She’s one of the last millennial women CEOs standing after the backlash to “girl boss” feminism.

And at a
moment when most tech executives are making excuses for why they can’t be held responsible for the
behavior on their platforms, Wolfe Herd is the rare tech titan who sees her company as a tool for
shaping how people behave, online and off. 1

Do I think by a woman making the first move on Bumble we’re going to solve every women’s issue
around the world? No,” says Wolfe Herd. “Do I think it’s a good first step to recalibrate an age-old
system that sets us all up for failure, men and women? Yes. Because the Internet has megapower to
shift behavior–if you use it for good.” - Time

In February 2021, US-based dating app Bumble Inc. debuted on the New York Stock Exchange. The
shares were listed at US$ 72 per share, making Whitney Wolfe Herd (Whitney) richer by US$ 1.5 billion,
placing her in the league of self made women billionaires. Whitney, CEO of Bumble, founded the
company in 2014 after she left Tinder, another dating app she had cofounded. While leaving Tinder she
had filed a case against the company for sexual harassment, and alleged that that she was stripped out
of her co-founder role due to her gender.

Whitney thought of creating a social network

About Whitney

Whitney grew u pin Salt Lake City. Her mother worked in art museum and her was in sports goods
business. She has one sister.

After schooling Whitney joined SMU in Dallas, Texas. There she met Williamson who helped her join
sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma.

Whitney graduated in 2011 in international studies. She joined a company Cardify in Los Angeles. The
company worked on retail loyalty cards.

Some employees from Cardify started Tinder, a dating app that used the swipe mechanism. Whitney
was one of the co-founders of Tinder and focused on marketing. She used to visit college campuses to
promote Tinder.

Whitney faced lot of problems in Tinder. She was reportedly insulted by other founders and even
employees. She was allegedly stripped off her co-founder title and another co-founder sent her
derogatory text messages. One of the co-founders of Tinder called her ‘gold digger’ and sent a spate of
derogatory messages.

Whitney was Vice President of Marketing when she quit Tinder.

1
Charlotte Alter, How Whitney Wolfe Herd Turned a Vision of a Better Internet Into a Billion-Dollar Brand,
https://time.com, March 19, 2021.
She quit Tinder and filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against the company. It was settled for US$ 1
million plus stock. Mateen was suspended from Tinder resigned.

But after leaving Tinder, Whitney faced lot of backlash and was harassed online. She said, "I was being
told the ugliest things by complete strangers, and they were having full debates about me. I wasn't
running for office. I wasn't trying to be on a reality show. I was just a girl who left somewhere." 2 After a
while the abuses have turned into serious threats and she decided to shut down her twitter account and
move to Texas from Salt Lake City.

According to Alex Williamson, sorority sister of Whitney and former chief brand officer of Bumble,
Whitney was bent on proving herself again. She said “To prove that she was the person that did the
marketing behind Tinder, she did help the company grow, and all that was being stripped from her. She
did it once, and she’ll do it again, better.” 3

Whitney wanted to start a social networking platform exclusively for women, and wanted to name it
Merci. She wanted to create a platform where women were not judged based on their appearances

That was when she received a mail from Andreev, who is the founder of Badoo, an online dating
network, which was one of the largest online dating networks in the world. Badoo had met Whitney
when she was at Tinder and was impressed by her passion and energy. When he heard that she left
Tinder he wanted to join Badoo as the Chief Marketing Officer. Then Whitney met Andreev and declined
the offer saying that she had plans to start Merci. Andreev suggested that she should continue doing
something she is well versed with, and a dating app would be a better idea.

Whitney’s law suit against Tinder was settled in 2014, and she decided to proceed with a dating
platform. Andreev agreed to invest US$ 10 million in the venture for a share of 79%. Whitney had a
share of 20% and was the founder and owner. Association with Badoo helped Bumble in following the
right strategies and in building its freemium model.

who asked her to start a dating app. Whitney wanted to create an app where women had the control
over who they messaged and chatted with. Taking the idea forward, Whitney approached her a member
of her sorority group in college Caroline Roche (Caroline) (she). Whitney and Caroline started working
from a spare room in Caroline’s house.

