The Diary of a CEOHinge CEO: The Truth About Dating Apps, Attraction And Finding Love In 2024!
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,248 words- 0:00 – 2:16
Intro
- JMJustin McLeod
We've done deep dive research studies on how can we help everyone to become more successful daters.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So, what makes daters successful?
- JMJustin McLeod
So, the faster that you can ... the faster you're gonna find someone who's like, "Yes, this is the type of person that I wanna be with."
- SBSteven Bartlett
One, two, three. Justin McCloud, the founder and CEO of the fastest-growing dating app, Hinge.
- JMJustin McLeod
I built Hinge because I wanted a girlfriend. But we had to suffer through a lot of failure to finally get to success.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why does the world need another dating app?
- JMJustin McLeod
I think it just needs one, really, that works well.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I'm gonna be completely honest. Much of the reason why I never use dating apps is I had no success. So, if I wanted to be the world's worst dating app user, what would I have to do?
- JMJustin McLeod
A lot of filtered photos with you in sunglasses or hanging out with a lot of friends. One-word answers to your prompts. Just like everyone.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And what about serial daters?
- JMJustin McLeod
Some of us have models in our head that are exceedingly narrow. They have to be over six foot. They need to work in this type of job. And so, you go out, and you're just looking for some reason to say no because it doesn't fit your model. Give people more of a chance.
- SBSteven Bartlett
AI. The conversation around AI and relationships has always been quite pessimistic, sex robots and stuff.
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah. That's certainly not gonna be what Hinge is working on.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- JMJustin McLeod
(laughs) The bigger leap though is to move much closer to a matchmaker model and setting up dates with a much higher likelihood of success. It's happening already. It used to take 1,000 swipes in order to get on a date, and now, about 50 likes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Have you seen any changes in the dating culture?
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah. In order to get on a date, people need to know this, so...
- SBSteven Bartlett
Quick one. This is really, really fascinating to me. On the backend of our YouTube channel, it says that 69.9% of you that watch this channel frequently over the lifetime of this channel haven't yet hit the subscribe button. I just wanted to ask you a favor. It helps this channel so much if you choose to s- subscribe. Helps us scale the guests, helps us scale the production, and it makes the show bigger. So, if I could ask you for one favor, if you've watched the show before and you've enjoyed it and you like this episode that you're currently watching, could you please hit the subscribe button? Thank you so much, and I will repay that gesture by making sure that everything we do here gets better and better and better and better. That is a promise I'm willing to make you. Do we have a deal?
- 2:16 – 5:27
My Addiction & Going to Rehab
- SBSteven Bartlett
Justin, what is your job title?
- JMJustin McLeod
I'm the founder and CEO of Hinge.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And to quantify what Hinge is-
- JMJustin McLeod
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and the impact it has on the world, how many people use it as a product, its reach, can you give me some color towards that?
- JMJustin McLeod
Uh, like, I can say that today we're setting up a date about every two seconds, so every other second someone's going on a date because of Hinge. Um, we've created millions of relationships and I'd- I'd say marriages at this point. The scale is far beyond, I think, what I imagined when I, when I started this thing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I probably need to understand you a little bit better because it's so abundantly clear from all the CEOs that I've interviewed that there's often a series of catalyst moments that send them on the path indirectly. I mean, it's like the first domino that falls in their life that brings them to be sat here today-
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... for us to be talking about it. What are those first dominos in your life that fell?
- JMJustin McLeod
I, I don't know, I think there are a number of them that probably like ended up defining my, my life. I was an only child. Um, had a entrepreneur father who had a, ran a small business and, um, and my mom worked for my dad. I was sort of naturally as a kid good at math, I was good at computer science. Uh, I would spend my summers at nerd camp, uh, going and learning how to like code as a kid. And I, well say addiction is the last piece 'cause I, I wanted, I like was desperate to be cool, was desperate to fit in, and that actually became like a huge piece of it as well for me.
- SBSteven Bartlett
In your first year of university, you went to see a drug and alcohol counselor. Is that correct?
- JMJustin McLeod
I did. So, when I went to college, you know, it was, I would say the overachieving part of me started to slip away, and I kind of just doubled down on the, uh, drinking and drugs and partying. My freshman year, at the end of my freshman year, I thought to myself like, "Gosh, you know, like I haven't been to bed sober since school began, like not one single night, and maybe I have a problem, like maybe something's going on here." So, I- I voluntarily went in to see this drug and alcohol counselor, this like very sweet woman named Jane, and she listened to me empathetically and heard me out and she was like, "Justin, you know, I, I think that you probably have a pretty serious problem with drugs and alcohol. I think that you should definitely keep coming back and seeing me and I think you should stop." And I was like, "Whoa, whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa." Like that's, that was like, "What are you talking about?" I'm like a 19-year-old kid. So, I just kind of ignored that and went about the, the partying. Um, but I had some inkling at that point that like probably something was not good.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You went to rehab eventually.
- JMJustin McLeod
I did. I had to spend my summer in rehab after my freshman year in order to even come back to school because I, I would, I'd still get in trouble a lot at, like with campus safety or whatever, getting caught drinking or, uh, and I'd been written up so many times that I actually got referred back to that same drug and alcohol counselor for an assessment, and she's like, "Well, I've already actually assessed this kid. He clearly has a problem." So, I had to spend my summer in rehab in order to even come back my sophomore year.
- 5:27 – 7:45
12 Step Programme for Addiction
- JMJustin McLeod
- SBSteven Bartlett
So many people I've spoken to who had an alcohol addiction at some point in their life speak about-
- JMJustin McLeod
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... the 12-step program-
- JMJustin McLeod
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and the role that that played in them turning their lives around. Did you, when did, did you learn about the 12-step program at all and did it help?
- JMJustin McLeod
I did, and I would occasionally go to meetings and they were like people from the town. Like no one, no, no one from like college was going to these. I was literally the only college student. I did stop drinking the, the, and the day that I graduated from college, and um, and 12-step programs was like a, a huge piece of, of my recovery after that time.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why that day?
- JMJustin McLeod
I woke up that morning after being out at a party the night before. Was graduating that day. I'd gotten a okay job in Washington, DC, where I was gonna move in the, in, once school ended. But I just remember thinking to myself, like, that the steering wheel of my life was broken. That's kind of how I, and I think it gets back to your sort of enslavement idea, or that you just don't have control anymore. Like, I envisioned my life going, like, this direction. Like, I, I wanted to have a big career. I wanted to go make an impact in the world. I wanted to have, like, deep friendships. I wanted all these things, and yet, every day it was like, one more drink, right, one more drug, and tomorrow I'll, like, start putting my life together. And I'd been telling myself that for years at that point. And I remember thinking to myself, like, "I don't know what the point of living is if, if, like, without drinking, but I'm gonna try to find out." And it was just like, how much longer am I gonna allow this to continue to, to go? Like, I- I- I didn't get the job that I wanted, right? I wanted, I wanted to go work at a, you know, Goldman Sachs in banking, which is the, and that's just, like, what the ... I was a mathematical economics major, and that's what all, like, the top math econ majors went and did. And, and I didn't, I didn't get the job. I got some, like, you know, decent job at some management consulting firm that no one's ever heard of in Washington, DC. And, uh, I'd lost the girl, which we haven't talked about Kate yet, but my, I had a girlfriend all through college, and I'd, like, lost her. I just, it was just, my life was, like, not (laughs) headed in a good direction. It was so clear. And I just viewed that as a moment to, like,
- 7:45 – 12:31
How My Love Experiences Influenced My Entrepreneurial Journey
- JMJustin McLeod
change it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
When did you meet Kate?
