Hinge: Justin McLeod (2021)

In 2010, Justin McLeod was in business school, still trying to get over a bad breakup that had happened years before. Determined to solve his own problem and convinced that the best way to meet people was through friends of friends, he built an app to replicate that experience. Gradually, Hinge grew into a streamlined swiping platform that yielded mixed results: good dates, bad hookups, mismatched swipes, and missed opportunities. Disappointed with this outcome and inspired by a sudden twist in his own love life, Justin redesigned Hinge as an app for finding meaningful relationships, with the tag line "designed to be deleted." Today, Hinge is owned by Match Group and is one of the most popular dating apps in the U. S. This episode was produced by J. C. Howard, with music by Ramtin Arablouei Edited by Neva Grant, with research help from Daryth Gayles. You can follow HIBT on Twitter https://twitter.com/HowIBuiltThis & Instagram https://www.instagram.com/howibuiltthis, and email us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Guy Raz?

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• 0:46Guy Raz?

  build the prototype, analyze the market, maybe even come up with the idea, what separates the people who actually build something from everyone else? I don't have a clean answer yet, so I've been sitting with it with Claude. There's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at claude.ai/hibt. We get support from U.S. Bank. A question I love asking founders. What's the one decision you almost didn't make? The one that changed everything? Because it's never the obvious stuff. It's never, I decided to start a company. It's the small, boring, Tuesday afternoon decision you barely remember making until you realize it's the reason everything after it either worked or didn't.

• 1:32Guy Raz?

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• 2:16Guy Raz?

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• 3:00Guy Raz?

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• 3:45Guy Raz?

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• 4:27Guy Raz?

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• 5:11Speaker 01

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• 5:23Guy Raz?

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• 6:08Guy Raz?

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• 6:13Guy Raz?

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• 6:58Guy Raz?

  judgment, and control. Learn how you can get more out of your site from a Framer specialist or get started building for free today at framer.com/built for 30% off a Framer Pro annual plan. That's framer.com/built. Rules and restrictions may apply. And before we start the show, I recently heard a great business story from the music world. I was interviewing the rapper Macklemore, and he took me back to a time when record labels were offering him millions of dollars. And he had to make a choice whether to stay independent with more risk and more reward, or take the upfront cash and the security that comes with that. To hear how it played out, check out my interview with

• 7:42Guy Raz?

  Macklemore on my other podcast, The Great Creators. Just search for The Great Creators with Guy Raz wherever you listen to podcasts. And for today's show, we are running an interview from the archives that is so full of good stories and so full of great lessons that I'm going to stop talking right now so we can get straight to it. So enjoy.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  When we did the relaunch, my first instinct was obviously to go raise money. So I was talking to every VC, but no one would give me money.

• 8:18Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 8:18Speaker 02

  I mean, I was begging.

• 8:19Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 8:20Speaker 02

  And I had this one investor that I was really holding out for. And I remember the partner at the VC firm called me and she was like, you know, we've never seen a company that was cool and then went away and then was able to come back. And we just can't do it.

• 8:39Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  And I was like, Timberlands?

• 8:50Guy Raz?

  Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

• 9:02Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how the one that got away led Justin McLeod to build the dating app Hinge, and how Hinge led him to the love of his life.

• 9:20Guy Raz?

  In 2019, a very distinguished, peer-reviewed academic journal published a paper about human courtships. The study, led by Stanford sociologist Michael Rosenfeld, concluded that most romantic relationships now begin online. Now, if you are, say, under 35, this may not come as a huge surprise. Pretty much everyone you know either uses, or has used, or has at least downloaded some kind of dating app. But to anyone older, say, people over 40, this study may come as a shock because most

• 10:00Guy Raz?

  of them met their partners at churches, or workplaces, or school, or a party, or through a mutual friend, or at a bar. And sure, you can still meet your future life partner in any of those ways, but the bottom line? Online dating now seems like the default, the norm, the path of least resistance. And today, dating apps alone are a $3 billion a year global business. There is an endless array of them. So how does one app stick out from another? Well, when it comes to one particular app, Hinge, the company's tagline is "designed to be deleted," which, at first glance,

• 10:42Guy Raz?

  sounds like an unpromising business model. But when you think about it, what Hinge is basically trying to tell you is, "We're going to help you find the one, and then you won't need us anymore." Now, like any successful business, Justin McLeod built Hinge on relationships, relationships with users and investors and employees. But I think of all the founders we've had on the show, Justin's personal relationships, and one relationship in particular, were inextricably linked to the launch and very identity of his brand. Now, I don't want to give too much away here, because you have to hear his story to believe it.

• 11:23Guy Raz?

  But in a sense, Justin's own romantic life became a kind of litmus test for the way he hoped Hinge users would approach dating. Not just as a frenetic swipe-left, swipe-right kind of a game, but a serious, thoughtful, intentional first step towards something lasting and long-term. And the story of how Justin essentially turned his life experience into a brand is, in some ways, so dramatic, so implausible, that you'd half expect to see it on a TV show or in a movie. But we'll get there. Anyway, Justin grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. He was an only child who attended Catholic school.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  I think I was a pretty sensitive kid. I was a pretty scrawny kid. I was small. And so even, like, literally in second grade, when all the boys would be playing sports, I would be, like, hanging out with the girls. I just, like, I just... And if I had to play sports, I would usually fake an injury pretty early so that I could be nursed back to health by the girls. So I think I was... I don't know. Something about me always, I wasn't like a guy's guy.

• 12:36Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Did that continue into high school? Like, you're kind of hanging out mostly with girls? Or did that start to change?

• 12:43Speaker 02

  Well, when I was in seventh grade, I had this girlfriend, actually. I had a girlfriend in fifth, sixth and seventh grade. Her name was Kristen. And I was like totally in love. I mean, I was like done. I was like, I found my person. I'm like, I'm done. This is it.

• 12:59Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  And then one day in English class, she just turned around in her desk and dumped me. And

• 13:06Guy Raz?

  That was it. After three years.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  That was it. And I was so sad and heartbroken. And also at my school, because it was so small, it was a little bit clicky.

• 13:18Guy Raz?

  Everybody knew.

• 13:19Speaker 02

  And everyone knew. And I was sort of like kicked out of the cool kids group. And so for seventh and eighth grade, it was like, it was just torture. And I was supposed to go to this high school. It was like a feeder for a big Catholic high school in Louisville. And I just decided like, I'm going on a different path. I want to get away from these people. And I chose a small, private school in Louisville.

• 13:43Guy Raz?

  I mean, and let's be honest, seventh grade, you're not at your most sophisticated in life yet. I mean, this is still puppy love.

• 13:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it was traumatic. It was traumatic to me. And I know that sounds so silly, but I just was so heartbroken and I was so traumatized by the experience and like the social isolation that followed. I was just like, I'm never going to let that happen to me again. And I think I just determined that like, I was gonna be cool. And so I turned into like a completely different person when I entered high school.

• 14:16Guy Raz?

  How so?

• 14:17Speaker 02

  Well, for one, partying. I mean, I was, I was actually, I mean, I definitely had a troublemaker, class clown, got a lot of detentions and things in, in grade school. But it was always kind of like good natured, funny, fun, or like not doing my homework or being late to class. And when I got to high school, there was like a senior there named Billy, who I like idolized. And he was like a big drinker and a big partier. And I literally remember the first Weekend before school started my freshman year, we went to a field hockey game, which was the it sport at my high school. And there was like this big party later that night.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  And I knew the cool kids were going. And I went home, and this is, I mean, this is reflective of who I was at the time. I went home to my mom and dad and I said, there's gonna be a party tonight. There's gonna be drinking. I want to go because I was like really honest. I was like, I had just, I was really earnest. And I was like, and I really want to go. And they said, absolutely not. And I argued with them for like two and a half hours probably. And finally, my dad drove me to the party and I got dropped off. And I remember that night I had two beers and two shots. And I was floored and like passed out in a pool house. And I woke up the next morning and I just felt like a golden god.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  I was, I just like thought that was the coolest thing. And that began a career at high school of being the center of a party scene.

• 15:56Guy Raz?

  Huh. I mean, you must have been good enough at school, right? Because you went to college, you got into college.

• 16:02Speaker 02

  I did. Well, I had this other side of me that was still an overachiever. Like in, in high school, I got both the most detentions in history and the, I took the most advanced placement classes. I was the captain of the tennis team. I was the graduation speaker. So I had that whole side. It's not like I was just like partying and not doing any work. And I actually really reveled. I think it was a big part of my identity to be able to do both, to be able to be this like overachieving person, but also at the same time have this troublemaking party side.

• 16:35Guy Raz?

  All right. So you, you go to college. You went to Colgate University, which is a pretty small place in rural, sort of upstate New York. And I guess from, from what I understand, like you continued your kind of approach to life, I guess. Is this fair to say, right? Like a lot of partying there?

• 16:51Speaker 02

  I think I let the overachiever go to the wayside and I, and I doubled down on the partying. I mean, I remember around March of my freshman year, I woke up one day and I like reflected and I was like, I have not gone to bed sober this year. And I actually went in like March or April of my first year, I actually went to go see a drug and alcohol counselor at Colgate.

• 17:17Guy Raz?

  Hmm.

• 17:18Speaker 02

  And she was like, you know, I think you might have a problem with alcohol and drugs, and I think maybe you should stop doing alcohol and drugs. And I looked at her and I was like, don't you think that's a bit rash? I was like, I just wanted to like come and talk about my feelings. I didn't anticipate having to just stop. And so I didn't go back to see her. Except that I then got referred back to her when I got written up three times in one night, like a few weeks later. And she was like, I've already met this kid. He needs help. And that's how I spent my first summer after college in rehab all summer.

• 17:57Guy Raz?

  Wow. It sounds like you were a kid exposed to this early on and you just, a combination of maybe you had a sort of a predisposition to addiction, plus you were young and you didn't quite know how to handle it or how to moderate your behavior. And so a combination of that and addiction really kind of took over.

