College entrepreneur to Forbes CEO: the rise of Whitney Wolfe Herd

If you’re familiar with the world of online dating, you most likely understand the premise-swipe right if you’re interested, swipe left if you’re not. With modern dating so rudimentary, how has Bumble become a publicly traded, billion-dollar sensation?

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Year over year since 2014, Bumble has steadily gained market share and made its way into smartphones across the world. Bumble’s entire app was centered around dating for women-what they’re looking for, what makes them comfortable, and has grown exponentially due to the creator’s ability to infer what features would benefit women as their user base grew.

A brief look at key data for Bumble makes it clear that just because this app was created by women for women, it’s not to be underestimated. Creators of Tinder, Hinge, and other top-of-the-line competitors no doubt were not prepared for the dating app giant that Bumble would become-in just a short 7 years, might I add.

• Bumble is available in 150 countries around the world;
• With 42 million monthly users worldwide;
• Bumble is the 3rd largest dating app with nearly 1.7 million monthly downloads;
• Bumble went public with an $8.3 billion dollar value;
• Female Founded Female Led, Bumble has 650 employees, 85% women; are made each week on the app;

Throughout this growth study, you will gain an understanding of how Bumble came to be, how they’re setting precedents for dating culture, and how their strategy to become a one-stop shop for women’s social needs continues to bring them to the top.

Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Whitney Wolfe Herd is the co-founder and CEO of Bumble. Before Bumble came to be, Whitney had long had the entrepreneurial spirit. While attending college at Southern Methodist University in Texas, she started her first business at the young age of 19.

Always an activist, Whitney was inspired to create bamboo tote bags to benefit people affected by the BP oil spill in 2010. She managed to enlist celebrity stylist Patrick Aufdenkamp and the Help Us Clean Up Project was born. The project gained significant press and attention after celebrities like Nicole Richie were seen wearing the bamboo tote.

With humanitarianism in her blood, Whitney was driven to Southeast Asia after college where she volunteered with local orphanages. Her background and desire to help people and use her space on this earth for good would eventually tie into her unfounded success as a billionaire woman with a billion-dollar app for women.

Following her non-profit stint in college and her overseas efforts, Whitney began working on a start-up project in 2012 with Sean Rad, the founder of Tinder. This initial start-up was not Tinder but a different tech project called Cardify. Cardify was a platform that aimed to help retailers reward their customer base with simple loyalty solutions. This project was abandoned, however, and space became available for the creation of Tinder, the leading dating app in the world.

Finding tinder: dating app sensation, a VP Position, a dramatic exit

After abandoning Cartify, Sean Rad and Whitney worked together to create Tinder and kicked http://www.datingranking.net/local-hookup/leicester off a global sensation that would change the world of online dating. The swipe and match feature became the door to online dating for Millennials, and is all Gen Z has ever known. The premise of making a split-second decision based on a photo just made sense in our world of instant gratification and ease of access.

On e had begun. By 2013, the app had seen 10 million downloads and had one million users in the first year. Tinder amassed its user base by marketing directly to its demographic-colleges and young adults. Everything that Tinder became was built on this premise-to design a dating app and company practices that resonated with young people.