- JMJustin McLeod
I met Kate the, basically, like, literally the day I got out of rehab. I, like, got out of rehab at 8:00 PM one night in Louisville, Kentucky. I drove all night back to school, and, uh, and I woke up the next day and decided to celebrate getting out of rehab by going out and partying and drinking. And, uh, Kate found me passed out in a stairwell, like on the landing of a stairwell, (laughs) uh, the first day of my sophomore year. It was her first day of school, first day of her freshman year. Later in that year, we had a class together. We started sitting together, we started to get to know each other, and we just had this incredible, like, magnetic connection.
- SBSteven Bartlett
When you reflect on meeting her, and how you felt, and all of those things, I mean, you now are working in the industry. When you look back, is there anything, (laughs) that is consistent with, you know, all the people that Hinge has brought together today that happened in that moment? 'Cause you know, you see on the movies, they say, "You'll feel this thing in your belly, and there'll be butterflies, and there'll be crazy," you know, all this kind of stuff. What was your experience like? Did you have butterflies? Did you know she were, they were the one?
- JMJustin McLeod
Um, I think I ... I'm not sure it was, like, the moment I saw Kate, like, I knew she was the one, but I think the, our re- our, like, relationship really started to build as we got to know each other better. And so, it wasn't for me, like, one of those, like, instantaneous, like, this person is the person. It just grew really, really quickly as we got to know each other better. Whether that spark is a good thing or a bad thing I think has been debated. I know you had Logan, our- our relationship scientist, on, um, from Hinge, and I think the spark can sort of, like, burn out, and what you're looking for is really, like, a nice slow burn.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Within two years, you had broken up?
- JMJustin McLeod
Oh, we'd broken up, like ... We were on and off, m- m- y- you know, six or seven times, I think, during college. And then finally, by the end of college, we'd really, like, gone our separate ways. Once I'd gotten sober, um, I would think about reaching back out to her all the time, but I just wouldn't, 'cause I had enough sense to realize that, like, I had probably, like, messed up this girl's life enough. And, um, it just, like, wasn't healthy. And so I would ... I remember being, like, a year or two s- years sober, and I would, like, you know, dial her number on my phone, and I would just, like, stare at it, and then I would just, like, hit the end button. And I just didn't feel, I just didn't feel like I was good for her, and I, and I just needed to stay away.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And would you ultimately end up reaching out to her when she's living in London and working in finance?
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah, so I, I ... Four years in, I'm sober, I'm at business school, and I- I- finally I'm like, "Okay, I'm gonna, like, write her a letter, like an apology letter, um, and see if we can reconnect." And I- I wrote her this letter, and she was living in, she'd moved to London at that point. And she called me back the next day, and she was with someone at the time. And she's like, "Well, I- I'm gonna be home for Christmas time, so maybe I can see you at Christmas time." And then she called me back the next day, and she's like, "Listen. I just, if I see you, I don't know what's gonna happen. And I just, uh, I have a stable life now. I have a partner. We just bought a flat. Like, I just can't." And so I was just totally heartbroken, 'cause I really thought in the back of my mind, like, "Someday we ..." I just felt like we were, like, meant to be together, and I thought like, "One day, we're- we're gonna end up back together." And I think in that moment, I realized, like, "Wow, I've really messed this up. Like, there's no, there's no going back."
- SBSteven Bartlett
You were at Harvard at the time.
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You- you're single.
- JMJustin McLeod
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You're sober, which makes it hard to meet people, I guess.
- JMJustin McLeod
Precisely. I mean, that's the thing, is I, is I, um ... Both it was very special with her, and also, I really had trouble meeting other, other people. Like, I really relied on drugs and alcohol as a crutch. And when I graduated, I threw myself into work, and then I, but then I arrive at business school, where I think, by the way, we're there to, like, study business, but it's, like, a huge party atmosphere. (laughs) And like, everyone connects around drinking and, and partying. And I just couldn't ... It was, like, just too hard for me to be around any of that. It was hard for me to meet new people.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I mean, that's the case for so many of us today.So many people who, much of the reason it feels like they continue to drink and do those things which they don't necessarily love is because it's almost unavoidable if you want to... It seems unavoidable if you want to socialize and be, not be perceived as a weirdo. It's tough.
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah, and just the whole culture and the whole, like, the, it was just all revolved around drinking. So, it, it was just constantly saying no, constantly saying, "No, thanks, I don't drink." Like...
- 12:31 – 15:55
Founding Hinge
- JMJustin McLeod
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is this at all correlated? You know, you're in that situation where you, you've given up drinking. You're a bit heartbroken. Does this also explain why you were so compelled to do something in the dating space?
- JMJustin McLeod
There was a business plan, like, a business school, like, business plan competition, and so I was working on, like, a few ideas for that, and nothing really hit. Like, I was trying to work on... I had, like, various little silly ideas and I tried to work on them, but it always just felt like homework and I just, like, wasn't getting much traction. And this was kind of shortly after everything w- had happened with Kate and she, you know, told me in so many words that, like, (laughs) it was time to move on. And there was this last chance dance party happening at, at Harvard where the people were gonna, like, list all their crushes and then if two people, like, listed each other, they would, like, let you know right before the dance. So, this was, like, a moment of like, okay, like, we're heading towards the end of school. I think it was around Valentine's Day. And so this is, like, your last chance your second year if there's anyone that you had a crush on. This is, like, your moment to find out. I was actually, like, pretty excited about this 'cause, like, I, again, I was, like, so awkward. Like, I didn't know how to, like, connect with people or meet new people. I just, like, I didn't know how to do that without the crutch of, of alcohol and drugs. And I was walking to class one day with the, with the, um, student body president, this guy Brett, and he was like, "Yeah, we actually decided to scrap that whole thing. It was just too complicated. Like, 1,000 people all listing each other. Like, how are we gonna manage all the... you know, like, too hard. Like, we just scrapped that whole thing." I- I- I went to class and I started sitting there. I started thinking and I was like, "I bet I could just, like, build this really quick on Facebook." Like, I- I- I used to code. I, like, knew how these kind of things got worked, and Facebook had recently opened up their API for Canvas apps like FarmVille and things like that. I was like, "You could just, like, go through and just check your friends that you liked, and you could just build something like this really quick on Facebook." So, I enlisted a friend, um, her- her name was Francis, and we got together and we built this thing, um, where people could, like, list their crushes on Facebook and would tell you if two people matched, and we launched it and it made a bunch of matches. It was fun and people had, like, a good time. But then it was, you know, you find out if you have a crush. You either do or you don't, and then everyone's done with it. But the idea then started to, to, like, percolate in my mind, like, what if you could actually introduce people to their friends of friends? Because at the time, there was... there were online dating sites, but no one my age used them. There was a lot of stigma around it 'cause it was, like, a long arduous process. You did it on desktop computers. You answered, like, deep questions about yourself. You paid a lot of money usually to use them. And the idea by creating something, like, really simple and easy that would just connect you to friends of friends suddenly just, like, popped in my mind. And I don't know how to describe it. I just, like, I was so excited about this idea. I was just convinced this was gonna be the future of how people were gonna date, and I, like, couldn't stop working on it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And to set the scene there a little bit, this is at a time which is hard to remember where there's, like, OkCupid and Match.com, but there's not mo- like mobile dating apps.
- JMJustin McLeod
Right. That's exactly right. There were no, nothing was mobile and nothing... No one really used it. Or if you used it, you didn't really talk about it. Like, people my age just, like, didn't use or talk about online dating services. It was just not a thing. The term dating app was not even a term yet.
- 15:55 – 19:00
How Do We Know Which Ideas to Go After?
- JMJustin McLeod
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you think that's it? 'Cause I'm... So many people ask me the question about how to know which idea to pursue. Many entrepreneur types, creatives have lots of ideas. They have a shelf full of them.
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, how do we know which one is the one worth pursuing?