• 18:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it. I think going back to what I was saying before, I was a pretty sensitive kid and I think I had a lot of emotions and I think I didn't really know how to express them in a productive way.

• 18:30Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  And when I felt overwhelmed, it just felt the easiest way was to like overwhelm the uncomfortable feelings with this better feeling of getting high or drunk.

• 18:38Guy Raz?

  Were your, were your parents aware of it? And if they were, I'm assuming they were worried.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think they were worried. I think my mom was especially worried. You know, I was really good at holding it all together, though. And that's what I would always point to. I'd be like, well, look at my grades. I don't have a problem. You know, I have like a 3.7 GPA and I'm taking 400 level courses my first year. And I hit it well. You know, I wasn't, I wasn't a dummy. I figured out over time how to hide it and how to get away with it.

• 19:08Guy Raz?

  During college, you met somebody who you started to date named Kate. And I guess you kind of, you guys dated basically throughout college, right?

• 19:20Speaker 02

  I met Kate her first day of her first year. And it was my first day of my second year, so I'd just gotten out of rehab. And Kate was like the polar opposite. Kate showed up to school, never had a drink, never kissed a boy. So like very different human being than me. And my roommate had gone out in search of like finding some girls like the very first day of school, right? So he was like going out and like, and he finds these couple of girls out on the quad and invites them back to our place. And he's walking up the stairs with them. And there I am, passed out in the stairwell, like literally on a landing in the stairwell. Kate, I think, was scared.

• 20:05Speaker 02

  She'd never seen a passed out person in her life. And an RA saw us and Kate got her first. She was in trouble just for being around me. I wasn't even conscious. That was our first interaction. But later that year, she and I had a class together and we would sit together sometimes. And she developed a little bit of a crush on me. And one night she came over to my dorm room. We were chatting for a little bit and she asked me to walk her home and I walked her home. And we had our first kiss that night and then we were just inseparable after that.

• 20:43Guy Raz?

  But I guess shortly before you graduated from college, you and Kate split. Was it your decision or was that her decision?

• 20:51Speaker 02

  Well, we had a, we'll say rocky relationship, as you could imagine, trying to be with someone like me and someone like Kate. And we had this really strong personal connection and bond and really loved each other. I mean, really just were really attracted to one another and like magnets to one another. But it was also tumultuous because I was always going out and getting into trouble. And so we broke up and got back together like six or seven times during college. And at the end, we broke up. She actually transferred. She transferred to another school. She transferred to Wellesley. And we got back together one last time.

• 21:33Speaker 02

  And I just like, I just couldn't do it. I don't know why. I just let her go. And then I almost immediately regretted it. I wanted to call her like two weeks later and I just said, I have to stay out of her life. Cause I just kept interrupting it and messing it up and then leaving again. So I just vowed to like not contact her anymore.

• 21:52Guy Raz?

  All right. So 2006, you graduated college, you guys are split and that's the end of your relationship. And, and you obviously had to kind of deal with sobriety. How did you, how did you do it? I mean, how were you able to give up drugs and alcohol?

• 22:10Speaker 02

  On graduation day, I woke up and I'd been out partying the night before. And I was, I woke up at like a stranger's house and I had to get back home in order to like shower off and meet my parents who were going to come over and meet me. And I was walking home that morning and I just thought to myself, it feels like the steering wheel on my life is broken. I just had this innate sense that I was like supposed to go do something big. And I held on to this belief that I was like destined for success and I was going to do all these great things.

• 22:49Guy Raz?

  Where did that idea come from, by the way?

• 22:52Speaker 02

  I don't know, but I always had it. I, only child syndrome, perhaps, I'm not sure. But I, you know, I was looking at my life at that point and I was like, God, like, I keep wanting to go in this direction and yet every day I wake up and go this other direction and I feel like I do not have control. And it scared me. You know, I hadn't gotten the job that I wanted. I was taking some other random job in DC that I didn't really want. I'd lost the girl. You know, it felt like, didn't seem like I was on track for success. And, and I just vowed that morning to like, stop. And I did.

• 23:34Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 23:35Speaker 02

  You know, I participated in 12 step programs and I like really threw myself into work. And that was that.

• 23:42Guy Raz?

  I mean, in some ways, you're really lucky that this happened early to you in your life and you were able to deal with it early in your life.

• 23:50Speaker 02

  Hugely lucky. I didn't feel lucky. You know, I'd go to these meetings and these old people would be like, I, you know, I drank for 50 years and, you know, you're so lucky. And I'd be like, I'd be like, you're so lucky. You got to drink for 50 years. I had to stop when I'm 22.

• 24:06Guy Raz?

  All right. So you, so you graduate and, and you moved to Washington DC. And I guess you work in, in management consulting for, for a few years. And then you hit to business school, right? To Harvard Business School?

• 24:18Speaker 02

  I did. Yeah.

• 24:19Guy Raz?

  And your, your previous experience in a college environment was like super partyer and drinker. And I imagine that, that was also kind of, that drinking helped you meet people, right? A little bit because it-

• 24:32Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 24:33Guy Raz?

  And, and now you're in this new environment where you're, I'm assuming, no longer drinking. What was that like?

• 24:40Speaker 02

  It was so hard. There, I mean, there's just a lot of partying and it's how people connect and how people bond, especially in the early days. And I just felt like a fish out of water. I just felt so, I just couldn't be around that. And so I kind of just stayed away and, and socially, it was very hard for me to be there. Really hard.

• 25:01Guy Raz?

  So you are at, you're at Harvard Business School. And one of the advantages of going to business school is it creates a network. And a lot of people go to business school with that intention in mind, finding their future co-founder, like, you know, Andy Dunn of Bonobos did when he went to Stanford. Or, you know, Jen Hyman of Rent the Runway found her co-founder at Harvard Business School. Was that your intention? To, to find like your co-founder and, and start a business when you got there?

• 25:28Speaker 02

  No, because startups wasn't really a thing. I did have a sense that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. My dad ran his own business when I was growing up. So he was his own boss and he lived this kind of leisurely existence where he really felt in charge of his own destiny and he really instilled into me, like, you should go work for yourself.

• 25:47Guy Raz?

  How did you start to think about, while you were at business school, something connected to relationships or dating? What was the story?

• 25:55Speaker 02

  I mean, it was so out of left field. I had no idea what I wanted to do and interviews were starting. You have, like, most people have jobs by Thanksgiving. And the consulting firms were interviewing and I applied to all the consulting firms. I got rejected from all of them, except McKinsey. So I took the job and signed with McKinsey. And so it's around Thanksgiving and I've gotten John McKinsey and I'm actually dating this girl from HPS. And I just couldn't get Kate out of my head. I mean, everyone that I tried to date, ever since I'd lost Kate, that was like four years ago at this point, I would just compare to her.

• 26:32Guy Raz?

  Wow. By the way, were you in touch with Kate?

• 26:35Speaker 02

  No, not at all. I wouldn't, I didn't reach out to her. I just wouldn't. I wanted to.

• 26:41Guy Raz?

  You didn't even, but did you know where she was?

• 26:44Speaker 02

  I knew that she had graduated and met someone and moved to London with him.

• 26:52Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  That's all I knew.

• 26:53Guy Raz?

  But this is now four years after you split up and you're still, she's still on your mind?

• 26:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. It was just such a magical relationship and I think every, every relationship I had, I would compare and just no one felt like home to me in a way that she did. And I'm at business school and I can't get Kate out of my head. And I'm finally like, okay, Justin, it's been four years. You've been sober for four years. You've gotten into Harvard Business School. You've got a job at McKinsey. Do we think that we can reach back out to Kate?

• 27:27Guy Raz?

  Uh-huh.

• 27:28Speaker 02

  And so I did. I wrote her an email.

• 27:30Guy Raz?

  What did you say?

• 27:32Speaker 02

  I said, it was kind of like in a men's letter. It was kind of like, you know, I know that I did not act with a lot of kindness or integrity during our relationship. And I don't know how I could ever make it up to you, but I would love to try, basically. And she called me like the next day and we had this phone conversation and we actually agreed to meet back in New York that Christmas. And I was so excited. And then she called back the next day and she said, I'm sorry, Justin, I just can't. Like, if I see you, I don't know what's gonna happen. And I have a life now and I've just moved in with this guy.

• 28:16Speaker 02

  We have a flat together in London and I just can't see you. And I was totally heartbroken. In the back of my mind, again, I have these like, these feelings, but I had this feeling like Kate and I were like meant to be together and we were gonna be together. And when that happened, I was like, oh my God, like, it's like over. I've messed it up. And I felt like I had like torn the fabric of the universe or something. I mean, I know that sounds grandiose, but I just felt like this is not the way that it's supposed to be. And I like went into this total depression like for, I think, more than a week. I just cried. I like went to go see the therapist. I was like to get antidepressants. I just like wanted something. I just felt so horrible.

• 28:59Speaker 02

  And then I emerged from that and Harvard Business School is throwing this Valentine's Day party in February. And I, back to try to rebound, I was like this socially awkward person, didn't like to go to parties, but there was this one girl in this one class that I sort of thought maybe there was a thing. And so I was like really excited to list her as like a, it was like a crush party where you like list people that you had a crush on. It was kind of like a last chance dance dynamic. And then one day, I'm walking to class in early February with the class president, Brett, and we're chatting. I was like, oh yeah, and this, you know, dance is coming up, the Last Chance Dance. He's like, yeah, you know what, we decided, it was just too complicated. It's like 1,000 people, listing people and all that stuff, so we just scrapped that

• 29:43Speaker 02

  whole thing. And I was like, what? This is my chance. So I, I took it upon myself to build this. And computers are something I really threw myself into as a kid. I loved to code. So I decided to build an application that would allow people in the class to list their friends on Facebook. And if two people matched, it would alert them. So I was gonna build that and release it at business school.

