How I Built This with Guy Raz - How I Built Resilience: Whitney Wolfe Herd of Bumble

Episode Date: September 19, 2020

Last year, the dating app Bumble launched a video chat feature that was initially slow to take off. But that changed after the pandemic hit. Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd tells Guy that many Bumble users are getting to know each other on video before meeting in person—a trend that could change dating for the better. These conversations are excerpts from our How I Built Resilience series, where Guy talks online with founders and entrepreneurs about how they're navigating turbulent times.Order the How I Built This book at:https://smarturl.it/HowIBuiltThisSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Hey, everyone, and welcome to How I Built This Resilience Edition. On these episodes, we're talking with entrepreneurs and other business leaders about how they're meeting today's challenges with new and exciting ideas. And today, we're going to hear from Whitney Wolf Hurd, the founder of the dating app Bumble. We first told Whitney's story on the podcast about three years ago, and you should definitely check out that episode. if you haven't heard it yet. Anyway, as you may know, Bumble works a little differently than most dating apps, and last year it released a video chat feature that didn't really take off until the lockdown began in March. Oh, and one more thing?

Shortly before the lockdown began, Whitney became a mom. Her baby was born last December. First of all, how are you holding up? How are you coping with the craziness? Listen, I mean, I think you have the opportunity to control very. very few things in life right now. And so all I've got is my attitude every day. And so I'm trying to see the bright side of all of this. And I think the bright side with the new baby is as a working woman and as a CEO of a growing business, how would I have ever seen my child as a baby when I went back to

work? And so there's absolutely silver lining in this. Even if it's stressful, even if it's overwhelming, you know, completely nerve-wracking at times, I get to be with my baby. And so I think there's a huge opportunity in that as well. I totally agree with you. I was just talking to the team about just how difficult of a time it is, you know, with a pandemic and the economic crisis and the unrest in the country and a lot of anger. And of course, now in the West Coast, you've got wildfires and you've got a hurricane in the south. It's just a crazy time.

And you're right. The only thing you can do is just work really hard to have a positive attitude. It's really hard. It's really hard. But you know what? The other thing that I find comforting is that for the first time, maybe ever, the entire world is in something together. All of us suffer from struggles on either an individual level or community-wide level or a town-wide level and sometimes a statewide or nationwide level. But it's very rare that we have a collective struggle that is so similar around the globe.

And so I think there's something about this togetherness, even in a time that. It's so isolating. Yeah, it's a little bit like Independence Day. Where's Jeff Goldblum? I'm waiting. I don't know. We all need to come together and fight the aliens. I mean, it's the pandemic.

It's climate change. Or Armageddon. I mean, it's one of the two. Yeah, I don't remember which one Jeff Goldblum was in. All right, let's get to Bumble, Whitney, for the small number of people who are not familiar with your dating app Bumble. Can you please just explain how it works? Absolutely.

So first and foremost, we started as a dating app, but we are really really. now a broad connections platform. What's fantastic is that as we launched a dating app back in 2014, where women had to initiate the conversation. So let me give you the very basics. You download the product if you're looking for a heterosexual relationship and of course we're inclusive to all orientations no matter what you're seeking. But when you are looking for a heterosexual relationship, once a woman and a man match, only the woman can initiate the conversation. And what this has done has really turned things on its head in a positive direction in the sense that they're in control. We as the women, we have an extra kind of encouragement

of confidence in this mechanism to say hello and make that first move. And we've always been about putting the power into the women's hand, not to make women above men, but to equalize this kind of broken system. We felt that women were historically a bit below men in this. this like totem pole of relationships and who should go first and who has the power. So by having the women make the first move, you essentially just bring her up and then you've stabilized it for everyone. Anyway, since then, we saw this huge desire for women to be able to connect platonically as well. And because there was this barrier to entry, women were really feeling safe and encouraged to use

it to friend find or to business network. And so now we're facilitating connections across the board. but under the guise and this like strong foundation of safety, empowerment, kindness and accountability. All right. I have a million questions for you about love in the time of COVID. And I checked a couple weeks ago and I saw that love in the time of cholera was rising on the Amazon charts. So once COVID really became a reality in March when, you know, tech companies and the NBA and then people really started shutting down their businesses and starting remote work, what did you initially see? I mean, what, were the trends that you were seeing with Bumble. Yeah, so, you know, I think this was a troubling time for everyone across the globe, but quite remarkably our theory that no matter what happens in the world, the need for human connection and love and friendship and overall connectivity, that doesn't

go away. In fact, it just becomes more important and more critical. And so we saw this fascinating event take place, which was a huge surge in activity. We had very fortunately been ahead of the curve with in-app video chatting. That was a feature that historically had moderate to low use. And we always wondered, why are people not using this more? This is a great mechanism to get to know somebody. Imagine if you could avoid that first date in public because you figured out that person wasn't for you by video. Or you could go ahead and skip the awkward, you know, crowded coffee shop because you're nervous about meeting a stranger and you could go straight to that dinner you wanted to have or that walk in the park or maybe through a video chat,

you recognize that you had a lot of shared interest and you want to go for a bike ride, whatever. So all of a sudden, you know, we're all sitting on the edge of our seats like, what's going to happen to our business? This is so crazy. People aren't allowed to date. Is this going to wipe us out? It was a very concerning and confusing time.