- JMJustin McLeod
I- I can only speak to my experience. Like, I don't know what the right, what the right answer is. But I will say that when I was... I had other ideas that were interesting to me, like, intellectually. Like, yeah, like, this is a good idea, um, but it just didn't hit me in my heart. And I would, I would like try to work on it but, like I said, it felt like, it felt like doing homework. Like, okay, I'll, like, force myself to work on this, but it just wasn't... I don't know. And then when the idea for Hinge hit me, I don't... I just don't know how to describe it except to say, like, it wa- it was like, it, like, infected me and this, this, this service, this app is, like, gonna come out of me no ma- (laughs) no matter what. And it's like, I, like, was almost possessed to have to work on it. But I think there was a m- the, the magic of me being open and, like, thinking about ideas and trying to work on ideas and then I was, like, open. And then when the right idea hit, it almost didn't even feel like a choice. Like, I just had to work on this.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So many people have the idea. So many people feel infected by their belief in an idea. But then the vast majority will be incarcerated by fear and, you know, loads of naysayers telling them, "You can't make an, uh, a dating app. What the hell is that?"
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You know?
- JMJustin McLeod
Which is exactly the feedback that I got, by the way. Like, I entered it in the business plan competition. We were, you know, we didn't place at all. We were told, like, this was a horrible idea. I wrote a paper on it for our class. They told me it was a horrible idea. I, um, I had friends telling me it was a horrible idea. I would later try to raise money and VCs would tell me it was a hor- like everyone was... like, there was very little positive feedback (laughs) I was getting on the idea for Hinge. I just had this thesis that if you could make a, a dating service that was stigma free, if you could make something that was really fun and easy and lightweight, then young people would use it. I- I- we- we- I'd always hear that the dating market is full. It's saturated. This is what VCs would tell me when I would go try to raise money. They'd be like, "Match.com owns this market. You'll never be able to beat them." And I remember thinking to myself like, "It's not...How could you say a market is satura- like, I don't, I almost know no one who uses dating services. Like, it's not saturated. You just have to fix the problem why people don't use it, and p- people don't use it because it, it has stigma to it. So you just-
- SBSteven Bartlett
We, we can't remember that.
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah. Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
This, this generation can't remember that there was a stigma around dating on the internet. In fact, what's so funny is, as you said the word stigma, I said to myself, "What stigma?"
- JMJustin McLeod
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
And then I thought, and then I thought back to my childhood and, and I remember the th- what I thought of people that used Match.com.
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Lonely weirdos.
- JMJustin McLeod
Totally. And that was definitely, that was, that's how people, that's how people thought about it-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- JMJustin McLeod
... in 2011. It was just not... You know, the iPhone would have just come out a few years ago. The app store was relatively new. Yeah, and people did not meet strangers on the internet to go date. That was just weird.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So when did
- 19:00 – 23:44
When Did the App Form?
- SBSteven Bartlett
it go from Facebook to an app?
- JMJustin McLeod
Uh, so we started working on it. It was originally this, yeah, Facebook Canvas app, and that was 2011, 2012. And, um, but it was really having trouble getting people to adopt this thing. It was not a good product designer, not a good brand, and it was originally called Secret Agent Cupid. It would, uh, introduce you to friends of friends, but it was really a complex user interface. You would, like, answer questions about your friends. There were, like, little rankings. Like, it was trying to be really social and, like, show you which of your friends are most in demand. It had, like, all these different components to it. It was, like, way overcomplicated. People would come in and they, like, wouldn't understand, like, "Why am I answering questions about my friends?" Like, "What's this? I'm here to date." Around the end of 2012, I'd raised a little bit of money from just, like, angels and friends and family, like $100,000 or so. We were running out of money, not making a lot of progress. I made the call around Thanksgiving. I got together with my team and I was like, "We just need to start over from scratch. Let's throw this whole thing out. Mobile is the future." That's th- more things were starting to come out on the app store around this time. "So let's redesign it for mobile and let's make it just, like, dead simple. We'll just, you connect your Facebook account. We'll show you a photo, you know, their age, like, one or two lines about them, and then you just say yes or no, are you interested in this person." We had literally, like, two and a half months left of cash to, like, tear everything down, rebuild it from scratch, and then take our remaining money and throw a giant launch party in Washington DC.
- SBSteven Bartlett
With your remaining money?
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah, that's it. Literally took our last $25,000 and threw a giant open bar party in DC, and you had to download the app to get in. We had submitted our app to the app store with what we thought was, like, plenty of time, about two weeks. Um, and app store review times were typically, like, just a couple days at that point. And then a few days go by, we don't hear anything back. A week goes by, we still haven't heard anything back. Uh, I start trying to reach out to, like, the head of the app store, but no one... Who... They don't ca- I'm like some random kid, like, with a app idea. No one will return my calls. It is now the night before the launch party and we still have no... We don't have, actually have an app to launch. So I, like, literally have like, my last $25,000 spent on this launch party with no app. I remember being... L- literally, like, sitting... Uh, we had a little co-working space, and that night, I was just, like, sitting on the floor, like, covered up my head in the, in my jacket and just crying on the floor thinking like, "Wow, these last two years have been for, like, nothing. I've worked so hard and I'm gonna launch an app tomorrow and there's no app store. Like, there's... 2,000 people are coming and there's no app." And then I went home that night and, um, woke up the next morning and somehow, miraculously, uh, the app had been approved in the app store. And so we had the party that night. 2500 people came. They all saw each other using the app. The next day, people... We made more matches than we'd made in the entire history of the app up until that point.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And they had to download it to get in?
- JMJustin McLeod
They had to download it to get in. And that helped overcome... I think you had, you had to, like, jumpstart the stigma, 'cause we had a lot of, like, the very, like, the cool people in the social scene in Washington DC coming and all downloading it in front of each other and talking about it. And so the fact that it was, like, really, really dead simple and the fact that everyone saw each other using it, I think, like, started to, like, jumpstart and get over that stigma problem. And then we had like 400 people log in the next day and we're like, "Okay, wow. A fe- 400 people on their own came in." I mean, up until that point, it was such a, like, literally a trickle of users coming into our, like, little app. Like, I would, I'd l- I remember I would, like, sit there and, like, look at the logs and people, like, a user would come in and I'd be like, "Oh, okay. Like, a u- there's a user using the app." And then we'd be like, "Okay, they can just click this button and, like, then he, like, passed." And then, and then he would leave. And I'd be like, "Oh, okay. Wait for the next user to come in," like, sitting just, like, watching the logs. So f- hundreds of people coming the next day, a f- few hundred more the next day, and then it just started to, like, build and build and build after that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Was it like a snowball effect?
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah, it really was.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Like an organic snowball, really?
- JMJustin McLeod
And, and once, once we'd hit it with the, with the product, it started to spread through word of mouth. Then people in DC started to tell their friends in New York, and then we started to build up a wait list there. And then people in New York told their friends in San Francisco, and they would, like, build the wait list up there. And then we would start opening cities one at a time once we felt like we had enough liquidity.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And how would you open those cities? Was it the same?
- JMJustin McLeod
We'd do another launch party.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs) Yeah.
- JMJustin McLeod
Like, that wa- literally, my life was just, like, throwing launch parties in cities. Like, we would, we would, you know, from Boston and San Francisco and, um, New York and LA. We were just like...
- 23:44 – 27:37
Tinder and How It Impacted Hinge
- JMJustin McLeod
- SBSteven Bartlett
I remember 2012 well, and there was... That was kind of the golden age of apps in a way. I remember, 'cause we worked a lo- quite a lot on, um, on apps back then and, uh, there wasn't many apps. The app store was, was growi- it felt like it was growing very quickly. I was, you know, people were discovering lots of new apps all the time. I feel like people are discovering less apps at the moment. I don't know if that's true or not, but it just felt like that was kind of the app-
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... boom moment. So things like a launch party, I c- you know, I- I can see how those things would work then, but I, I question whether people listening to this right now that have got an app (laughs) and they've got $25,000-
- JMJustin McLeod
Would, like, go to a launch party and, like, that's-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. (laughs)
- JMJustin McLeod
... that's what's gonna solve their problems? Probably not. Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. So interesting. And then Tinder around that time starts to emerge. A bit, bit f- further on, right?