• 30:14Guy Raz?

  Wait, it was a Facebook, like a web app, right? Because this is really cool.

• 30:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was a web app. It was a Facebook Canvas app. It was like Farmville. I don't know if you remember Farmville, but it was like, you could build an application within the Facebook frame. So that's what it was.

• 30:26Guy Raz?

  And, and the idea was that you would just, people would like, sign up for this, and then it would match them with other people in the app that they knew?

• 30:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, it would use the Facebook network. You know, so you'd log in, you'd have a list of your friends. I mean, this was, this was the Wild West, early days before there were a lot of privacy regulations and all that. So, you know, you'd log in, you'd download all their friend lists from the API, you would display them their friend list, you'd collect the people you have a crush on, you'd go through and select them. And then if they selected you, then it would let you know that it was a mutual match.

• 30:55Guy Raz?

  Was, was the fact that the dance was canceled, did that have anything to do with, with you launching it? Or was that just kind of coincidental?

• 31:04Speaker 02

  No, I mean, it's what sparked the idea. I don't think I would have, that initial spark would have happened had the dance not been canceled and I hadn't been walking with Brett that Wednesday afternoon to class.

• 31:17Guy Raz?

  Wow. So this was, basically, this idea kind of replaced the dance because the dance was designed to kind of do the same thing.

• 31:23Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 31:24Guy Raz?

  But it's just in real, in real life.

• 31:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. The original name of this, by the way, was called Secret Agent Cupid. And it was this whole thing of like, you're undercover, listing your crushes. It was a terrible name. I can't talk about it. But it was this, it was the beginning of this whole dynamic of this, what's called like the double opt-in of, you know, you list someone and they don't find out unless they list you too, or they like you too.

• 31:44Guy Raz?

  And, but how was this idea connected to anything in your personal life? I mean, I know you were heartbroken because Kate didn't want to meet you and, and you kind of didn't have a whole lot of success dating, but how was, was this, in a sense, a way to kind of solve your own problem? Or was this just an idea that kind of came about and seemed fun?

• 32:01Speaker 02

  No, it was totally to solve my own problem. I mean, it was very practical. It was very like, there's a girl in this class that I have a crush on that I would, I want to like, wanted to find a girlfriend. I mean, I'd always wanted to find, I just, I don't know why, but I've always just been this romantic who just really wanted to find my person and had this belief that when I found my person, like, everything would just be amazing forever. So I built this very practically for me.

• 32:25Guy Raz?

  All right. So you put this up there and you're at Harvard Business School. So presumably it wasn't that hard to get people to notice it because you just told people, hey, check this out, right?

• 32:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's a small class and a bunch of people hopped on and did it. And it led to a few matches. It didn't lead to much, but it got me thinking. I just thought, why doesn't this exist in the real world? Because at the time, the culture was, you'd sort of like creep on your friends' photos on Facebook. You know, you'd get on, you know, get on Facebook and you'd go through your friends' photos and you'd see someone kind of like cute in one of their photos that maybe you didn't know. It was like a friend of a friend. And so this idea sparked of like, if there was a dating app that was connected to Facebook, people would use it because it would be so simple. You already have your profile. It's already done. You already have your photos set up. You have social verification.

• 33:18Speaker 02

  If you just connected something that was really simple and connected to Facebook, I'll bet young people would use it. As opposed to at the time, all dating websites used, you know, screen names and you had to sign up and fill out these long profiles and do all this stuff. And it was a lot of friction. And so that excited me. I was like, there's really, there's something here.

• 33:38Guy Raz?

  I mean, this is still like, you're still in Boston and at business school, and this is like your last semester there. And you have a job lined up at McKinsey. But what happened to make you start to think that maybe this is something you should pursue after you graduate? Like, were friends at business school, like, finding success? Were they, were people saying, hey, this is awesome. I love this. Like, was that happening?

• 34:03Speaker 02

  I was obsessed with this idea. I don't know how to say it. It was like, I mean, the closest analogy I can imagine is like being, you're like, pregnant with this idea, and it is like coming out of you one way or another. And that's what it felt like. It was like, I couldn't stop. I couldn't sleep. I just was like, thinking about it all the time, about how the algorithm would work, and about how you would get people to sign up to it. And I just, it was like, being possessed. And then I found out that other schools and other people had had this idea. And what happens is, a lot of people join, people list their crushes, and then you find out whether you match or not, and then everyone goes away. And then that's when the insight came to me. You know, people mainly just like cruise their friends' photos.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  And like, what if this were actually not about people you already knew, but it was about your friends of friends? It was, and that's another piece that I think made it really accessible to the next generation. It's like, these aren't random strangers that you're going to see on this app. You're going to see friends of friends. It's the same idea of like, listing a crush, except now it's just people that you have a mutual connection with, and you can see some of their photos, and then so you list them as a crush. That was like, the idea that really got me to be like, I'm not going to take the job at McKinsey, or at least I'm going to push back the start date and see where this goes.

• 35:21Guy Raz?

  So you graduate in May, and you decide to pursue this. And, and did you need money? I mean, I have to assume you needed some money to try and get this off the ground, right?

• 35:31Speaker 02

  So I got together with a friend, her name was Frances, at business school. She worked at Google. And we each put in $12,000, which was obviously like, a lot of money for us both, but it's what I had. And so, we put in this money, and we hired a team of engineers down in Argentina to start building a prototype.

• 35:53Guy Raz?

  Argentina, because I'm assuming that was a lot cheaper than doing it in San Francisco.

• 35:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. And so I followed her out to San Francisco, where she was going to take her job at Google, but sort of half-time work with me on Hinge.

• 36:08Guy Raz?

  And that was all the money you had, $24,000?

• 36:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, $24,000. That was it. And so that's what we used to pay these developers. And we started to develop prototype, and I was sort of the product person imagining what the interface was going to look like. And she would help talk to the engineers, because she also coded. And so I followed her out to Mountain View. I'm sleeping on her floor in Mountain View. And eventually, she's like, "This has been fun, Justin, but I'm going to stay at Google. This isn't really my thing." So I left her apartment in Mountain View. I bounced around for a little bit, around SF and then Berkeley. And then I just was like, "This is not my place. I don't know

• 36:50Speaker 02

  anyone out here." And so I drove cross-country back to DC, where I had worked before and knew people and had a network. And I decided to start it there on my own.

• 37:02Guy Raz?

  And the idea was to build like a website, a dating website initially?

• 37:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, initially, it was a dating website. Initially, it was this Facebook Canvas app. And it was still, I think, that was primarily the idea. And it was initially clunky and complex. And it would like ask you like questions about your friends. And it had all these bells and whistles features. And it was way overcomplicated. But I was able to, you know, I ran around, and I was able to raise a little bit of money. I got into this little incubator in DC called Fortify, raised like a little bit from my little friends and family round of maybe like $100, $150,000. You know, most VCs, of course, wouldn't pay attention to us at all. We, I mean, we always trying to, you know, you come out of Harvard Business School, and you think the way that you start a business is you write a business plan, and

• 37:51Speaker 02

  you go to Greylock, and then they give you $50 million, and then you like...

• 37:55Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 37:55Speaker 02

  Right. And that is not, that's not how it works. So... We, you know, I'd go to these VCs and I'd be like, you know, we're going to create a dating app. It's going to be, you know, young people are going to use it. And VCs would be like, Match.com owns this market. You know, you'll never be able to beat them. But I, you know, I got a few believers and yeah, we just started building this website.

• 38:20Guy Raz?

  And was it still called, because originally you called it Secret Agent Cupid. Was that what you still were calling it at that point in 2011?

• 38:28Speaker 02

  No, no, no. That was like pretty, pretty early on. We moved away from like, it went through a few iterations in the early days. It went from like Double O Cupid to Secret Agent Cupid to Two Degrees to Three Degrees. And each of these names had like trademark issues and I just needed like a placeholder name. And that's where Hinge came from. I was like, I just, it was a friends of friends app. And I was like, I just need a name for something that connects two things. Like it's the thing in the middle. And I was staring at a door and I was like, I'm going to call it Hinge. And so I just called it Hinge.

• 38:59Guy Raz?

  That's interesting. I did not know that. So, so that's why. Cause a hinge connects the door to the door frame. I was, because when I first heard the name Hinge, I was like, huh, it's sort of a, it's like the, you know, the door swinging out back and forth. Like you're coming in and out of the door. Like one date, two dates, three dates, four dates, five dates. Like the door on the hinge keeps swinging open and closed. But that's wrong. That is not where Hinge comes from.

• 39:20Speaker 02

  That is not where Hinge comes from. It was just, it was like a placeholder name. I honestly don't love the name. I mean, it's kind of stuck now, but it was just, it was a placeholder. I was like, I needed something that connected two things that wasn't already trademarked. And anyone, any founder who's probably tried to name something before and spent lots of time on USPTO.gov trying to find a name that hasn't been trademarked, especially in like the love and dating space is no joke.

• 39:43Guy Raz?

  Yeah. So you are, you got a little bit of money. You're in Washington DC. And did you have an office or were you working out of the accelerator in Washington DC?

• 39:54Speaker 02

  We worked out of the accelerator. I mean, first I was just working out of my apartment. And then when we got into the accelerator, I started working out of the accelerator.

• 40:03Guy Raz?

  Got it.

• 40:03Speaker 02

  There were like four of us.

• 40:05Guy Raz?

  And what was the, I mean, like, I'm trying to think in 2011, when you started to look for potential investors, and I think it would be a little while before you got real money. I would say to you, what differentiates you from match.com? Why would somebody use OkCupid or JDate or whatever was out there? And I don't even know if Tinder was out there yet. What makes you different? And you would say, what?