They then moved their office to a small two bedroom apartment. Even as the Bumble app was being
built both of them started marketing the new app among university students and among Greek houses.

They promoted Bumble as a dating app for women. By starting another dating app Whitney had
entered one of the most crowded and competitive space, as studies showed that the success of online
dating apps was only around 10%.

2
Clare O'Connor, Billion-Dollar Bumble: How Whitney Wolfe Herd Built America's Fastest-Growing Dating App,
www.forbes.com, November 14, 2017.
3
Charlotte Alter, How Whitney Wolfe Herd Turned a Vision of a Better Internet Into a Billion-Dollar Brand,
https://time.com, March 19, 2021.
The first employees to join Bumble were Whitney’s friends, including Sarah Mick (she) (previously VP of
design at Tinder) and Chris Gulczynski (he) (co-founder/CCO at Tinder), who joined as consultants. They
started designing the backend and interface of Bumble. They had 1% share in the company.

Though the development of the app was in progress, Whitney was still concerned about abuse that
women faced on the dating apps. She said, I always wanted to have a scenario where the guy didn't
have my number but I had his. What if women make the first move, send the first message? And if they
don't, the match disappears after 24 hours, like in Cinderella, the pumpkin and the carriage?” 4

Whitney opted for a name Bumble, signifying hives and bees, with the idea that it would be very useful
while marketing and branding it.

Bumble was launched in December 2014, and had 100,000 downloads in the first month.

Those who joined later found that the company was dominated by white women, and said that the
place was difficult to work at. To address the concerns Whitney came up with a 72-hour rule, as per
which she asked all the employees to sort out all interpersonal disputes within 72 hours, so as to
discourage gossipy culture.

Initially the app didn’t take off as expected. It received lot of negative feedback and there were reported
issues with user interface.

Whitney was looking at making Bumble much more than just a dating app for women after several
women indicated in their profiles that they were looking for not just love. They were interested in
friendships, career, etc.

In this direction in 2016, Bumble launched BFF to help people find platonic friendships. This helped
people meet others with similar hobbies or those who stayed closeby.

As of 2017, Bumble had 70 employees with more than 85% being women.

The offices of Bumble reflected the beliefs of the company, so does its app and website. It was common
to come across phrases like ‘Be the CEO your parents always wanted you to marry’, ‘you are a Queen
Bee’, or ‘Make the first move’.

In 2017, Bumble Bizz launched, through which women could meet potential business conacts.

In the next few years it worked with Texas government to bring out a law that prohibited showing
obsene images without consent. It also introduced identity verification process. Then it came up with
guidelines to avoid harassment and body shaming.

4
Clare O'Connor, Billion-Dollar Bumble: How Whitney Wolfe Herd Built America's Fastest-Growing Dating App,
www.forbes.com, November 14, 2017.
Finding of Bumble

Whitney was thinking of creating a social network exclusively for women. Then she met Andrey Andreev
(he) , a Russian billionaire who founded and owned a dating app called Badoo. He adviced her to go for
match-making app.

This led to the creation of Bumble as a service for women by women. Adreev was the CEO of the
company. The association with Andreev helped in securing funds for the venture. Andreev invested in
Bumble via Badoo Trading Ltd., which was the major shareholder in the company with 1580000 ordinary
shares. Whitney held 400000 shares in the company. Andreev invested in Bumble as a startup. This
association helped Bumble gain from the experience of Badoo, which was the worl’s leading dating app.
The investment helped Bumble top operate without seeking outside capital. Bumble operated as a
separate company with its head office in Austin, Texas.

Blackstone Group Inc. bout a majority stake in the company, valuing at US$ 3 billion in 2020.

Bumble was known to be a place where women were empowered, where harassment was policed. It
went on to become the second most popular dating app in the US.

For the year ending December 2019, Bumble’s revenue was US$ 488.9 million with y-o-y growth of
35.8%.

Bumble’s operations were spread across several countries including the USA, the UK, Australia, and
Canada.

In early 2017, Match Group wanted to aquire Bumble for US$ 450 million. Later in the year the offer was
increased to US$ 1 billion.