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah, right about that time.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, okay.
- JMJustin McLeod
So right around the time we threw that launch party. I think Tinder had launched just a couple of months prior-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Wow.
- JMJustin McLeod
... out in LA, so almost the exact same time. We had a very similar model. They took off hugely, and we started to grow as well. In fact, their growth helped our growth because it w- like, the category was emerging and now people were, like, um, seeing Tinder. And Tinder was a, was an app that was all about location and ours was all about friends of friends, and that was really the, the main difference. But as a result, people viewed Hinge as, like, the sort of, like, more serious intent dating app because it was friends of friends, people you'd meet at a house party or dinner or wedding, whereas, like, the other one was a bit more of like a casual reputation and, like, meeting at a club. And as a result, all of a sudden the VCs who were telling me there's no way, this market's totally saturated, now I was no longer begging for money. I was, like, turning away. There, people were trying to send, like, like, trying to raise a round at that point. Um, we went from, like, you know, begging for scraps (laughs) to, like, raising almost a $20 million round, where I was turning away money because I just couldn't take any more. So it really... That changed the game.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And was it a straight line up from there?
- JMJustin McLeod
Huh. Uh, no, definitely not. So we had some good success in 2013, 2014. 2015, growth started to level out. Um, Tinder had definitely gotten successful. Beat us at the game of, like, overcoming stigma. Like, that it was cool to use, it was qui- it was, it was quick, it was easy, it was fun. Ours was just like a Tinder copy that was friends of friends, but we weren't... We were, like, the growth just, like, wasn't there and, um... And more importantly, though, around that time, there was an article that came out in Vanity Fair called, like, The Dawn of the Dating Apocalypse, and it was all about how dating apps had destroyed dating culture and romance, and, and Hinge was featured, like, pretty heavily in that article. And I just remember thinking like, "Gosh, this is not what I, like, I built this because I, like, wanted a girlfriend. Like, this is not what I, what I wanted to build from a, like, a values perspective." I, I remember going out with my, my head of marketing at that time, her name was Katie, and I was, I was about to head home for Thanksgiving, and we sat at a little cafe in New York, and I, I just was telling her, like, "Gosh, I, I, like, I wish I could just start over from scratch. Like, this is not the company I wanna build. This is not what I wanna do." And she's like, "Well, I mean, you're the CEO. Like, what's stopping you?" I went home and I thought about that and, you know, nothing was stop... Like, what was stopping me? We'd just raised a big round. We had resources. And so, uh, I decided to reboot the company again. So (laughs) first reboot, 2012, uh, this reboot, let go of half the company and then threw out the old code base and built something new from scratch that would be about really helping people who wanted to find their person, l- like, a long-term relationship brand, and totally change the user interface and the profiles and the whole flow and design it for people who actually, like, really wanna find their person.
- 27:37 – 34:23
The Interview That Changed My Life
- JMJustin McLeod
- SBSteven Bartlett
If you hadn't have had that interview with Debra from Cafe.com-
- JMJustin McLeod
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... before, right?
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you think you would've made that decision? T- tell me about that in- interview with Debra from Cafe.com and how it changed, changed things for you.
- JMJustin McLeod
So in 2014, someone r- reached out to me. Her name was Debra. And she had downloaded Hinge. She lived in New York. And the very first person that she, that, like, we suggested to her, she liked and matched with and then fallen in love with. And so she'd reached out and was like, "How did you... Like, I wanna learn more about you. I wanna learn about your company." We were just, you know, we were getting popular in New York, but not hugely popular. So we, we met up for an interview one day in Madison Square Park near my office. And, um, and I, you know, I didn't have m- uh, like, it was dumb luck. Like, I don't know. It's like the first person that happened to show up on her app. Like, we didn't, we didn't... It was just, we were lucky. But as we chatted, um, you know, kind of a standard interview, at the very end of the interview, we were getting up and she's like, "You know, one last question. Have you ever been in love?" And I was like, "Well, once a long time ago, but I, you know, I just didn't realize it until it was too late." And Debra turns off the tape recorder and she's like, "Listen, I have to tell you a story." And she tells me the story of, of how actually she sort of had this misconnection moment. She wasn't with someone that she had met much younger, and they had found each other all these years later and realized they should have been together. And she was like, "You know, you don't have to make the same mistake I did. Like, you can still be with the one, you just have to do something dramatic. You have to just go over there and, like, pour your heart out and, like, put yourself on the line." And I was like, "Listen, lady. Like, you know, it's been almost eight years since I've even seen her. It's, it's kinda over. There's, there's no way." That said, I was about to head over to the, um, launch party for Hinge in London, and I thought, "Okay, like, I'll just shoot her one last note." And so I reached out to her and I said, "Hey, I'm gonna be in London. Would love 15 minutes just to say hi and goodbye. It's just weird to think that we're never gonna see each other again." And she wrote back and she was like, uh, for the first time, so in now another four years, and, uh, she was like, "Listen, I don't live in London anymore. I live in Switzerland, but, um, I'll be around this weekend and, um, happy to hop on the phone." So I, like, got that message, I went to the airport, I got the, I got (laughs) a ticket to Switzerland. I got on a plane to Zurich. And, um, and she reached out the next day. She's like, "Hey, I'm around if you wanna chat." I'm like, "Great, 'cause I'm going through customs in Zurich right now."And she agreed to meet me at a little cafe, and, uh, we sat down with each other, and I, I think at that time I'd... You know, uh, part of me thought, like, "I really want the girl back. Like, this is it." And part of me thought like, "It's been eight years. Like, I've changed so much as a person. Like, I'm sober now. I'm, like, running this company. Like, she's w- with someone else now." And by the way, was literally like a month away from getting married at that point.
- SBSteven Bartlett
She was... She had a fiance?
- JMJustin McLeod
She had a fiance, yeah. And, and to be married in a month. Like, uh, so-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Wow.
- JMJustin McLeod
... like, on the verge of getting married. So I thought we'd see each other and kind of just, like, laugh it off and glad we saw each other. And, and, you know, I just didn't... I honestly didn't know what was gonna happen. It was like, it felt... But there was this hope in me that like, "Wow, maybe she really is the one. Maybe we'll, like, realize it." And we sat down at this little cafe, and, um, and it was just like, uh, I think we both felt like an incredible amount of that connection that we'd always had, and we sat, and we, we talked for like seven or eight straight hours in this cafe, never even got up to get a coffee. And at the end of that conversation, she's like, "I think I'm calling off the wedding." And, um... And so, uh, about a week later, she moved out of Zurich and moved from, um, back into... back to New York into my like 300-square foot apartment in the West Village. And, and my... And this is a long way of getting back to your question, which is like how does this relate to Hinge and would I have done the reboot because here I am, and I've like gotten the person. Like, this is the person that I've always want- like, wanted. Like, I finally got her back. And it was totally amazing for like a month or two or three months maybe max, and then the honeymoon period ended. And we're two people living in this little tiny apartment together in New York who haven't seen each other in eight years, and we've got to, like, start figuring each other out, and it wasn't perfect. And the part of me... Like, I would have... If I were just dating this person, I would have run, right? I would have like cut it off and been like, "Okay, like, not the right person. Like, it's not, it's not perfect like I imagined it was gonna be." But she'd called off this life. She like c-... You know, she left a, her person. She left, um, her whole existence over there, so I couldn't just like break up with her. And that's when I think the real work of the relationship started and like real intimacy and vulnerability and like love started to form. And I realized like I would have just passed over this person, and I think it just totally changed my, my mentality of how a dating app should be designed because I think up until that point I thought, you know, it's a, it's a numbers game. You just got to like get through enough people and once you find your person then it's, then it's kind of happily ever after after that. And realizing that like how many people, you know, we all must just skate right past because we don't... because we're not vulnerable because they're not vulnerable and we fail to like make that connection. And so I wanted to like rebuild an app if it were really for relationships, um, you just... it would be a very different kind of app. You would have to like have people slow down. You would have to have people be more vulnerable. You'd have to people share about themselves and put themselves on the line a bit more in order to form that initial connection. And so that was the foundation and sort of like the design principles for what we wanted to build with the new Hinge.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Fairy tale endings are made for movies because-
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... there's a lot of work that happens when the credits... after the credits roll.