• 40:33Speaker 02

  We're going to be stigma free. There was a lot of stigma around dating websites at the time. I think a lot of times VCs think by analogy. And they're like, that dating website has stigma. So like, dating websites have stigma. Like, that's just how that goes. But you have to look at like, the principles underneath that. Like, why do dating websites have a stigma? And the stigma was because it was difficult. The stigma was because you would have to spend a lot of time setting up a profile, answering long questions, paying a lot of money. So no one would do that unless they were really struggling in their dating lives and had to resort to that. And no one wants to admit that. Like, no one wants to admit to themselves, or certainly to other people, that they like, struggle in their dating lives and can't meet people.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  And so the idea was, people still want to be able to meet new people. You just have to make it frictionless. You just have to make it easy. If you make it easy, and you make a one-click sign-on, it won't have stigma. And if it doesn't have stigma, you're going to unlock the biggest single market, which is people who are 20 to 35, when those people didn't use dating websites. So that was the pitch.

• 41:38Guy Raz?

  But how would you match people? I mean, when you were pitching this to investors in 2011 or 2012, like, why would somebody, why would people use Hinge? When they asked you that question, you would say, okay, it's easier. But then you would say, I would say, well, but how do you match people? If you just one-click?

• 41:55Speaker 02

  So that is where the complexity of the original idea came from. We would ask you questions about your friends that we would use for the algorithm. So we'd show you Suzie and we'd say, would you describe her as more athletic, or more book smart, or more something? And you would answer that. And we'd like build up these sort of like personality profiles based on quizzes that we would give you about your friends. And so we would show you someone, and then I'll say, someone liked your friend Suzie, tell her to join Hinge. And then you'd tell Suzie, and then she would join Hinge, and then she would start answering questions about her friends, and it would unlock more people for us to have access to. And it was complicated. And people were a little confused because they were like, well, I'm joining us to find

• 42:39Speaker 02

  new people. Why are you asking me questions about my friends? But that is how it worked in the early days.

• 42:46Guy Raz?

  But basically, originally, you were saying there's going to be no friction, no, nothing to answer. But you did, ultimately, you did have to have a way to gather information about people, right?

• 42:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it was these fun personality quizzes about your friends as opposed to these like, long, intimate-

• 43:01Guy Raz?

  So it wasn't filling out a bunch of forms. It was just answering questions, like a quiz you would get.

• 43:06Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 43:07Guy Raz?

  So what kind of feedback were you getting? I mean, you still didn't have a whole lot of people using it, but was the feedback at least good?

• 43:16Speaker 02

  No, not really. It was, people were weirded out by it. People weren't used to it. Like, people didn't understand why you had to answer these questions about your friends. They, you know, people were nice, and they'd sort of nod their heads. But, you know, you could tell, like, they didn't really get it. And there was just no way that we were going to be able to sell one. You know, maybe at the end of like, an hour-long focus group, we would have sold someone on like, how it works and why it's great.

• 43:44Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 43:45Speaker 02

  But, you know, we weren't going to be able to do that with thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions of people.

• 43:52Guy Raz?

  When we come back in just a moment, how Justin decides to simplify Hinge and winds up building an app that, a few years later, he'll decide to pretty much rebuild from scratch. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 44:21Guy Raz?

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• 45:06Guy Raz?

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• 46:17Guy Raz?

  One more thing before we get back to the show. Please make sure to click the Follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And it's totally free.

• 46:33Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2012, and Justin is trying to take the friction out of dating by building a site that's meant to help people meet friends of friends. But in order to do that, he's got to raise some cash.

• 46:52Speaker 02

  I was mainly talking to investors in Washington DC. You know, there are some, a few VC firms there. And the amount of money we were looking for wasn't like Sand Hill Road money. It was just a few hundred thousand dollars.

• 47:07Guy Raz?

  Right. And I guess you didn't have a whole lot of success with them?

• 47:11Speaker 02

  No. The wisdom at the time was that there was a saturated market. You know, Match.com and eHarmony owned it, and it would be impossible to break into. Which I, you know, I looked at it and I'm like, I am in my mid 20s. None of my friends use dating websites. It is not saturated. It's just, it's very clear.

• 47:33Guy Raz?

  But they were saying, no, no, Match.com is owned by IAC, right?

• 47:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. And even if you get big, like they'll copy you, et cetera, et cetera.

• 47:42Guy Raz?

  I mean, did that in any way discourage you? I mean, did you ever feel like, God, they're really, maybe they're right?

• 47:48Speaker 02

  It frustrated me, but it did not discourage me because I had a strong thesis that they were not dismantling. They were just drawing these other irrelevant analogies. And so a big part of being a great entrepreneur is being hopelessly idealistic, but ruthlessly practical at the same time. You really have to balance these things. And I was being ruthlessly practical. I was like, no, no, like, there isn't a clear market opportunity here. And so I wasn't discouraged because they weren't dismantling the argument.

• 48:19Guy Raz?

  You're a year in now, and

• 48:23Guy Raz?

  It's really not getting much traction and you're burning through cash. What kept you from not just getting depressed or anxious about the possibility that this would just collapse?

• 48:34Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, I was definitely depressed and anxious.

• 48:36Guy Raz?

  Okay.

• 48:38Speaker 02

  I was worried and I was concerned with the feedback that we were getting. And at a certain point, it became pretty clear that iterations weren't going to get us there. And around Thanksgiving, and this is 2012, we have like $25,000 left in the bank at this point, and we probably raised like 150 or something like that. It's pretty clear this isn't going to go anywhere. So I had this kind of crisis moment over Thanksgiving. And I called the team and I'm like, let's start over from scratch. This needs to be simple. We got to get rid of all these questions. And by the way, it's 2012, so the world's going mobile and this needs to be a mobile application.

• 49:24Guy Raz?

  And that was because by 2012, you yourself, presumably and all your friends, were using iPhones?

• 49:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was starting, you know, the App Store was starting to become more popular. There were more companies starting to develop things for the App Store. So it just felt like if we're the dating company of the future, the dating company of the future is probably on mobile. And I think, again, the simplification, it dovetailed with the simplification of the interface, which is that we'll just make this thing really simple. And if it's really simple, it should fit on mobile. It's almost like a good forcing function to make it simple.

• 49:59Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 49:59Speaker 02

  Because you can't fit that much on a three and a half inch screen. And so let's just distill it down to like a photo, age, location, a few interests, and just like, yes or no, do you like this person? Move to the next person, and if it's a match, we'll let you know.

• 50:15Guy Raz?

  So, all right. So the idea here was to just do a pivot and focus on building a mobile app. I'm trying to figure out how you did that, though, because in 2012, building a mobile app was a lot more expensive than it is today. How did you guys do that?

• 50:33Speaker 02

  We used, at the time, there were these I don't want to get too technical, but there was a way to essentially build a website that looked like a mobile app and behaved like a mobile app that you could package as a mobile app. So that is essentially what we did.

• 50:51Guy Raz?

  What was your strategy in terms of getting it out into the world?

• 50:55Speaker 02

  So my, one of my really good friends from Colgate had moved down to DC with me. His name was Bennett Richardson. He were, he and I were original roommates when we first moved to DC. And he was just very plugged into the social scene. And so we just used his email lists and, and we were just like hustling to get people on and telling them to tell their friends. And we started with just iOS and we, and we just burned. I mean, we just, we just worked all day and all night because we, because it had to be when we were going to run out of money, which was February 7th, 2013-ish. And we took our last $25,000 and we threw a 2,500 person launch party in DC. We set the date and we just worked backwards from that.

• 51:41Guy Raz?

  All right. So, so this party that you're talking about, you, you, working on the app and, and I guess you decide, we're going to relaunch the company with a party. We're going to throw a big party, invite everybody we know, and hopefully people will download the app. That, that was the idea?

• 51:59Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, because the other issue was the cold start problem. And when you get one or two or three people coming in at a time, you know, in the early days, I would sit and look at the logs and I would watch. Someone would log on to the site and I would be like, oh my gosh. And I would watch them, you know, they would like like someone and then pass on someone and then like someone and then they leave and it'd be like, ah. I mean, that's the trickle that was happening. And we were just like, we've got to get everyone on at once. Like no one's going to stick around if there's not a lot of people on this thing. So we've got to just like throw this hail Mary. We've only got 25,000 left. We're going to pivot to mobile and we're just going to like get 2,500 people in here. They're going to be like the coolest, trendiest people in DC and they're all going to see each other downloading the app.

• 52:43Speaker 02

  And so they're gonna think it's cool and they're going to keep using it.

• 52:48Guy Raz?

  This is in February of 2013. Where was the party?

• 52:51Speaker 02

  It was on a floor of an office building that was about to be built out as a new incubator that we were moving into. And they hadn't touched it yet, so it was just this big empty floor. And so we just used that.

• 53:04Guy Raz?

  And I mean, how did you entice 2,500 people to come to the party?

• 53:08Speaker 02

  Open bar. We had a liquor sponsor who just, I think Tito's Vodka just shipped us a bunch of alcohol for free. We had like a DJ. We had an art exhibition. We had photo booths and a dance party. And everyone had to download the app to get in the door. Now, mind you, we actually didn't have an app almost because we had submitted the app to the App Store for approval and they were not giving approval. And we submitted like two weeks early. And it is the day before the launch party and we still have not gotten approval for the app.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  So we're about to throw this like launch party and we have no app for people to download. I was just like, I was trying to get in contact with people at Apple. I mean, who cares? We were like nobody. But I'm like trying to reach out to the head of the App Store and reaching out to any VC I've ever met and seeing if they have contacts there and just like begging and writing emails, trying to get this thing approved. And I remember like the night before the launch party, I just was like curled up in a ball in the floor of our little office at this incubator, crying. The last two years have been for nothing because we're going to launch this and we're going to have no app. And, you know, we skirted. We had like days of cash left at that point.

• 54:34Guy Raz?

  So what happened?

