the brand will continue to standalone among the other dating brands in IAC's portfolio.

by Alyson Shontell & Hunter Walter
See full article at Business Insider

See all posts on HowAboutWe

This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

Kingfish Labs Raises $500,000 To Turn Facebook Profiles Into Dating Profiles

Posted on March 27, 2012

Yoke fb app logoBUSINESS INSIDER – Mar 27 – There are a lot of dating sites and many of them pull in Facebook data. Yoke is Kingfish Lab's first Facebook app. Kingfish Labs is a new company that raised $500K from Lerer Ventures and Softbank Capital to crunch Facebook data and create recommendation apps. Kingfish Labs was founded by Fishman and a fellow Huffington Post employee, Jeff Revesz. Rob Fishman served as Huffington Post's social media editor. Jeff Revesz joined the company in 2010 when his startup, Adaptive Semantics, was acquired. There they met Ken Lerer, Huffington Post's co-founder and an investor in Kingfish Labs. When a user signs up for Yoke, they can say if they're single or in a relationship. If they're in a relationship, they become a matchmaker and can introduce single friends to each other. If they're single, they can send a Yoke or Facebook message to a friend for an introduction to the second degree person.

by Alyson Shontell
See full article at SF Gate

This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

HowAboutWe Raises $15 Million Series B Round

Posted on November 18, 2011

Howaboutwe logo newBUSINESS INSIDER – Nov 18 - HowAboutWe has just raised a $15M Series B round led by Khosla Ventures with participation from RRE, FF Ventures and some angels. On HowAboutWe users post what they want to do on a date and then see if there are any takers. HowAboutWe launched in April 2010. They raised a $3.2M Series A round led by RRE in September 2010.

by Alyson Shontell
See full article at SF Gate

See all posts on HowAboutWe

Clever: Dating Site with Different Approach

Posted on June 2, 2011

Clique logo BUSINESS INSIDER – June 1 - Clique is a new a dating site that launched at last month's New York Tech Meetup. Singles are encouraged to sign up per usual but the site doesn't work without unavailable friends signing up too. Those in relationships sign up as "wingmen" and match single friends up, just like they would at a party. The most engaged users on Clique are female matchmakers, not daters. Clique will not make users pay for accounts. Instead, the site will make money from broadening access to daters (users can pay to see friends of friends of friends) and from group deals that will help couples plan dates.

by Alyson Shontell
See full article at SF Chronicle

See all posts on Clique