- JMJustin McLeod
Totally. Yeah, we were just getting started. I had no idea.
- 34:23 – 37:05
The New Era for Hinge
- JMJustin McLeod
- SBSteven Bartlett
And you also... when you talk about this new vision for Hinge, it's quite idealistic, you know, this idea of just being able to create an app where people slow down and they give more information and they're more vulnerable tends to be the case that your ideal scenario for how humans behave isn't actually how they want to behave.
- JMJustin McLeod
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- JMJustin McLeod
Especially these days because we're all... we all believe things should be like quick and easy.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- JMJustin McLeod
And it's not quick and easy. You get, you get out what you put in. And so we were always fighting this balance of like what people are willing to do and what they should do.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- JMJustin McLeod
You know? And, and we were trying to, to... Like, we could, of course, build an app that's just like makes it like what people think that they want, which is like quick and easy and fun, but you have to slow people down, get them to put in a little bit more effort. And it's a real, it's a real balance of, of like getting people to be vulnerable as much as at least th- they can tolerate and... Because the more that they are, the more effective their experiences, the better chance that they have of finding a person.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How is that received when you come up with this new vision for Hinge which is gonna be slower, much more meaningful, and much more deeper and really based on forming long-term connections? How is that received by people?
- JMJustin McLeod
Uh, I think in theory it was, it was celebrated, right? In theory, I think people are like, "Yes, the world needs this kind of-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- JMJustin McLeod
... this kind of new thing." Like, "We definitely want something that's, like, a little bit less like fast food and more like, you know, a nice nutritious meal when it comes to dating." You know, it was, it was still hard to really get people... Like, they like it in theory but then they're like, "Wait, I have to fill out like three prompts?" Like, "Wait, I don't just swipe on people? I have to like something about them?" Um-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- JMJustin McLeod
... "Wait, if I like someone, they're just gonna see it? Like, you're just gonna tell them? I have to add a comment and like say something about them?" So it was like a lot to get people's head around who are used to something that was quite different. But it was effective and that's what mattered the most and, you know, the... That was a... It was such a huge mindset and shift for us to stop thinking about user engagement and user retention and all these like classic metrics that, you know, VCs look for when they look at like social media apps and to just think, "Are we getting people out on more..."... good dates or not? And that's gonna be our North Star metric, and we'll grow through word of mouth because people are actually gonna go on good dates and they're gonna tell their friends about it. And so that was our North Star, and so we didn't worry so much about, like, all those engagement metrics, and you know, we didn't... there weren't as many matches and there wasn't as much whatever, engagement on the app. It was actually way more efficient and effective at getting people out on good dates. And so, we launched this new thing. Our user numbers actually started to decline initially from the old version of the app.
- 37:05 – 39:05
How to Be Successful on Hinge
- JMJustin McLeod
- SBSteven Bartlett
And what about money?
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah, and so right about that time, we're starting to... We've burned through all that cash in order to build this new app and were starting to run out, and so I went out to start fundraising again, and telling the story of like, "Look at these, like, we, we're way more effective now. People love the product." But, on the other hand, we used to have, I don't know at the time, 400, 500,000 users, and now we were down to, like, 100,000, 150,000 users, and that's a pretty tough story to tell to venture capitalists. And-
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs) That you're shrinking.
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah. We're shrinking.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- JMJustin McLeod
But, but we're gonna grow because look at how amazing these... And no one r- like, really bought that story, and I was flying around everywhere talking to every VC. And I could talk to... You know, at that point, Hinge has gotten popular enough that any VC would, like, take my meeting and talk to me. But it was just, I probably had 50 or 60 VC meetings and, like, not a single, not a single yes. But, at right around that time, we also started talking to, um, Match Group. They saw... They could see what I saw. They saw, "Wow, this is actually something that's different, it's differentiated, and it has real promise." And so when we were down to, like, once again, like, days of cash, probably like a week or two left of cash, we negotiated a, a deal for, like, an initial investment from them that would set the stage for them then to eventually acquire the company.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And between 2016 and 2019 when they acquired the company, what was growth like?
- JMJustin McLeod
Uh, it was slow at first. 2016, 2017 we were kinda still figuring out the... It was a completely new model, and so we were figuring out how to really make that new model work, and we were like, you know, um, tuning it. And around 2018, we felt like, okay, we've really started to, like... Now, people are really starting to love this app. It's starting to really grow through word of mouth. And, and then we started to, like, pour in marketing money, and at that point, it was re- showing, like, how much that could accelerate the growth, and that's when Match Group invested.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hinge Labs.
- 39:05 – 43:00
What Is Hinge Labs?
- SBSteven Bartlett
- JMJustin McLeod
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is Hinge Labs? I don't believe any other dating apps have something like Hinge Labs.
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah, and it's all part of this idea that we wanna build... Like, we're just focused on user effectiveness, and does this actually get people out on good dates? And a huge piece of the... You know, a dating app is, is relatively unique. It's not just a piece of technology. It's, you know, what, what... It's the people that are on there and how they're behaving and the technology, like, that's your experience as a user. It's not just like... We... No matter how good we get at product and product design or whatever, like, we have to control for the behaviors (laughs) of o- other people and making sure that we have the right people on who are behaving the right way. You know, we can only guide them so much with, um, you know, UX. We also have to, like, kind of coach people and guide people and teach people how to become better daters. And so Hinge X... Or, or sorry. Hinge Labs was developed to sort of study y- daters who are successful, study daters who are not successful, figure out what are the patterns, what do we see, and how can we help level up everyone to become better and more successful daters? And so H- Hinge Labs really does, you know, deep dive research studies on just what is, what makes daters successful, um, and, and gives us the fuel to be able to, um, build better product or build user guides, things like that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So, what makes daters successful?
- JMJustin McLeod
Makes dating successful?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. Like, you know, I've got friends that seem to be successful at dating and friends that are just those prolific serial daters that go on 100 dates a year and never seem to make any progress.
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And also, are there, like, categories of daters that you talk about? You must have got, like, categories, like the serial dater that's never gonna be successful, they're just doing it for the fun of it. (laughs)
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And the, like, one hit wonder.
- JMJustin McLeod
We, we definitely have different profiles but we... Anytime we try to, like, just put people into discrete categories, it never works, 'cause people are complex and they have different... E- everyone's story is kind of unique, and so it's hard to put people just, like, into buckets. Um, and there are, I think, some general principles that I've learned and we've learned through Hinge Labs, and, you know, again, you had Logan here-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- JMJustin McLeod
... relatively recently, and if, if people are interested they should definitely go listen to her podcast because, with you, because it's like a masterclass in how to become successful in dating.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- JMJustin McLeod
But I would say, like, the more that you are willing to be honest and vulnerable and real, like, the quicker you can find those connections and the higher quality connections that you're gonna get. I think that's the kind of upshot, and the way that we really try to design Hinge, to help people maximize their success on that front.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why does that matter, at a human level, being honest and vulnerable?
- JMJustin McLeod
Uh, I think two reasons. One is that you get to an accurate assessment more quickly of someone, right? Like, if you're trying to be, pretend to be someone you're not or you're just trying to be cool or get a lot of likes or whatever, people aren't seeing the real you, and they're gonna eventually see the real you. So, the faster that you can just put, like... be clear about who you are and what you're looking for and what you want and what's not perfect about you, then I think the faster you're gonna find someone who's like, "Yes. This is the type of person that I wanna be with," and you're gonna avoid all those people that were attracted to the kind of veneer that you'd put up, but then they get to know the real you and then that's not... And then, I'd say, the second piece is that it gives people, like, hooks to grab onto. Like, there's just nothing to talk about with someone who's-... perfect, and inv- and invulnerable, and invincible. Like, what do you, like, what do you have to say? Like, we connect over the- the cracks of, and the little imperfections, and that's how we connect and relate to one another. And so you'll form a much better and deeper and quicker bond with someone when you open up like that, versus try to impress.