• 54:35Speaker 02

  I went to bed and I woke up in the morning and the app had been approved.

• 54:39Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 54:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. It was nuts. No explanation, never got an email back, never know why, but it was approved that morning.

• 54:47Guy Raz?

  All right. So that night, to get into the door, you had to download the app, which meant that's 2,500 downloads guaranteed, which is pretty good. How much of an impact did that have? I mean, did those 2,500 people, presumably not all of them, but did a percentage of them start to use it?

• 55:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, the next day, we had like 500 people log in to use the app who didn't have to. They like just came of their own volition and used the app. And then the next day, like 600 people came. And the next day, like 800 people came and we were off to the races.

• 55:22Guy Raz?

  And I know this would eventually change, but initially, let's be honest. I mean, if you, if you want to increase your chances of making money, there are a few places that, you know, will do that. Sex, maybe alcohol, a few others. Was the proposition in your mind like, or that you guys were kind of, let's say, selling to, to potential customers, users, was like, hey, this is a way to hook up? Was that, I mean, initially, part of the value proposition? Because I would think that that would make sense. I mean, that, that's what people want.

• 55:57Speaker 02

  No, we were, we were such a wholesome brand. We were friends of friends, right? So people would equate it to like, you know, a house party or a wedding. And that was the kind of crowd and the vibe that you'd feel on Hinge. Whereas maybe on the other ones, it was a little bit more just like people nearby and random. And so it just felt a little bit more like a club. And so we sort of gained this reputation as the more wholesome, more relationship-oriented app.

• 56:26Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 56:27Speaker 02

  And that was our niche.

• 56:28Guy Raz?

  It sounds like you didn't really change your approach or your strategy too much. I mean, you went to mobile, but the value proposition was the same. Like, this is a, you know, friends of friends, relationship app. What explains, I mean, is it, is it that, that launch party alone that explains how you really started to acquire users?

• 56:48Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, the details make the difference for sure. And those are pretty big details. Mobile-only, simplified interface, everyone's on it is very different than clunky interface, no one's on it. So yeah, I mean, those details definitely made a big difference. So we started in Washington DC and then a waitlist built up in New York City. And then we opened up New York City and threw a launch party there. And then a waitlist built up in San Francisco and then, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

• 57:15Guy Raz?

  And presumably now you've got to raise money. Was it now easier? Were investors now more open to, to giving you money?

• 57:25Speaker 02

  Oh my, well, one, we had traction.

• 57:28Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 57:28Speaker 02

  And two, we had Tinder. Tinder was exploding and no one could invest in Tinder because it was owned by IAC. And so the only place that people could put their money as a competitor to Tinder at the time was basically us.

• 57:43Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 57:44Speaker 02

  And so we were, we raised like a few million dollars towards the end of 2013. And then we raised a big round of like 14 or 15 million dollars at the end of 2014. And I was turning away millions. I was like, I don't even know what, like, I can't, I can't take anymore. Like, we have to close the round. Like, I don't even know what I would do with all this money, so we're gonna stop here.

• 58:10Guy Raz?

  All of a sudden, like, there's Tinder, there's Hinge, and there's some others. But you were very different from Tinder, because Tinder was swipe left, swipe right.

• 58:18Speaker 02

  Not that different. The apps really converged over time.

• 58:22Guy Raz?

  They became similar.

• 58:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. You know, we were very focused on our competition, and in our competition, we released a feature, and we released a feature. And yeah, they became very, very similar in their appearance. And we were still friends of friends, and so we had this different vibe. But practically speaking, the apps were very similar in how they operated.

• 58:44Guy Raz?

  There was a, an article that came out in Vanity Fair, I think in 2015. It's called like, "The Dawn of Apocalypse Dating," or something like that.

• 58:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, the dawn of the dating apocalypse.

• 58:54Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 58:54Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 58:55Guy Raz?

  And it's mostly about Tinder, but there's quite a bit in there about Hinge. And there's a paragraph in there, and it's, and I'll read it to you. It says, "Marty, who prefers Hinge to Tinder," he says, "Hinge is my thing," "is no slouch at, quote, 'racking up girls.'" He says he's slept with 30 to 40 women in the last year. And then he says, "I sort of play that I could be a boyfriend kind of guy in order to win them over, but then they start wanting me to care more, and I just don't." Now, forgive me, I don't want to sound judgmental, but like, this guy just sounds horrible, right? I mean, when, when you hear that, and you saw that, and you saw what you created, did a part of you just like, I don't know? I mean, yeah, you, it was amazing.

• 59:38Guy Raz?

  You built this amazing app, and people were using it. But, I don't know, did, did a part of you kind of feel like, ugh, this is not what I want to do?

• 59:47Speaker 02

  A huge part of me felt like that. That article, so it was by Nancy Jo Sales. I mean, I went to go meet with Nancy Jo Sales in New York. And I was like, I want to hear your experiences. You put together this article. It was a really big, yeah, it was a pretty big gut punch. And that wasn't it. I mean, there were some other things going on in 2015 where, you know, our, our growth was starting to slow a little bit. But I do think more importantly, it was like, this just isn't the company that I wanted to build. It's, it's not, it doesn't have the values that I wanted to have. It doesn't have, it's not having the impact that I wanted it to have. We're kind of just this copycat app that has the same interface with like a small twist. We're just friends of friends.

• 1:00:31Guy Raz?

  But it was still a, a, let's just say, quote unquote, like a meat market.

• 1:00:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, again, it was, it had a little bit, it just wasn't well designed for what we wanted it to be for, which is long-term. I mean, I got, I started this because I wanted a girlfriend. I started this because I wanted that real connection. And it was not designed for that.

• 1:00:53Guy Raz?

  Yeah. And, and again, like, I, I have to be really careful because like, I'm older than a lot of people who use, use these apps or were using these apps in this article. And so it's like any, any, anything that is not familiar, you, you sort of see it differently. And I, it's hard for me to talk about it without sounding judgmental, but like, you know, you read these stories, like in that article on Vanity Fair, and it's like, just stories of young people just talking about, yeah, I have, I've slept with eight people in the last like 10 days. And it's so easy because I think one quote in the article is like, yeah, it's just a numbers game. Dating's a numbers game. If I went to a bar, I'd have to talk to 100 different girls. This, with this, I could just swipe all night from my apartment and do better.

• 1:01:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. You know, and I thought it was a numbers game, too. I had a different objective in mind. But I also believed when I created that version of Hinge that, you know, you just, you just go through enough people and then when you find the perfect one, everything's easy from there. And so that is the kind of ethos that I had built Hinge around.

• 1:02:00Guy Raz?

  Let's go back to something we talked about earlier in this, in this interview about Kate, this woman that you dated in college that you loved and wrote to her and almost was to see her in 2010. And then she said, no. And now it's 2015. And there was a New York Times reporter who was a writer who was writing for The Modern Love. Sue was writing an article for The New York Times about Hinge, named Deborah Kopaken. And so she meets with you in 25. And you're like, you know, this young, hotshot running Hinge, and raised all this money and doing really well. So she wants to do a story about you. And what happens during the interview?

• 1:02:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, so rewinding a little bit further, it was like end of 2014. And Deborah writes me this email. I didn't know who she was. She had downloaded Hinge, and the very first person that came up for her, she had matched with and started dating and fallen in love with. And she was like, I have to know how your algorithm works. Like, how the heck did I just download this app, hit a button, someone comes up and I match, and now we're dating? You know, I want to write a story about you. So she reaches out to me, and we go for this like, pretty standard founder interview about whatever I was talking about at the time. I could tell it was just kind of like, it was an OK interview. And we were about to finish up, you know, as we were like packing.

• 1:03:24Speaker 02

  She said, have you ever been in love? And I was like, well, once, a long time ago. But I didn't realize it until it was too late. And she's like, well, tell me the story. And so we sat down, and I told her the story of Kate and me, and this magical connection we'd had, and the sort of twists and turns, and the breakup, and the drug addiction, and alcoholism, and me reaching back out, and how, in a way, she'd sort of, I realized, especially at that time, she'd inspired Hinge.

• 1:03:55Guy Raz?

  And I guess, I mean, it makes sense for a reporter to ask the guy behind Hinge, like, how's your love life?

• 1:04:00Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:04:01Guy Raz?

  And you were not dating anybody at the time?

• 1:04:04Speaker 02

  No. Again, there was someone that I was dating on and off during that period, my sort of usual pattern. But no, not really. And so she shuts off the tape recorder, and she says, I've got to tell you a story. And she tells me the story of how she had this like, amazing romance when she was younger, and really felt this person was the one. She was a war reporter, or a photographer, actually, in Afghanistan. And they were supposed to rendezvous in Paris. It was like this very romantic, transcontinental story. And He lost her number and so they didn't meet up and then they lost, you know, this is like the 80s and 90s, so they didn't really-

• 1:04:43Guy Raz?

  Pre-email, pre-cell phones.

• 1:04:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, pre-email, pre-cell phones. And so they didn't connect and she ended up marrying the next person she dated and he ended up marrying the next person he dated. And then 20 years later, she's researching a story, comes across his name and reaches out to him and it's like, hey, are you the same so-and-so that stood me up 20 years ago? They ended up like coming together and they met and I think it just lit her up in a way that she was like, I'm gonna leave my marriage.

• 1:05:13Guy Raz?

  Because this guy that she had, was supposed to meet in Paris, he didn't stand her up. They just both, he lost her address and she didn't know for 20 years.

• 1:05:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. And so she left and downloaded Hinge and then had met this guy.

• 1:05:26Guy Raz?

  And if this sounds familiar to anybody, it's because it was written in a Modern Love article by Deborah Kopeikin. She wrote this, part of this story in that, in this article. But, but, but, but anyway, so she tells you this story.

• 1:05:39Speaker 02

  And she said, listen, don't get me wrong, I don't regret my life, I love my kids, but you still have a chance to be with the one.