Within three years of launch Bumble had 22 million registered users, and y-o-y growth was at 70%.

What is Bumble

In the IPO prospects it was mentioned that, “The Bumble brand was built with women at the center—
where women make the first move. We are rewriting the script on gender norms by building a platform
that is designed to be safe and empowering for women, and, in turn, provides a better environment for
everyone. We are leveraging innovative technology solutions to create a more inclusive, safe and
accountable way to connect online for all users regardless of gender.”

Bumble aimed to challenge the age old gender norms that existed in the society, where women were
not treated equally to men.

Whitney and her colleagues built the platform keeping in mind the problems women faced while using
the dating apps. Observers said that by doing so, women have more agency over their online dating.
Bumble was positioned as a champion for women.
The Bumble team visited several countries where it had operations to champion its cause and invited
local influencers to speak and popularize their mission.

Bumble operated two apps Bumble and Badoo, which were visited by over 40 million users every
month.

Subscribers on Bumble can look at various profiles and when two users of opposite gender ‘swipe right’ 5,
meaning when they indicate that they like each other, all such profiles are stored in a specific place. The
woman can then send a message.

Bumble was designed in such a way that women send the first message when users match on the
platform. Women who find a match on Bumble were given 24 hours after the match to message. If they
do not message, the match was discontinued and the connection became void. With women having
freedom to initiate conversations prevented women from getting unsolicited messages and images.

Bumble was among the top five iOS lifestyle apps in 20 countries as of August 2020. Since its launch in
September 2015 till September 2020, Bumble was used 1.7 billion times to make the first move.

Bumble as the second highest grossing app in the world with 12.3 million monthly active users as of
September 2020.

By doing so Bumble was working against the harassment of women, who were harassed on dating apps.

According to Allyson Kapin, general partner at investment firm W Fund and founder of the Women Who
Tech network. “Whitney saw an opportunity that wasn’t being addressed for women and based on her
expertise she’s made it into this gold mine, not just for her and her team but also her investors.” 6

Whitney was also working towards regulating human behavior on the internet.

Between 2014 and 2021 Bumble had users in 237 countries and had built 8.6 billion connections. In
2020, Bumble recorded 112 million ‘good chats’, which are chats with 10 or more messages being
exchanged between two people.

According to OC&C Strategy Consultants LLP, in the North America market Bumble had 30% more
female users for every male user, compared to other apps.

For nine months ending September 2020, Bumble had 1.1 million paying users.

Revenue

Bumble made money through subscriptions, and in-app purchases.

5
Swipe right means that when a user finds a profile attractive, he / she can mark it by swiping the finger across the
profile photo of a person.
6
At 31, Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd becomes a rare female billionaire, Bloomberg, accessed from
https://indianexpress.com, February 12, 2021
Bumble used a freemium model where enhancements were offered.

More than 10% of the Bumble users were subscribers who paid US$ 9.99 for a monthly subscription. The
subscription provided several extra benefits.

Those who opted for Boost package were allowed additional time to get in touch with their matches,
could do unlimited swipes and also had the option to see the profiles they have swiped, and also more
visibility. There was another package Premium, which offered extra features like advanced filters, see
the people who liked users’ profile and also see expired matches.

Branding Bumble

“Whitney is a big believer that branding is everything,” says Alex Williamson, Wolfe Herd’s sorority sister
and best friend, and Bumble’s former chief brand officer. 7

One of the reasons for Bumble’s success is the product design. Even while improvising the design, Lara
Mendonça (she), who joined the company in 2019, has put women in the forefront. She said, “Most of
all, it’s a women-first app. We don’t hide that. It’s part of our mission,” Mendonça says. “Solving
problems for women is something that will solve problems for everyone. Part of that is a principle that I
believe in that when you choose a vulnerable user, instead of an average user, you are designing for
more people and designing a product that will be better for people in general.” 8

Mendonça also made the app very convenient to use.

Making Bumble safe

When users violated the guidelines, Bumble initially gave written warnings. If it continued the users who
violated were suspended temporarily. Some users were banned from using the platform permanently. In
2020, the platform reportedly witnessed 880,000 such violations.