- 43:00 – 44:12
The Worst Things to Do in Dating Apps
- JMJustin McLeod
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay, what about this, then? So if I wanted to be the world's worst dater, if I wanted to be the world's worst, um, most unsuccessful Hinge user, or dating app user, more generally, what would I have to do?
- JMJustin McLeod
Uh...
- SBSteven Bartlett
So I've got your first point, which is about be really inauthentic. Pretend I'm perfect and use fake photos, or just port- portray myself in a way that's not authentic.
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah, a lot of, like, filtered photos with you in sunglasses, or hanging out with a lot of friends, one word answers to your prompts. You know, just like everyone or no one, or wait for likes to come to you. I think, like, that- that's the kind of mentality they're trying to get people out of. We wanna, we want people to, like, fill out deeper pro- Like, that's so much of our work is, like, helping people select better photos that show more of their personality, help people answer prompts, which are these short questions designed to get you into a conversation, and answer them thoughtfully. Uh, to, uh, be really thoughtful with your likes, because the more thoughtful you are with your likes, the better our algorithm gets 'cause we actually understand who you like and who you don't like.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So don't just like, you know-
- JMJustin McLeod
No, because then we can't, we can't-
- SBSteven Bartlett
quantity.
- JMJustin McLeod
... learn your taste, right? And we're not gonna get closer and closer to the type of person that you like.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay, interesting.
- 44:12 – 47:39
Advice for People Going on Loads Of Dates
- SBSteven Bartlett
And what about these, um, these serial daters? 'Cause I've got some friends that are, like, those serial daters, literally 100 dates a year. And I'll sit with them and we'll chat, and they'll tell me, "Oh, yeah, I went on three dates this week," et cetera. For those people, I'd love to be able to g- offer them some advice. Thinking of one- one of my friends in particular, who I know was- is gonna watch this. (laughs)
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah. I mean, I was one of those people, right? I mean, I was a person who, um, uh, you know, constantly was... I wouldn't necessarily just go on a whole lot of first dates, but I would go on a whole, I had had a whole lot of two to six-week relationships.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- JMJustin McLeod
And, um, and then as soon as I would find something, quote unquote, wrong, or I wouldn't feel good in the relationship, then I was like, "Well, this doesn't work." Like, "This is wrong." 'Cause I think I had such a, I had such a fantasy about what a good relationship looked like. I, like, my model was totally broken. And I think, for so many of us, we're like, we're trying to fit, like, a model in our head with the reali- with the reality, that we're trying to, like, match this reality to, like, some model in our head about what a good relationship is or should look like. And I think my model was like, you know, it stays sexy and fun every single time we're together. Um, we don't fight. There's never any... You know, there's like... I- I think I just had this, like, very happily ever after moment in my mind. And so I skipped over and passed over so much because it just didn't fit this, like, model I had in my head. And I think some of us have models in our head that are exceedingly narrow. They have to be like, over six foot, and they need to work in this type of job, and they need to be like this. And so you go out, and you're just looking for some reason to say no because it doesn't fit your model. And I think the biggest thing is for us to, um, like, change the model in their head that we're, that, like, of like, what we're trying to look for. And, like, widen that aperture a bit and give people more of a chance, and, like, see things through a bit more.
- SBSteven Bartlett
People have to, um, pe- this height, height thing you mentioned, this six foot thing, seems to be a (laughs) lot of conversation.
- JMJustin McLeod
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Because I think the vast majority of people... The va- vast majority of women, I imagine, would want someone that's more than six foot. Is that correct?
- JMJustin McLeod
Uh, no, I don't, I don't know if that's-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is that correct?
- JMJustin McLeod
... actually true. But people like someone taller than them.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Taller than them, okay.
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah. Um... Six foot seems to be- That's- that's just one example.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- JMJustin McLeod
I mean, I don't know about the height. But I think it's just, the point is, like, we have very specific and narrow models. And I think a lot of people who end up in successful relationships say-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- JMJustin McLeod
... "This isn't..." You know, if I were making a shopping list and like, d- you know, writing down all my, like, little features that I'm looking for in a partner, like this person didn't necessarily, that, like, I would have, would have missed this person.
- SBSteven Bartlett
There's a website, isn't there? I can't remember the name of it. But you go on there and you say what you're looking for in a partner, and it shows you your statistical probability of finding that person. (laughs)
- JMJustin McLeod
Okay. (laughs) Yeah, I don't know about that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- JMJustin McLeod
But yeah, I think if people saw that...
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's horrifying. (laughs)
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah, it'd be pretty horrifying, like how you're-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Just pick a salary.
- JMJustin McLeod
... cutting out-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- JMJustin McLeod
... 98, 8% of people, um-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- JMJustin McLeod
... based on your criteria.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The salary, the height, the weight, um, the race, you put on there, and then it shows you. It goes like, "You have a 0.0% chance of finding this person." (laughs)
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah, that's right. Um, and you, obviously, you want them to be single as well, as another criteria, um, which I find interesting.
- 47:39 – 49:32
Dating Apps Want People to Stay Single to Have More Customers…
- JMJustin McLeod
One of the things people say about dating apps, and like, dating app companies and founders and CEOs, is they want people to stay single because then you've got more customers. Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And surely, if every, if you have this metric where people are becoming, um, are getting married, you're losing customers.
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah. So our belief on that, uh, which has always been, um, we, we, like, our motto, our- our tagline is, "Designed to be deleted." And that came from, by the way, we were working with a branding agency, and they were like, "What's Hinge's shtick?" You know? Like, "What makes you different?" Like, "You're Tinder, but what?" And I was like, "I don't, there's no gimmick." Like, there's no, like, "Oh, we're Tinder, but, like, X," or, "Tinder but Y." Like, every single part of the app is, like, designed to be different and, like, designed to help get people out on great dates. And that's kind of where this, like, "Designed to be deleted," which, by the way, was, like, there was so much debate internally about that 'cause it's so, it sounds so technical. Like, design, like, in your own tagline, like, "Designed to be del-" Like, that, and it's, people won't understand it. But we kind of went with it because it's the only thing that really represented what makes Hinge, um...... really different. And-
- SBSteven Bartlett
And what does that mean?
- JMJustin McLeod
And it means that, do we get people out on great dates or not? And that's what's driven every design decision and why Hinge looks different than all the other apps is, like, that optimization function. And so in terms of a business model, the belief is that, like, we will grow through word of mouth, which is the most effective and efficient and cost-effective way to grow, if we just create more great dates and more relationships. And the thesis is like, as long as there are single people in the world, which I'm pretty sure there are plenty of single people left in the world, that they'll want to use Hinge, which feels more like a utility that's truly effective versus, like, perhaps what something that feels like a little bit more like a game.
- 49:32 – 50:40
How Has the Dating World Changed in the Last Few Years?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Since the company started, have you seen any changes in the dating environment, the dating landscape, dating culture?
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah. Gen Z, for lack of a better term, has different dating patterns. I think in some sense, like when I started Hinge, people were... there was a lot of stigma around dating apps because, um, uh, people just didn't use them at all. Then I feel like everyone started to use them, and it became the sort of default way to meet people. And I think this is why we've actually, like... Hinge's growth has accelerated so much even recently, is that there actually is a desire to move away from the sort of, like, quick hit superficial-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Swipe, swipe, swipe.