• 1:05:48Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 1:05:49Speaker 02

  And I was like, lady, uh, nice to meet you. You're a little nuts. It's been eight years since I've seen Kate at this point. She's, you know, engaged to be married as far as I know. She still lives on another continent. It's too late. And she's like, you won't know until you try. And early February, we were gonna be throwing a launch party in London. And so about a week before the launch party, I happened to run into Kate's best friend from Wellesley and we're chatting and she's like, I think you should reach out to Kate.

• 1:06:30Speaker 02

  You know, at this point, by the way, I had written Kate an email every year on her birthday after she told me no. And some of these emails would be like, you know, I'm over it. I hope we can be friends. No response. I think my, my last one in like 2013 had been something like, I'll come over with an engagement ring, please. It was, you know, it like ranged depending upon the year and how I was feeling. Wow. And after that one, you know, she had like defriended me on Facebook and, you know, it was like pretty clear that like that had sent her, you know, that was it. So I, after that I'd, I'd let it go. And I was headed over to London and I'm like, you know what?

• 1:07:11Speaker 02

  Whatever. Like, I'm just gonna send one last email. And so I, I composed a really short note. It just said, hey, gonna be over in London. Weird to think I'm never gonna see you again. Would love 15 minutes just to say hi and goodbye. And I woke up the next morning to a response. Saying, sure, I'll see you in London. No. Saying, you're a terrible stalker. I don't live in London anymore. I live in Switzerland. My fiance is not a huge fan of yours, but I'm willing to chat. So he'll be away this weekend if you want to just like hop on the phone. I said, great. And

• 1:07:51Speaker 02

  then I went to the airport and I bought a ticket to Switzerland and I flew to Zurich. And the next morning, which was a Friday, she thought she was like in another time zone. And she was like, I'm awake. Like whenever you, you want to chat, we can chat. And I said, great, because I'm going through customs in Zurich right now. Wow. You know, I flew over there, definitely having Deborah, having inspired me to do something like big. But I have to admit that it had been eight years. I had changed a lot. I mean, I'd gotten sober. I'd been to HBS. I'd like started a company. You know, it was like a lot had happened since I'd seen her. I assumed a lot had happened for her. And

• 1:08:38Speaker 02

  You know, a pretty big piece of me thought we would maybe see each other and then laugh this off and, you know, bring some closure to the whole thing and I could move on, she could move on. So we met in a cafe in Zurich and five minutes in, I was like, I don't know what I am doing without this girl. The conversation started off and we, obviously, there was a connection still there. And she was like, well, obviously, I'm not calling off my wedding. I'm getting married in a month. 400 people coming from five continents.

• 1:09:07Guy Raz?

  She's getting married in a month.

• 1:09:09Speaker 02

  Yeah. Invitation sent, plane's booked. And she's like, well, obviously, I'm not calling off the wedding, but you know, we should stay in touch. And then, you know, halfway through the conversation, it was like, well, if I were gonna call off a wedding. And we sat there for like, eight hours straight. I don't even think we even got up to get a coffee. And then by the end of the, our like, eight hour chat, she was like, I think I'm gonna call off the wedding.

• 1:09:32Guy Raz?

  I mean, wow. I mean, it's, it's, I have so many, so many feelings and thoughts about it because obviously, this was meant to be the two of you. But like, wow. I mean, that's, that's a lot, right? I mean,

• 1:09:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're telling me.

• 1:09:49Guy Raz?

  Both of you guys were making a huge decision to, that was gonna be really hurtful and painful to somebody. But clearly, this person she was gonna marry was not the right match for her. But still, like, she was a month away from getting married. And, and I'm assuming that when she decided to call off the wedding, she also kind of implicitly decided that she was gonna move to the, to New York, to be with you.

• 1:10:15Speaker 02

  That's right. Yeah. I moved from a big chalet in the Alps to my 300 square foot studio apartment in Manhattan. So, and this will lead us back to the discussion about Hinge, which is that, you know, here I am thinking like, oh, my God, like, I got the person. The one, the one I've been dreaming about all, like, all this time. You know, and then I flew to London and we did the launch party and I flew back to the States. And then she met me back in the States. And she moved in. And it was amazing for like, two months. And then, you know, we're two people living together in a 300 square foot apartment. And we're like, figuring each other out. And it's not perfect. All the

• 1:10:55Speaker 02

  stuff that I wanted to run from, because I did. I mean, there's a piece in me, like, two or three months in, that was like, ooh, like, Should I have done that?

• 1:11:09Speaker 02

  But there was like, but she'd given up a whole life, she'd come back. And so I'm like, no, I'm gonna stick it out. And we just worked it out together, one step at a time. And I realized that it's not a volume game. Love isn't about trying to go through enough people until you find your perfect puzzle piece and then everything's smooth sailing. Love is about the way you approach it. It's about vulnerability. It's about connection. You don't find the one. You create the one. That completely overhauled my approach to how I thought dating apps should work.

• 1:11:47Guy Raz?

  But this is the thing, like, again, like now, the thing that you had built was, let's say lots of people were using it in ways that didn't lead to that. It was more like a hookup factory. And again, please, anybody listening, I am not judging you. I am not being judgmental. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. That's perfectly fine. If that's what you're looking for. But Justin, that's not what you wanted to build. You didn't want to build a hookup app.

• 1:12:15Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:12:16Guy Raz?

  But you were kind of pushed into that direction just because of the forces of the economy and of what people wanted and of what investors wanted you to do and what you thought was gonna work?

• 1:12:30Speaker 02

  It was a lot of pressure running that company at that time. And we were really trying to keep up with the competition. And the natural thing to do is to like be obsessed with your competition and look at what they're releasing. And then they'd release a feature and be like, oh, we have to have that feature. And our users would be like, why don't you have this feature? And so then we would want to like copy what they were doing. And we were always a step behind because we were not as well funded and not as experienced. So, I mean, not only was it not aligned with values, it just wasn't gonna succeed. Like, it was just not that different or interesting of a product. And so, yeah, on both fronts, I was frustrated. And I remember it was around Thanksgiving that year. It was around 2015.

• 1:13:14Speaker 02

  I was headed home for Thanksgiving. I was about to fly back home to Kentucky. And I had lunch right before I left with Katie Hunt, who was our chief brand officer. And she and I sat down and I was just like, Katie, like, I just want to tear this whole thing down, start over. Like, I'm just like, done. And she looked at me and she was just like, what's stopping you? And I paused and I was like, nothing is stopping me. What is stopping me?

• 1:13:51Guy Raz?

  When we come back in just a moment, how the effort to relaunch the app would lead to a dramatic drop in users, and how an 11th hour investment from a one-time competitor would help revive the brand. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 1:14:34Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's the fall of 2015 and inspired by his rekindled relationship with Kate, Justin decides once again to completely rebuild Hinge.

• 1:14:50Speaker 02

  We're going to rip down this whole thing. Bigger deal now. We're not four people anymore. We're 30. And we don't have 25,000 in the bank. We've got like 10 million. And I called up my COO, Sam, talked to Katie. You know, I got them rallied around this idea that what we built is not going to succeed and we have to rip it down, start over from scratch. And by the way, there's a market opportunity. So now it had been, what, three or four years since the dating apps had launched? A lot of those people who were like 22, 23 when they came out are now like 26, 27, 28. And they're looking for something more serious.

• 1:15:33Speaker 02

  So let's start over and let's build the app that's going to be accessible to young people and have a cool brand, but is really designed to get people into relationships and off the app.

• 1:15:47Speaker 02

  And by the way, is a great word of mouth. Like, people always ask, how did you meet? And if we're the best at getting people who are in relationships, we're the best at that, and people will tell their friends. And as long as there are single people in the world, we'll do great.

• 1:15:59Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 1:16:00Speaker 02

  And, like, we're not thinking about competitors anymore. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want anyone to have those apps on their phone for competitor research. That was the biggest decision we made. And we said, we're going to actually measure whether people are going out on great dates or not. We're still the only app that asks whether you went on a date and whether it was good. And that is our North Star metric, period.

• 1:16:22Guy Raz?

  How were you guys going to make money? How were you, you know, I mean, presumably charging a fee to join, a monthly fee, a per dating fee? Like, how did it work?

• 1:16:33Speaker 02

  Well, that was one of the massive mistakes we made when we relaunched. So, we had this thesis that the serious dating websites are all what are called hard paywall businesses, meaning that in order to engage pretty much at all, you have to pay a monthly fee. But it's usually pretty expensive. It's like $39.99 or $49.99 a month.

• 1:16:55Guy Raz?

  And you're talking about the big sites, like eHarmony and Match.com and stuff like that?

• 1:17:00Speaker 02

  Yes, that's right. So, we were like, we're going to create a hard paywall app, but it's going to have a millennial-sized price of $9.99 a month.

• 1:17:11Guy Raz?

  And that gave you, like, basically unlimited?

• 1:17:14Speaker 02

  No, just access to the platform.

• 1:17:15Guy Raz?

  Got you. Okay, I got you.

• 1:17:16Speaker 02

  I mean, you know, you couldn't even, like, we're just like, we're the intention platform. If you're not willing to pay $10 a month, then like, you know, go on, go somewhere else.

• 1:17:23Guy Raz?

  Right. And the other apps, by the way, were free, right?

• 1:17:27Speaker 02

  And the other apps were free.

• 1:17:28Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 1:17:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. But we had, we were very idealistic, and we're like, people will pay, like, that'll be the model. That was a totally wrong thesis.

• 1:17:38Speaker 02

  People were not willing to pay. And then we had to like, give people free trials. And then we had to, and then by the, it was like, it was such a mess.

• 1:17:45Guy Raz?

  Because the market, the market for dating apps, it's like, sort of like podcasts. Like, people are used to free dating apps. All of a sudden, you're coming on, saying you gotta pay for it. People are like, no, I'll just go on this other dating app.

