4 ms·

How does Bumble scale, and not just end up a portfolio company for the Match Group?

tgtweak 6y ago
I think part of the tactic is to go for more non-dating. If I'm reading this s1 properly however there doesn't seem to be much traction there and majority of activity seems to be on the dating side.
- xxpor 6y ago
  Because the product makes no sense. Why would I use a swipe system focused on people's appearance to find new friends? The whole meet someone random and chat on an app is already super awkward for dating, but there's motivation to get over it for obvious reasons, and in that context at least attractiveness is a rational dimension to consider. At least something like Meetup pre-selects for fairly specific interests.
  - fastball 6y ago
    I've actually formed a number of long-lasting friendships via dating apps.
    - xxpor 6y ago
      Did you go into it expecting to be friends though?
      - fastball 6y ago
        I went into them hoping to meet and hang out with interesting people, and wasn't too bothered with whether it would end up purely friendly or veer romantic.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
polote 6y ago
The same way the Match group scales. Bumble today belongs to the Badoo Network, and is showing strong growth mainly because the product is better and more respectful of girls than Tinder. As long as Tinder exists their number of users will increase
- balls187 6y ago
  > and is showing strong growth mainly because the product is better and more respectful of girls than Tinder. Precisely. Bumble got popular because Tinder was not successful in helping connect people for meaningful relationships. Tinder works exceptionally well for keeping you engaged, and for a subset of users, good at fostering some sort of connection. As you are aware, Bumble's only innovation over tinder was requiring women to initiate the first message after matching. In their S1 filings, note they do not list any sort of relationship based metrics, rather all usage based. They are not in the business of helping people find love. As other products come on the market, users will eventually migrate away to services that are vested in creating long term partnerships. In my opinion, dating apps still have not solved the fundamental problem for straight couples--for a majority of women, they are overwhelmed, and for men they are lost in a sea of choices. But...that said, I have two dates this weekend from Hinge. Highly recommend Hinge over Bumble.
tw04 6y ago
At some point they can't and the question is: where are the government regulators? Honestly are there any other major players in the online dating space besides MatchGroup and Bumble? We've known for over a hundred years that capitalism doesn't work without competition and yet we seem doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over.
- edmundsauto 6y ago
  Facebook had a dating app before COVID that they were heavily promoting.
  - tw04 6y ago
    I just spent the last week reading from all sorts of people how Apple/google/amazon/facebook/etc have too much power, and your solution to this problem is that they take over yet another industry?
    - edmundsauto 6y ago
      No. I mentioned another major player who is in the space, to identify possible entities being discussed.

I think part of the tactic is to go for more non-dating. If I'm reading this s1 properly however there doesn't seem to be much traction there and majority of activity seems to be on the dating side.

xxpor 6y ago
Because the product makes no sense. Why would I use a swipe system focused on people's appearance to find new friends? The whole meet someone random and chat on an app is already super awkward for dating, but there's motivation to get over it for obvious reasons, and in that context at least attractiveness is a rational dimension to consider. At least something like Meetup pre-selects for fairly specific interests.
- fastball 6y ago
  I've actually formed a number of long-lasting friendships via dating apps.
  - xxpor 6y ago
    Did you go into it expecting to be friends though?
    - fastball 6y ago
      I went into them hoping to meet and hang out with interesting people, and wasn't too bothered with whether it would end up purely friendly or veer romantic.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

polote 6y ago

The same way the Match group scales. Bumble today belongs to the Badoo Network, and is showing strong growth mainly because the product is better and more respectful of girls than Tinder. As long as Tinder exists their number of users will increase

balls187 6y ago
> and is showing strong growth mainly because the product is better and more respectful of girls than Tinder. Precisely. Bumble got popular because Tinder was not successful in helping connect people for meaningful relationships. Tinder works exceptionally well for keeping you engaged, and for a subset of users, good at fostering some sort of connection. As you are aware, Bumble's only innovation over tinder was requiring women to initiate the first message after matching. In their S1 filings, note they do not list any sort of relationship based metrics, rather all usage based. They are not in the business of helping people find love. As other products come on the market, users will eventually migrate away to services that are vested in creating long term partnerships. In my opinion, dating apps still have not solved the fundamental problem for straight couples--for a majority of women, they are overwhelmed, and for men they are lost in a sea of choices. But...that said, I have two dates this weekend from Hinge. Highly recommend Hinge over Bumble.

tw04 6y ago

At some point they can't and the question is: where are the government regulators? Honestly are there any other major players in the online dating space besides MatchGroup and Bumble? We've known for over a hundred years that capitalism doesn't work without competition and yet we seem doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over.

edmundsauto 6y ago
Facebook had a dating app before COVID that they were heavily promoting.
- tw04 6y ago
  I just spent the last week reading from all sorts of people how Apple/google/amazon/facebook/etc have too much power, and your solution to this problem is that they take over yet another industry?
  - edmundsauto 6y ago
    No. I mentioned another major player who is in the space, to identify possible entities being discussed.