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah, yeah. And moving to something that people are willing to share more about themselves and be more... Like, I think, like Gen Z is generally willing to, like... You know, it's like the TikTok instead of the Instagram kind of feel of being vulnerable, putting yourself out there. You don't have to look so polished and so perfect, and it's actually great for, for, uh, dating because that's exactly the kind of ethos that we actually need for people to be successful.
- 50:40 – 51:57
Hinge First Principles
- JMJustin McLeod
- SBSteven Bartlett
And Hinge, as I was reading, has got these sort of five first principles. What is the, um, current company mission statement?
- JMJustin McLeod
Well, so the... We want to foster intimate connection to create a less lonely world. And a lot of social, we'll call them like social networks, so they started as social networks, were also... I think had a similar mission. Like, you want to con- get you connected to the people who matter most to you, and they've all kind of like fol- like, they all became social media companies instead, because it turns out that like brands and influencers and outrageous people are just more interesting than your friends.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- JMJustin McLeod
And it's easier to get you to spend more time in-app and more time looking at ads if we, like, show you much more sensational content than, than like, you know, real, um, like creating real moments of connection with the people who matter most to you. And that's what I wanted to drive home, like really clearly in our mission, is that, like, Hinge at its core, even if we were to expand into new business lines or do something in the future, like, we are a company about intimate connection, about one-to-one deep connections between people, and we don't ever want to deviate from that, as our core, because it's really what the world needs right now.
- 51:57 – 1:00:47
The Importance of Taking Risks
- JMJustin McLeod
- SBSteven Bartlett
First principle two, radical trust. So you've got designed to be deleted, number two is radical trust-
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... which means?
- JMJustin McLeod
So radical trust is our commitment to... And so these cultural principles that you're reading off-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- JMJustin McLeod
... came from this book, um, called How We Do Things. And so when I, when we rebooted the company in 2015, at the end of 2015, beginning of 2016, we, um... At that point, I didn't think about company culture kind of at all. It was just like, it was just, uh, we were a bunch of people in a room trying to solve problems, like that's... And we were only 30 people. So culture just kind of emerges naturally among that group of people. It really rotates around the founder. But I didn't think consciously about it. When we did that reboot, we, we let go of half the company, we took the remaining half and we went and did an off-site, and we did a, a breakdown and a really... had like some really honest, at times tearful conversations about like what had gone wrong, what did we do right? What, what didn't we do right? What do we wish we had done better? Um, and a, a lot of them were, of course, like product decisions, like, "Oh, we focused too much on the competition and copying the competition and not focused enough on our customer." But a lot of it was like how we operated as a company, and coming out of that, we actually started a, like open source Google Doc that listed our kind of what we believed and how we think sh- things should, should get done around Hinge. And originally it was just like a long doc of just all kinds of principles. It was me just trying to, like put my management algorithm, like down and on a piece of paper so that everyone was very clear about how I made decisions and how we should all make decisions and how we should prioritize and what we should do. So then eventually as Hinge got a little bit bigger and we started to, you know, have more than a hundred employees, that model didn't make as much sense anymore and we put it in this book called How We Do Things, which was at that point just a list of all our lesson... It's really about... It's a story of our lessons learned. It's like we did it all the wrong ways and that led us to learn to do it the right way. And so that's where, just to give the context on where these principles came from. So designed to be deleted was like we used to focus on the competition and focusing on like what features our competitors had when we did the reboot. We just focused on making our one metric getting people out on great dates and I, like, prohibited people from looking at the competition. I didn't want any of their apps on my phone, like I just, just focus on novel innovation in service of our customer. Radical trust was about a lot of the decision making was like very top down and, um, and I think people felt disempowered. They felt a lot of whiplash and radical trust was about how do you push decision making down to the front lines and how do you empower people with the information that they need? So I have a lot of transparency from the top down about like where we are as a business, what our needs are, what our problems are, so that people on the front lines can go solve it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Love the leap.
- JMJustin McLeod
Love the Leap is this idea that small incremental optimizations can be, can be great, but real, uh, the, the things that matter require like, a level of, um, a much bigger innovation leaps. And we have to not be afraid of failure, because when you make those much bigger innovation leaps, a lot of them like, won't, of course, land. Or you have to, I think even more importantly, trudge through a whole lot of failure to finally get to success. I think there's a culture of like, that comes from people, especially who have worked in tech companies and much larger tech companies of like, "Oh, you just test and iterate." Like, you test this thing and then if it works, great, and then if it doesn't, then you just like, move on and tr- try the next thing. I, I think the difference between that and then the way that like, often a founder or an entrepreneur will think is like, "I believe in this thesis and I'm gonna get there no matter what." And if I had like ... I mean, think about how many iterations of Hinge I had to eventually get to the successful Hinge. If I'd just been like, "Oh, I'm thinking about building a dating app. I'll throw something out there and see if people use it. Oh gosh, they're not really using it. I guess a dating app's not a good idea. I'll go like, build a-"
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- JMJustin McLeod
"... you know, whatever, uh, a car hailing app." You have to like, trudge through that. So that's Love the Leap is like, you have to suffer through a lot of failure to make like, the big innovation leaps.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you see a variance in even your team members, but other people you work with, their bias towards failure? There are, uh, different failure appetites.
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah, and it gets harder and harder as you get bigger and, and bigger and you're fighting against a larger cultural inertia. Like, and, and this is very human, by the way, to like, not make mistakes and not, um, look bad. And that's why, by the way, this whole book is written as like, here's all the mistakes that we made and how we did it all wrong, just to give people the permission to know like, we're all works in process. We're all trying to learn. Um, so you are overcoming like, a much larger cur- cultural inertia to get people to take risks and, and make mistakes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How'd you do that?
- JMJustin McLeod
Uh, you exhibit failure from the top (laughs) . Like, you admit, I think, when you've, when like, when you've made mistakes, well like, when I've made mistakes, or even talking about, you know, my development plan or things that I'm working on, I just think it, it like, you ... Almost all of these cultural attributes have to be modeled from the very top.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Super interesting, 'cause most people are just incentivized to just do their job. So when you bring along a, a new idea or a new innovation, you know, incentive structures mean, "Well listen, I'm not getting paid to take that fucking risk and then may be, be made to look stupid."
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
"So I'm not doing that."
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah, I think that's right. And that's why I think we're ... and we're continuing to evolve these principles and, and, and refine them. In fact, we're going through a process right now, it's kind of ironic, 'cause yeah, we're, we're walking through these and I'm about to release a new version of these to the company.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- JMJustin McLeod
And there has been a bit of a refinement, and we're actually kind of changing this one and combining it with the first one to call it Love the Problem, because so much of, about what we're really trying to get across through this is that, you have to go like, really deep and develop a deep thesis on a problem, and that's what you do, I think, at this stage of a company. You don't take like, wild leaps based on the intuition of a founder anymore. You like, do deep research on a problem. You get conviction around it, and then you're not afraid to like, fail again and again trying to solve that problem, because you are convinced that it's a real problem and you understand a lot about it and you're making a very informed decision. You're taking a very thoughtful approach to solving it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Number four was, and it-
- JMJustin McLeod
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
... currently is in my iPad here, Guided by Principles.