• 1:17:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. And even more important than on podcasts, like, there's network effects. So if there's not a lot of people on it, then people don't find it valuable to be, you know, loses its value, anyway.

• 1:18:06Guy Raz?

  And you figured this out because it was like crickets? Like, no one was paying for this?

• 1:18:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, we got like, you know, a few hundred thousand people to, to sign up. But then no one really would, like, when they hit the paywall, everyone was just kind of bouncing.

• 1:18:18Guy Raz?

  Oof.

• 1:18:20Speaker 02

  So, so we started giving away free trials. Like, oh, if you've had a Hinge account before, you can have the first three months free. We thought like, if we could just get the engine going, then like, the new people would come in and pay.

• 1:18:29Guy Raz?

  Because before that, it was free, totally free? Before you, you kind of relaunched it?

• 1:18:33Speaker 02

  Before that, it was totally free. We'd never made money, up until that point.

• 1:18:37Guy Raz?

  But now you needed to make money. You had real investors and real money behind you.

• 1:18:41Speaker 02

  Yes, that's right.

• 1:18:42Guy Raz?

  So what did you, had you salvaged it? I mean, given that you, this, it sounds like it was kind of a disastrous relaunch, in that sense, even if the other features were great, people weren't buying it. What did you do?

• 1:18:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was, it was pretty rough relaunch. Because we, you know, and that whole period of time was tough, by the way. I mean, I felt like Moses leading people around the desert. Like, we didn't know where. Like, we were testing things and, you know, we're just like, didn't know, is like, the best thing is the only thing to have the swipe feature? Is that the only way that, that an app can work? Is this like, what are we gonna do that's gonna be really any different? That's gonna be better than that? And we did figure that out, by the way. And we did come up with a very different way for people to interact that had very significant ramifications on how people behave on, on the dating app.

• 1:19:31Guy Raz?

  What, tell me, tell me more about that.

• 1:19:33Speaker 02

  Well, one of the biggest changes that we made is we, we did get rid of the swipe feature. And we had people fill out longer profiles, still relatively simple, but you had to add six photos and you had to add three prompts, which are responses to short questions that are designed to help you get into better conversation. But more importantly, is when you like someone on Hinge, first of all, you like something about them. You have to choose something, like one of their prompts or one of their photos, and you can comment on it. And you send that like. And that seems subtle and maybe not that big a deal, but it has a pretty dramatic effect on people's behavior. They are way more selective and way more thoughtful,

• 1:20:18Speaker 02

  because when you're not just throwing people to the left and to the right, you actually have to think about what you want to like about them, what you want to say. It just makes people way more thoughtful and selective. And when you're way more thoughtful and selective about who you like, our data is way better about learning your tastes. And if someone liked you, we would just notify you and tell you that someone so liked you and they liked this thing about you, so that there wasn't a strategy of just liking people to see if they liked you back. A lot of people will use the swipe feature, and they'll just like, like, like, like, like, and they'll just see who matches with them. And then they kind of figure it out from there, which creates a lot of engagement, but it's a lot of noise. And it frustrates people because a lot of those matches don't go anywhere. And so when you can actually like distill it down, and it's not as engaging, it's not as noisy,

• 1:21:03Speaker 02

  but it's a lot more substantive. There's a lot more signal there for people to latch on to. So that was a very fundamental change that we made.

• 1:21:11Guy Raz?

  So you just sort of offer up a free version, right? Like a freemium model, which a lot of these sites have. And basically, users can go back to using it for free, but if they want more features, they got to, there's like a tiered system. How does it work?

• 1:21:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, so now you pay for certain upgraded features, like advanced preferences or unlimited likes.

• 1:21:39Guy Raz?

  And I have to assume it's a tough business, right? I mean, there are lots and lots of options, right? And so a big part of differentiating yourself is through the branding, like what you represent. And now you guys were kind of really focused on being the relationship app. Like, OK, Tinder's the hookup app and Bumble's, you know, women initiate, but we're the relationship app. Is that fair to say?

• 1:22:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was actually, I think, our original tagline. But yes, it was very much branding around, if you're looking to get off dating apps, this is the place for you.

• 1:22:12Guy Raz?

  Let's talk about this tagline that you guys eventually settled on. Because it's, it is, it's Hinge, Designed to be Deleted, which I love.

• 1:22:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:23Guy Raz?

  Your tagline now is, hey, download us, but really, we want you to delete us. Because if you succeed on Hinge, you won't need us anymore.

• 1:22:32Speaker 02

  That's exactly right. And, I mean, that's how a dating app should be. And by the way, Designed to be Deleted has two dimensions to it. One dimension is, we are the experts in getting you into a relationship. We get this better than anyone. We research it. We spend all our time looking at how users behave and how do we get them on better dates? And that, our whole company's organized around that. But there's also an element of digital wellness to it as well, which is that we don't want you spending all day on our app. Like, we don't want you stuck playing a game on Hinge. And, and this really grew out of my experience with addiction.

• 1:23:14Speaker 02

  And, and I, you know, I don't use social media. I don't, I don't use Instagram. I don't really have an Instagram account or a Facebook account. I don't spend any time on it. Because it's, you know, I didn't escape drug and alcohol addiction just to become a slave to my phone.

• 1:23:29Guy Raz?

  But do you think, I mean, given, you know, given the fact that you relaunched a few times and your tagline is, you know, we want to be deleted, do you really think that Hinge is no longer the place, or a place, for someone who just wants a casual hookup? Like, how were you able to now change the behavior of people who went on the app if in 2015, in Vanity Fair, some guy was saying, yeah, I love Hinge, I've slept with 30 to 40 people in the last five months? Like, how do you change that person's behavior with the relaunch?

• 1:23:59Speaker 02

  It's just too difficult if you're looking for a hookup. It just requires too much effort. You asked about the, you know, how do you, aren't you going to still have people like that person in the Vanity Fair article using your app? And what we find is that when you have to answer all these prompts and have to send, like, a piece of content, and like, if all you're looking for is a hookup, like, this is way too much effort to do that. And so that's, I think, the difference. You know, we lose more than 20% of our users during the signup process. On other, those other apps, you hit one button and you're in and you're swiping and you're going. So if, again, if you were, like, talking to a Silicon Valley social media investor,

• 1:24:42Speaker 02

  they'd be like, "Oh, my God, you can't lose 25% of your, 20% of your signups? Like, are you crazy?" And for us, it's a feature, not a buck. You know, it's like, yeah, you have to, finding a relationship is hard. If you're not willing to put in the effort to fill out this profile and answer some prompts, and then, you know, you're probably not, it's not the right service for you. Like, we just want people who want meaningful relationships, full stop, period. Like, we just want to get amazing at that.

• 1:25:12Guy Raz?

  Okay, so when you did go ahead and do the relaunch of Hinge in 2016, how did it get, like, how was it received?

• 1:25:21Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, it was not a breakout success, like, when we did the relaunch in 2013. We got off to a rocky start, but the numbers started to look really interesting and really promising. And so, you know, my first instinct was, obviously, to, like, keep this thing going and go raise money. So I was back out in the fundraising game, flying all over the country, talking to every VC. And now I could get in the door of anywhere, right? I mean, any VC firm would at least take my meeting.

• 1:25:52Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:53Speaker 02

  But no one would give me money. So, I mean, it was, I mean, I was begging. I mean, I-

• 1:26:00Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 1:26:01Speaker 02

  I was offering valuations that would, are embarrassingly low.

• 1:26:06Guy Raz?

  Even your existing investors were getting cold feet?

• 1:26:09Speaker 02

  My existing investors were willing to rally to put together a few million dollars. But a few million dollars is not-

• 1:26:19Speaker 02

  Going to get us to where we needed to go. So I really wanted to raise a bigger round. And I teased that. And I said, you know, our existing investors will put like three or four, but I need five to 10 more at least.

• 1:26:31Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:32Speaker 02

  And I just, I mean, I went everywhere trying to make this deal happen. I talked to everyone.

• 1:26:38Guy Raz?

  I mean, it's amazing because you had already had a record of success. You had launched this thing. You defied the skeptics by even putting this out into the world. You had achieved quite a bit of success with it. You know, millions of people had used it. And then, and still, you had a hard time raising more money.

• 1:26:58Speaker 02

  Well, we made a decision when we decided to do the reboot that we were just gonna not touch the existing app. You know, this is a big debate. Like, do we keep the app like on the rails and keep adding updates and kind of just keep it going? Or do we just let it go completely and divert all of our focus to this new thing? And we decided to do the latter. And so meanwhile, the app had started to go down and the user numbers were going down because we just weren't putting any effort into it at all.

• 1:27:24Guy Raz?

  Where were you putting the effort in?

• 1:27:26Speaker 02

  Into developing the new Hinge.

• 1:27:28Guy Raz?

  I got you. And while you were developing that, you weren't even updating the app at all?

• 1:27:32Speaker 02

  No. So it sat there stale for almost a year.

• 1:27:35Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 1:27:36Speaker 02

  And I had this like one investor that was really holding out for, and I really thought we were gonna get across the line. And I remember the partner at the VC firm called me and she was like, you know, we just can't get our heads around. We've never seen a company that was cool and then went away and then was able to come back. And

• 1:27:59Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 1:28:00Speaker 02

  We just can't do it. And I was like, Timberlands?

• 1:28:07Guy Raz?

  That's a great, actually, you're totally right. K Swiss? Yeah.

• 1:28:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. And she's like, yeah, fashion brands are not the same as apps. And I said, fair point. But our numbers were actually starting to look really interesting. And if you had the right eye for it, you knew that there was something here with the new version of Hinge.

• 1:28:29Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:29Speaker 02

  You know, on the old version of Hinge, the biggest thing, just to give you a sense, you had to send a thousand likes in order to get to a date. And on the new version of Hinge, it was 50. So 1,000 to 50, 20 times more effective at getting people out on a date.