Using artificial intelligence Bumble scanned the conversations for violations, abuses, hate speech, etc.
When users complain about other users strict action was taken. Thus any people who could potentially
behave in a derogatory manner were stopped much before the others complain about them.

Artificial Intelligence also scanned different photographs for profiles that could be objectionable like
those with weapons, derogatory symbols, shirtless selfies, etc. The AI also recognized racial slurs, words
that reflect body shaming, insults, etc.

As soon as the AI recognizes a violation it was referred to a team of moderators, who decided if the
users’ postings were objectionable and if the user should be blocked.

About Badoo

7
Charlotte Alter, How Whitney Wolfe Herd Turned a Vision of a Better Internet Into a Billion-Dollar Brand,
https://time.com, March 19, 2021.
8
Lilly Smith, How Bumble’s Clever Design helped the App go Public,” www.fastcompany.com, February 12, 2021.
Badoo was launched in 2006 and is a free-to-use dating app. It is the market leader in Europe and Latin
America and had 28.4 million MAUs as of September 30, 2020.

Listing

On the first day the price of stocked jumped by 63% to reach US$ 70 per share.

Bumble was the second biggest dating app to go public after Match Group in 2015.

The IPO was listed for US$ 43. By taking Bumble public, Whitney became the youngest female CEO to
take the company public.

The IPO opened at US$ 76 per share

By February 15, 2021, they peaked at US$ 78.89 per share.

This took the share of Whitney to US$ 1.5 billion, which made her the world’s youngest self-made
woman billionaire.

In November 2021, private eqity firm Blackstone bought a majority stake in the company MagicLab that
owned Bumble and Badoo. Blackstone acquired the stake owned by Andreev for US$ 3 billion.

Women Billionaires

According to Bloomberg self-made women account for just around 5% of the world’s 500 richest people.

When startups led by women are taking into consideration, women including people of color faced
harassment. According to a survey by Women Who Tech 44% of female founders said that they faced
harassment at the job, and 30% of them have reported to have faced sexual harassment.

The representation of women in the companies that have gone for IPO in 2021 was less than 1%. When
funding was considered less than 3% of the venture capital funding was to ventures run by women,
according to Pitchbook.

Data showed that women-led startups produce better returns compared to those founded by men. Not
only that the women-founded ventures were more capital efficient and also generated higher revenues.

Looking ahead

Whitney wanted to make internet a kinder, more accountable place.

In the third quarter ending September 2021, the company reported that its user growth has declined
during the quarter. From 2.93 million paying customers in June 2021, the number dropped to 2.87
million by September 2021. The revenues, however, grew by 39% year-over-year to reach US$ 201
million
Competition was not far away, similar to Bumble’s BFF Tinder had come up with a special section for
platonic relationships called Hey! Vina. Match Group which had acquired Tinder 9, OkCupid10, Upward11,
niche dating website PlentyOfFish, and Hinge, the most popular dating websites. Math Group had
almost monopolized the onine dating in the US

==

For Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd, the massive shift comes months after big changes in
her own role. After Badoo founder Andrey Andreev sold off his stake in the dating apps
conglomerate he created, Wolfe Herd stepped into the CEO role of MagicLab (which has been
newly rebranded to Bumble), taking charge of its digital dating empire which includes the
Badoo, Bumble, Lumen and Chappy dating apps. We’re excited to announce that Bumble
founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd will be joining us at Disrupt this September to discuss
the future of the dating app market. 

In mid 2019, following a bout of exposés highlighting a culture of sexism and misconduct at Badoo,
Andreev sold off his stake to Blackstone. Wolfe Herd was appointed to the helm of MagicLab (now
Bumble), the parent company of Badoo and Bumble, where she now wields outsized influence in the
world of online dating apps.

Alongside the news of the rebrand, Bumble has also made some new appointments to the leadership
team, including Tariq Shaukat as President, Ronen Benchetrit as the parent company’s Chief Technology
Officer, and Tran Taylor, Chief People Officer.

9
Match bought out Tinder’s founders in 2017,
10
OkCupid is a website for those interested in serious relationships.
11
Upward is a Christian ten dating site