As the world of online dating becomes more and more mired in controversy, Bumble, and its CEO, Whitney Wolfe Herd, are making a difference.
Behind every great company, there’s usually a great story, and there are few stories on Wall Street better than Whitney Wolfe Herd’s founding of Bumble (NYSE: BMBL).
Turning dating on its head!
Let’s set the scene:
Whitney Wolfe Herd joins Tinder in 2012 and is largely responsible for its growth. She leaves in 2014, suing some of the management team — including chief executive Sean Rad — for sexual harassment. She then creates Tinder’s biggest rival with a dating app designed to create a safer dating experience for women. This company then IPOs with a valuation of $7.7 billion, making Herd the youngest-ever female founder to take a U.S. company public at just 31.
And Herd is getting investors really excited about Bumble, especially following its first-ever quarterly report this month:
- Q4 revenue increased 31% to $165.6 million.
- Q4 total paying users Increased 32% to 2.7 million.
- Full-year revenue rose 11% to $542 million.
- Full-year paid user growth was 22%.
Aspiring CEOs should take note of Herd’s approach, capitalizing on an underrepresented market (women) by offering them a service that not only empowers them in the dating scene but also gives them more opportunities to use the app for connections outside of romance.
Wolfe Herd has shown all the key attributes of being a brilliant founder at a very young age, by displaying her drive, innovation, and boldness in publicly leaving Tinder and building an app that easily rivals it, while still creating a purpose-driven business model.
It’s early days as a public company, but the future looks very bright, and it’s all because of Wolfe Herd’s unique, female-first approach to the dating business.
MyWallSt operates a full disclosure policy. MyWallSt staff currently holds long positions in companies mentioned above. Read our full disclosure policy here.