• 1:28:47Guy Raz?

  Hmm. So, I mean, I think finally in 2018, you guys did get an investment, a pretty big one, which was a majority stake in the company from Match Group, which is match.com, owns Tinder, so former competitors. And then in 2019, they fully acquired Hinge.

• 1:29:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:29:09Guy Raz?

  There are lots of reasons to get acquired. I mean, obviously, you've worked on this for many years and it's a chance to kind of get a payout and to take a breather and not to worry about having to raise money every year, every few months. And it takes, and now you've got a bunch of resources behind you. Are all those reasons why you agreed to the acquisition?

• 1:29:33Speaker 02

  You know, funny enough, the way that the relationship with Match Group started is I tried to poach their head of business development to come run finance at Hinge. I mean, that's the level of audacity that I had. We had like three months of money in the bank and I'm trying to like steal their head of finance to come like run finance at Hinge. And he very quickly turned the conversation around and was like, have you thought about, you know, maybe we can partner with you?

• 1:30:00Guy Raz?

  Hmm.

• 1:30:01Speaker 02

  And that started a conversation. And so the more time I spent around that team, the more I realized that the combination, I think, of our different perspective on the Hinge side with their wisdom, financial backing, it was going to be a really good success. And then there's a reason, I think, you know, you see that the startups that have really taken off and grown in the dating space were all started in-house.

• 1:30:26Guy Raz?

  Yeah, they were all, I mean, Tinder was started within IAC, right? And Match was owned by IAC. And they had huge resources and marketing dollars. And it's not surprising that they exploded in growth.

• 1:30:40Speaker 02

  That's right. And so it sounds like the calculation you made was...

• 1:30:44Guy Raz?

  These guys have a lot of resources. It's like Procter & Gamble. It's like you have a product and Procter & Gamble comes and says, look, we want to acquire you and we have all this research money and marketing dollars and it could be a really attractive idea to go in and work for them.

• 1:31:00Speaker 02

  And scary at the same time, right? I mean, for us, Tinder was the enemy.

• 1:31:05Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 1:31:06Speaker 02

  So it was kind of a lot to get your head around that. And at this point, I had friends who'd sold their companies and had agreements and it like almost never works out.

• 1:31:18Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:18Speaker 02

  Either the company goes sideways or the company goes up, but then the relationship doesn't work with the founder and they leave. And so I was really conscious of that, obviously. So it was scary. But ultimately, I just thought I wanted to do what's best for Hinge, the company. And I think this is it.

• 1:31:38Guy Raz?

  What did that allow you to do once you were acquired by Match? Did that, I mean, and then you sort of became more comfortable with this idea that you could still run the company the way you wanted it. Does it take some of the stress out of Hinge, knowing that the money is there, you don't have to worry about firing people or going out begging for money? Does it kind of de-stress you a little bit?

• 1:32:03Speaker 02

  Well, you're trading some stresses for new stresses.

• 1:32:06Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 1:32:06Speaker 02

  But it's like a new relationship.

• 1:32:09Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:10Speaker 02

  It's just like with Kate and me and you like hop into, you're now living together and you figure each other out. And just like that relationship, I was really, really committed to making this one work and they were committed to making it work too. And we figured each other out and we have a pretty incredible relationship today.

• 1:32:28Guy Raz?

  That was 2019 and I think that the relationship with Match really enabled you guys to grow and to scale more. And then comes 2020, which I imagine at the beginning of the pandemic, you must have thought, oof, we're in big trouble. Nobody's going to be going out on dates. Initially, did you see a steep decline in users?

• 1:32:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's been really volatile. We planned in 2019, our growth was really incredible and we planned a very big 2020. We were going to grow the team, we're going to like double the size of the team, we're going to do all this stuff. And

• 1:33:11Speaker 02

  The pandemic had, and I think initially, you know, everything went into lockdown. It was cold outside. And so we definitely saw some shakiness in the business, to say the least. But then, as things started to stabilize and it started to warm up outside, it actually like completely turned the other direction.

• 1:33:30Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:30Speaker 02

  Because now people can't meet at house parties and weddings and bars and yoga classes and gyms and all the other places that theoretically they would have met. Now we're the only game in town.

• 1:33:41Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:42Speaker 02

  And I also think this period of time has been, people have been rethinking their dating lives and rethinking their lives in general. And I think people have become more thoughtful and more serious during this time about their intent and what they're looking for. And so then when it started to warm up and the numbers stabilized, then it was a huge boon to the business.

• 1:34:04Guy Raz?

  Were there things that you guys, features that you introduced during the pandemic that made it easier, like that, you know, made it easier for people to connect virtually?

• 1:34:14Speaker 02

  The biggest shift that we saw was a shift to people willing to try video dates. Because people wanted to like spend a little bit more time getting to know you and decide whether it's really worth, you know, risking getting COVID to meet up.

• 1:34:29Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:29Speaker 02

  And so video dating, like more than half of our users now have gone on a video date. And so that was something that seemed like a pretty clear thing to build into the app.

• 1:34:39Guy Raz?

  Yeah. And also just less risky, right? You're just on a video call with somebody. And if it's weird or you're just not connecting, then, you know, that's it. You didn't, you didn't have to leave your room.

• 1:34:48Speaker 02

  That's right. And that's why I think, you know, when we talk to our users who have tried it, most of them say that they want to continue to do it even after the pandemic, because it just makes a ton of sense. I mean, it really is like doing a quick 15 minute screen before you go spend an entire evening and spend money and energy to go meet up with someone. I think will actually make this a much, much better experience if that becomes part of it.

• 1:35:13Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:15Guy Raz?

  This may be a hard question for you to answer, but I'll ask anyway. You're still pretty young. You're in your 30s. I think you're mid to late 30s. And you started this app, which is a pretty big deal. It's a major dating app and now fully acquired by Match. And you work for Match. You're an employee. So you're the CEO, but presumably, you know, Like any employee, if they wanted to find a new one, they could. And if you wanted to move on, you could and probably eventually you will. And maybe start something new. Can you, is that what you imagine doing? Like, do you feel like you've got another business in you?

• 1:35:54Speaker 02

  I don't know the answer to that question. And believe it or not, I actually don't think about it that much. I have so much on my plate at Hinge right now. I think the opportunity is so great. I'm actually very happy. And, you know, I worked so hard to build this culture and this company and this service and this brand. I mean, it is so difficult. I am so invested. I mean, this is still my baby. And so doing that over again sounds, now that I know how hard it is. You know, when I started Hinge, I just thought like, oh yeah, this is a $2 billion company. This should take about a couple of years. We'll sell it.

• 1:36:34Speaker 02

  And, you know, like, if I had any idea how like many tears I would shed and how many nights, I just like, I, I don't know if I would have started it. And so it's hard to imagine that again. And I think everyone finds their sweet spot. And I think some people are really good at the beginning and the starting and the ideation and pulling the resources together and getting something off the ground. And then some people are good at the scaling and some people are good at the operating. And I've really enjoyed each part of the journey and I enjoy the challenge of the constant shift. And so I'm still very much on that trajectory. Like, I love this challenge of scaling from 50 to 150 employees remotely while still trying to innovate and grow internationally.

• 1:37:17Speaker 02

  I mean, that's, that's a lot of intrigue for me. And

• 1:37:22Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:23Speaker 02

  I don't need more.

• 1:37:25Guy Raz?

  When you think about, Justin, when you think about your story and everything that's happened and all the ups and downs and where you've come to, how much do you attribute to, you know, your, your hard work and your skill and talent? And how much do you attribute to luck?

• 1:37:41Speaker 02

  I feel pretty lucky. I mean, if you go through my story and going through it today has really reminded me of that. There are so many serendipitous twists and turns that had they not happened, it's hard to imagine I would be here. I would be somewhere, maybe. There are a lot of really lucky things that happened to me. There are a lot of really tough things that happened along the way. I mean, having the company fail multiple times, like drug addiction, alcoholism, like there's all these really tough things. And when I look back, I think the hardest things, losing the girl, drug and alcohol addiction, the company failing, ended up being my biggest blessings. If those things

• 1:38:23Speaker 02

  hadn't happened, I certainly wouldn't be here today either. And if there is skill involved, I think it's how we roll with the bad things that happen. Do we resist it and fight it and judge it and get resentful about it? Or do we lean into it, learn from it, and keep showing up the next day?

• 1:38:48Speaker 02

  But that said, I feel unbelievably lucky. I choose to feel lucky.

• 1:38:55Speaker 04

  That's Justin McLeod. He's the founder and CEO of Hinge, which today has an estimated 6 million monthly users. And he and Kate are actually married. They had a baby, a boy named Oliver. And if you think their story sounds like a movie, it kind of is. It became the inspiration for an episode of the Amazon Prime series, Modern Love, which Justin found out was being filmed, literally, on the last day of production.

• 1:39:22Speaker 02

  And so I call Kate and I'm like, so, never gonna believe this, but someone's filming a show about our lives, like, down the street. And so Kate and I hop in the car and we go to the location and we get out. There's like 150 people there and they're filming the 2013 Hinge launch party. And Dev Patel is up on stage.

• 1:39:46Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:39:46Speaker 02

  And they put Kate and me in as extras.

• 1:39:48Speaker 04

  So you're hanging out with Dev and Catherine Keener now?

• 1:39:52Speaker 02

  Well, I have a photo with them.

• 1:39:55Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:39:57Speaker 02

  But Dev doesn't call me that often.

• 1:40:02Speaker 04

  Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on whichever podcast app you're listening to, so you don't miss a new episode of the show, and it's absolutely free. If you want to contact our team, our email address is [email protected]. This episode was produced by J.C. Howard with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Derek Gales. Our production staff also includes Casey Herman, Kira Wakim, Sam Paulson, Alex Chung, Kerry Thompson, Elaine Coats, John Isabella, Chris Messina, and Carla Estevez. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.