- JMJustin McLeod
And that one's definitely staying, and that's one of the biggest, um, uh ... M- my own personal journey and I would say like, this journey and just, it, it's sort of what I talked about when I talked about how this got created in the first place, is that, if you keep making the same mistakes over and over again and you're not having an honest self-assessment about where you are and how things are working, you won't get better. And so both of my own personal journey, and this has happened through, you know, recovery through alcohol and addiction and getting better and better as an entrepreneur is like, I was always self-reflecting and thinking about like, okay, like, seeking feedback, like, "What didn't go well there? What did go well there? How can I do that better next time?" And it became, like I said, too arduous for me to even, to track all these things in my mind, so I started putting them in that Google Doc so that everyone at the company could hold me accountable to this like, management algorithm I was developing. And what I wanted us, is, to do as a company is always make decisions based on principles, like, what's the underlying reason? Like, if I'm making a decision, no one should ever think, "Well, that's just 'cause Justin likes it that way," or, "That's just because some other leader at the company, that's just what they want, so let's just do it their way." We want people to think like, to understand like, "How am I making these decisions? What's underneath that? What principles do I believe in that made me to choose this over that?" Because if you make that really explicit and clear, then you gain trust, people understand like, why you're making the decisions, and two, they can start making the decisions on their own without you needing to be in the room and start developing their own principles for how they make decisions. And so, so many of our meetings start off with like, "Well, here are the principles that we sort of aligned on as we started to make, you know, think about this body of work." And it just aligns everyone on the, um, what's the, what, what are also like, the core set of assumptions and beliefs and values that we have before we get into the details of the work.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And that kind of counteracts the whole CEO because I said so, you know, vibe, which might get, I guess, um, might get compliance, but it probably won't deliver upon whatever someone calls leadership.
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah. It's not scalable. And maybe some CEOs always know the right thing to do, but I don't always know the right thing to do. I, I think my job, once we got past 20 or 30 people, which by the way, I didn't know the right thing to do even when we were that small, but I thought I did. Um, but as we got much bigger like, I can't be close enough to the, to the information to like, make really great decisions. And so my job primarily is, is building and fostering the culture that makes good decisions.
- 1:00:47 – 1:17:25
How to Have Great Company Culture
- JMJustin McLeod
- SBSteven Bartlett
I've been thinking a lot about company culture and I threw this at Brian Chesky when he was here, this idea of-
- JMJustin McLeod
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... how you create company culture, like, how do you decide. I think some people think, especially post-pandemic, which caused all of these companies and businesses to start thinking about what their company culture was in a new way-
- JMJustin McLeod
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... you'd see CEOs and managers-... almost, like, brainstorming a principle-less culture, and it was more like, "How, well, what days do you want people to come in? Mondays and Tues-
- JMJustin McLeod
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
... Wednesdays? Should we say, two, two days a week? One day a week?
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah, yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Should we... You know? Um, and that just doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel like it's based on anything. So I said to Brian, I said, "One of the things I'm thinking about is maybe culture is already there and you just kind of have to reverse engineer it from the problem you're trying to solve in the world."
- JMJustin McLeod
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Which means, for example, if we wanna be the best dating app in the world, then there's a set of behaviors we're gonna have to exhibit to get there, which is gonna require a set of values. And then with those values, we can use those values to create systems, processes, and hire the people that we need. And so you can almost reverse engineer your mission as a company-
- JMJustin McLeod
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... um, backwards to figure out what your culture is.
- JMJustin McLeod
You said something about, like, you're just describing the culture that already e- exists, and I think that's kind of true, especially if you do it early enough where it's not out of control yet. Um, when it's, like, relatively close around the founder, you've only got, like, 30 or 40 or 50 people-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- JMJustin McLeod
... then you definitely have some sort of culture, and at that point, though, I think you wanna start defining, defining it so that everyone's clear on what it is 'cause it will start, you'll start losing, as it starts expanding and people start... It's a game of telephone, right? And it will, like, it will get lost over time. So you wanna get really clear on, like, what it is. I think it's the best of what is as well, right? 'Cause I think you're, you're trying to, like, articulate when we're at our best, this is how we're acting. And when we're at our worst, this is how we're acting, 'cause both are always happening within a company. Like, and you don't want to, you wanna constantly prune away the stuff that's not, that's sort of not great and start having more people replicate what is great. So it's that, it's more like a pruning process and not just like a, "Here's our culture," like, describe it and, and put it out the door. But on the other hand, you can't just, like, throw it up on a wall and invent it from scratch. Like, once an organization is big, you can't just say, like, "Our culture suddenly is gonna be X, Y, and Z." It'll be so inauthentic to what's actually going on on the ground that no one would ever follow it. I almost think about it like parenting in a way, like you can tell a kid a rule or tell a kid like a... But you always have to be watching and, like, giving those little guidances like here and there. You always have to be giving those little nudges when you s- when you see people acting within accordance with the culture and praising it or not in accordance with the culture and giving them constructive feedback 'cause it's such, it's this living, breathing thing. Like, defining it is just, like, one, one step, but a very important step.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And as the company grows and scales, I was thinking about this idea of, um, the best of what is. Is it possible that the best of what is when there's 10 of you, and you're potentially all sleeping under a table, like the stereotype goes, is not gonna be the right culture for when there is, like, 200 of you?
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah, totally. And, you know, the book you're reading from right now is when we were, you know, 50 to 100 people, and now we're 300 and something people and, and we're evolving them, and we're actually changing some of them because I've learned things over time that, like, no longer work at a company this big. I'll give you an example. One is that idea of radical trust, which we just talked about, which actually kind of pained me to talk about because that's not, I've learned that's, like, not right for a company this big anymore. You wanna push decision-making down somewhat, but if you do it too much, especially in a larger organization, you start getting, like, a lot of silos and everyone just doing micro-optimizations. And there's, there's, you actually wanna be... There needs to be much more of a conversation, and I actually watched the, the, the Brian interview and he talks about pulling decision-making in. And that actually is, I think, more in line with where you have to be if you wanna stay innovative and still think like a startup even at a big scale. So there's things that I took for granted because when we were 100 people, that was happening already but I didn't see it because I just had... I knew everyone's name. We were all in the same room, and so there was a lot of CEO and executive team influence on the team that, that was kind of hidden 'cause it just happened naturally.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- JMJustin McLeod
So we thought we were pushing decision-making down. However, I was, I was in conversation with junior developers and junior engineers and junior designers all the time giving, like, little nuggets of feed... Like, I was, like, I was involved, just not officially. And I think as we got much bigger, we realized, like, oh gosh, you can't just push decision-making down and, like, hope for the best. You have to, like, pull people in and coordinate. And there are people at the top that have a view across what's going on across the whole company that need to actually be making decisions. We can't just, like, push it down.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Just to be super clear on that for someone who is, you know, in their first month of business, um, pulling decision-making in in that regard is empowering people to make decisions, but those decisions coming, again, through the central lens of the company's mission?
- JMJustin McLeod
When you're really small, it's, it's happening already, right? If you're, if you're a team of 10 people or 12 people, like, you're all aware of what each other are doing. You're talking and you're being conscious about, if I'm the marketing person and the, and the products person over here working on this product feature, uh, I'll think like, oh, I should probably market that product feature. Like, there's just this, like, understanding of what's going on, so you are making... You're, like, kind of a hive mind.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- JMJustin McLeod
You just take that for granted. And as you get much bigger, you can either make... You know, I think the extremes are you, you just have, like, a founder who makes all the decisions. Everything just gets brought into them, which I think makes a lot of people feel disempowered. On, on the other hand, you push decision-making completely down and you say, "You all just handle that. I'll just articulate the high-level vision and strategy," and you... But then you usually don't make great sort of, uh, interdisciplinary or major-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Cohesive.
- JMJustin McLeod
... leaps that are, that feel cohesive. Everything starts like... So it's this balance of having just like a constant conversation opportunity for feedback. I still, ultimately, the decision-makers are the people who are close to the work. However, we are, like, pulling it in and articulating strategy and, and generating conversation. I'm in the room with more junior people-... a lot now than I, frankly, more now than that I used to be so that we can cont- continually, um, bring people along on what the strategy is, what are the big leaps we're making, and what are all the little ways that we keep this cohesive.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's interesting because in the age of the internet, um, and the age of dating apps and all these other tools and technologies, even though we have better internet connections, the stats continue to show that we're getting lonelier and lonelier.
- JMJustin McLeod
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Which is a word you use central to your mission, the word "loneliness." 52% of Americans report to feeling lonely and 57% of Americans report to eating their meals alone, et cetera. So something's clearly failing, isn't it? Something's clearly not working in this pursuit of connection and social connection and social media, et cetera.
Episode duration: 1:26:48
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