But remarkably, the usage. just went through the roof. And so we really just saw people using our product in such a deeper, more meaningful way. So basically what happened was once this COVID thing really became a reality, you started to see a spike in people connecting digitally, but not a spike in people meeting up face-to-face, which to me, I would think that actual physical meetings has probably declined across the board for all dating. I would imagine that people were just scared to meet.

So is that a trend? you've also been seeing? So we're seeing a decrease in this casual culture of dating where you might go out with someone for a night and then you don't see them again. That has decreased significantly, but remarkably more meaningful relationships are coming out of this. So you're getting people and they're spending days, if not weeks, video chatting. We've heard of these really incredible stories of people ordering from the same restaurant in and having a dinner party with each other through the screen. They're watching movies or reading books together or they're doing projects. They started gardening or whatever people started doing, all this banana bread stuff.

And it's been really incredible. So the amount of success stories we have heard and seen come out of this. And when I say success stories, I mean we are exclusive together type of love. We have heard of countless stories of this because of not having this transactional, you know, see each other for a moment in real life, forget. about them the next day. Not only that, but the friendship success stories, those are the ones that have really struck me as fascinating because people can't see their friends right now. And so many of us have to travel to see our friends anyway. And that's been wiped out for the time being. And so seeing people check in on their community through Bumble has been amazing.

I have so much admiration for you and what you've created. But I'm going to throw some skepticism here, Whitney. I'm just, I get it, you know, and I understand people connecting digitally, but I don't buy this idea that people are building more meaningful, deeper relationships digitally without actually meeting up physically. I mean, are you saying that people are... No, no, back up, back up. What I'm saying is instead of matching on Bumble, exchanging a hey, what's up, let's meet at the coffee shop, see you tomorrow type of thing, they're doing a lot of the foundational groundwork on the product first. And then they're meeting once it's safe. So there are folks that said, hey, you know what, we've really hit it off on this video chat. Let's self-quarantine now for two

weeks or whatever the guidelines are, and then we'll meet in person. And so why I'm saying they're more meaningful is if we're a little more thoughtful and spend a little more time getting to know the individual behind the screen before we go meet in person, the success rate is so much higher. But are you noticing like, I mean, and this is a kind of a tricky question for me to ask because it's NPR and nobody wants to hear me talk about intimacy, especially me. I don't want to hear me talk about intimacy. But I mean, are people, from what you know, are people nervous about that? I mean, yes, you're getting to know somebody in a video chat, but then presumably they're going on a date and that tends to lead to intimacy. Are people nervous about that given that COVID

is out there? Yes, people are nervous. They are nervous. And rightfully so, we should be nervous. But if you follow the guidelines and you get access to testing or you take precautions to ensure that you and that other party are safe, then it becomes a lot less risky. And so I think what is awesome here is for me and my friends in particular, I think a lot of my personal disdain and a lot of my girlfriend's sustained for this transactional dating culture that has kind of come because of the early dawn of dating apps and so on and so forth, you know, there has been. some romance lost over the years. And I think what is so special in the silver lining in this

love in the time of COVID is that we are taking more time to know one another before we are meeting a stranger in real life. And when you think about this, go back 10 years ago before the explosion of the industry that I'm in, if I had told you, you get to exchange two or three messages with a stranger. You've seen two or three photos. Now go meet them in public. That's a daunting, dangerous suggestion. Yet that has become so normalized. That is what millions of individuals around the world are doing. I personally believe in our team believes that the added safety, security and success rate, if you will, is going to be amplified because of this forced moment of social distancing. When we come back in just a moment, Whitney answers some questions

from our audience and talks about the business of Bumble. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz. In your to How I Built This Resilience Edition from NPR. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This Resilience Edition. And here's more for my conversation with Whitney Wolf Hurd, founder of the dating app, Bumble. Here's a question from Clarissa Freeze. Clirsa asks, what precautions does Bumble take to make online dating safer? Thank you for asking that, because this is a huge, huge focus of ours. So first and foremost, we have this incredible feature called photo verification.

And what's so interesting to us is photo verification had really only existed for credit cards or for your finances. But why would we treat your finances as more secure than the people you're meeting? I mean, there's nothing more important than your own personal security as a human being. And so photo verification is this incredible feature where you take a photo of yourself in real time and it compares it to your profile photo. And within 30 seconds to one minute, it will analyze our. you who you say you are. And if you are who you say you are, then you get a checkmark and you are verified. And so that way, you know you're not getting catfish. You know you're not talking to somebody pretending to be someone else. So that's just a first step. We have incredible block

and reporting features. So if something makes you uncomfortable or you feel like somebody might be a risk to you or to others, you can block and report. And we take that very seriously. We have a huge team that looks into all of this. And so those are just two examples of how we really try to create an accountable ecosystem. Let's talk a little bit about business. What is the, I mean, have you seen your business increase, your revenue increase? Has it been flat? Have you been careful with your cash balances to steal yourself for a possible further downturn?

Tell us a little bit about some of the things that have been happening in your strategies. So I can't comment on revenue as a direct metric, but what I can say is that we've been an incredibly durable business across the board. But I think that there is no business in the world that has not had to at least tweak their ways. And so all of us have had to make concessions. All of us have had to make changes. But what I will say is that we have been on the side that would be least impacted because we have been such a digital business. I'm watching all these local businesses around me.

All of a sudden, they're modernizing. You know, you're ordering from the phone. They're bringing it to the car. And it's this really modern thing. And I'm sitting here scratching my head going, oh, my goodness, how did it take a global pandemic to actually modernize these businesses that are perceived as quite current and hip. And we have not had to do that. And so because we haven't had to go and rewrite our model, and another example is so much of our workforce was already remote. We have offices all over the

world because our business affords us the luxury to be remote, we haven't had to adapt to the same degree that so many individuals have had to do. And so, you know, we have been very fortunate. And I think that this has proven a theory that we were trying to enforce for years before this hit, which was connect digitally first. It's safer. It's more meaningful. And then what becomes really interesting is how do we connect groups, right? So lots of these events have gone out the window for now. So what you used to be able to do and go to a concert, you used to be able to go to a dinner party, you used to be able to go to an event where you had this connection with more than just one individual. So what we're really focused on right now is how do we connect you to more than just

one person. How can we bring you together on shared interests? For example, how do we build the digital dinner party and the equivalent of that so that you don't lose access to building your network? It's not just about one to one. It's about many to many and one to many. And so I think that's a huge focus as we go forward. Whitney, just very briefly, have you hired during this period of time? Have you actually scaled up to meet demand of new people onboarding and sitting up profiles? You know, it's not so much to meet demand because we have a really well staff team, but this is an opportunity to hire in a way that we never thought about before. Usually we're just hiring at our two main locations or three main locations.

Now that things are moving remote, we're opening up our talent pool opportunities. Right. So we're just thinking more broadly and differently. And of course, this has posed new demands, right? Like we need to lean into social growth more. And so you hire for that or we need to double down here. You hire for that. And so we're definitely actively hiring right now. And we're very fortunate to be able to do that.

So just from a leadership perspective, I mean, you are running this company and you're running it remotely. I mean, how are you doing that? How are you able to kind of maintain the culture, maintain morale? And let's be honest, it's not, I'm just telling you from my perspective, it's not always possible. Some days you can't motivate everybody. Some days people are just down. and they're just frustrated. Oh, by the way, some days I'm motivated, right?

Like, this is affecting all of us. Truly what keeps us going is the need to connect people, right? We understand when we go to our job and we show up and we're on these Zooms. The work we are doing is helping connect people. It's helping people find love, start families, find fun, find an escape, find a friend, find a business partner. That's meaningful and that's motivation in and of itself. But I have to give a lot of credit to my team. and then, of course, to Blackstone.

So, you know, we did a majority acquisition of my former shareholder last year. And then just a couple months later, this pandemic hits. And so their support and their infrastructure and all of the opportunities they've granted us has been remarkable. And then our leadership team and our user base. So I would say that's kind of the thing that keeps us going every day. Before we let you go, Whitney, this is a question from Mitchell Slater. He asks, what's your favorite love in the time of COVID success, that you've heard through Bumble?

I think my favorite story was actually a woman and a gentleman. I actually met he was in his, I want to say 70s, and she was in probably her late 50s. And if she's listening, I'm sorry if you're younger than that, you look amazing. But, you know, she had lost her husband tragically. And she heard about Sharon Stone joining Bumble. And so she joined Bumble during COVID. And they talked and they talked and they talked and they video chatted. and he said, well, you know, all the restaurants are closed.

What about a parking lot picnic? So they agreed to a parking lot picnic, you know, six feet apart. And when she arrived, there was a white tablecloth parking lot picnic at some obscure shopping mall somewhere in Florida. And they had a lovely, lovely, romantic parking lot picnic, very socially distant. And they really hit it off. And they have now been together ever since. and I ran into them in Colorado, and they're a lovely couple, and had it not been for his son

encouraging him to get on Bumble, and for Sharon Stone talking about her Bumble experience, they would never have found each other. And so that was just one example of a really charming and lovely story that I had firsthand interaction with. And there's many, many more to that. I love it. Whitney Wolf, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much. You're always such a joy to speak with. And thank you for having me. I appreciate it. That's an excerpt for my conversation with Whitney Wolf Hurd, the founder of Bumble. To see our full interview, you can go to Facebook.com slash how I built this.

And if you want to see all of our past live interviews, you can find them there or at YouTube.com slash NPR. And if you want to find out more about the How I Built This Resilience series or other virtual NPR events, you can go to nprpresents.org. This episode was produced by Candice Lim, with help from Will Mitchell, Matt. Matt Adams, El Manion, Gianna Capadona, John Isabella, Julia Carney, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Thanks for listening. Stay safe, and I'll see you in a few days. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.