How to Get a Girlfriend with Connell Barrett - Do Women on Tinder Ignore You? The Man Who Invented Swiping Reveals How to Finally Get Matches (with Tinder’s Jonathan Badeen)

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

Back in the day, Jonathan Badeen was an introvert struggling to meet women and get dates. (Sound familiar?) So he did what any guy would do—he co-founded Tinder, invented swiping, and changed dating (and the world) forever. In this encore episode of “How to Get a Girlfriend,” Badeen joins host and dating coach Connell Barrett to help you finally get quality matches on the apps.In this episode, Jonathan and Connell discuss:5:59: Why Tinder is for More than Just Hookups19:26: The Aha Moment when Jonathan Came Up with Swiping22:49: Why Authenticity is What Women Want—on Tinder and in Real Life31:57: The Real Reason You’re Not Getting Good Matches35:35: The Myth that “Dating Apps Just Don’t Work”39:29: How to Inject Fun into Your profile to Get Women Messaging You First41:15: How Shy Guys and “Nerds” Can Win on the Apps52:21: Why Jonathan Would Swipe Right on Minnie MouseListen now for wisdom from the man who changed dating—and finally land great Tinder dates!FOR A FREE STRATEGY CALL WITH CONNELL TO FIND OUT IF DATING COACHING IS RIGHT FOR YOU:http://www.datingtransformation.comWANT A FREE COPY OF CONNELL’S NO. 1 AMAZON BESTSELLING BOOK, “DATING SUCKS BUT YOU DON’T”? EMAIL CONNELL AND WRITE “FREE BOOK” IN THE SUBJECT LINE AND YOU’LL GET IT INSTANTLY:[e-mail]

Welcome back to the How to Get a Girlfriend podcast. It's me, dating coach, Connell Barrett, your podcast dating coach. I'm here to help you get more dates, get a great girlfriend, get really good at flirting, basically find love and do it by being authentic. Authenticity baby. And today's episode is really special. I have an interview with the most influential person I've ever talked to on this. Actually probably the most influential person I've ever interviewed in my life. Well okay, close second. I did once interview the current

president of the United States I have a story about that that I'll share on a future episode But the second most influential person I've ever spoken to is on today's episode Jonathan Badine co-founded tinder and he also invented right swiping Swiping right swiping left the dating apps the way we use the dating apps, I should say it all is because of Jonathan Bedeen. He's brilliant. He changed the world. And he's also as you're about to find out a really good guy, just a regular relatable guy. And I was surprised when I first met him online on this interview, because I went into this thinking, okay, the guy who founded co founded Tinder invented right swiping, he's going to be, he's going to be like a

character from succession. He's going to be like Ari from entourage. He's going to be arrogant, loud. Oh my God, nothing could be further from the truth. Jonathan is just a regular good guy who back in the day was struggling with dating. He created Tinder or co-created it because he was struggling to get dates. He was kind of nervous. He's introverted. He struggled on dates and struggled to meet women. So he said, I need to find a new way to meet women. And that's how Tinder was founded, essentially. It was created because of his need for love and for dating success. Boy, does that sound familiar to you? Sure did sound familiar to me when I interviewed Jonathan.

So I'm really proud of this episode. Jonathan is a, in my opinion, he's a genius. He's also just brilliant and bright and fun. And he's got some really good dating tips in this episode. He talks about the truth about whether or not the algorithm can mess up your profile and mess up your results on Tinder. He's got some dating advice and you're about to hear a real insightful and the most influential person in the history of the dating industry at minimum. So get ready to listen to Jonathan Baddine. And this episode ran a few months back, back in

January I believe, but I think it got lost in the shuffle of a lot of other episodes I was posting. So I wanted to repost this episode because it's worth it. I'm really proud of this. This might be my favorite interview I've done in all of my episodes. So get ready to enjoy Jonathan Baddine with some Tinder tips to help you finally get some success on the dating apps. Because I'll bet that you are, like a lot of guys, the majority of men do not have success on Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble. Actually, a large majority of men have never had a date in real life from the dating apps, I should say. from the dating apps, I should say. And so if that's you as well, then you need some help. Right?

If the only woman texting you on your phone is your mom asking you why you're still single, bro, that's a problem. So I wanna help you with that if I can. That's where I come in. What I do in my dating coaching is one of the things I do is I look at a guy's profile and I overhaul his online dating profile so that I can help take a guy from getting ghosted to getting dates with incredible women and matches. My goal for every client is I want to take him from lack of matches, crickets, silence on a date,

I'm sorry, silence on the apps to, whoa, I got 10, 12 good matches this week, two dates a week, up to two, maybe three dates a week. And that's what I want. I wanna offer guys a real transformation in their online dating success because that's what I was able to do back when I was struggling with online dating.

That's what the last few episodes have been about, all about online dating. And so yeah, if you are ready to stop swiping in frustration and start seeing some real results, or if you just want to stop saying Tinder hates me, the apps are rigged, and instead you want to get, I don't know, a date, two dates a week, then all you need to do is go to my website, datingtransformation.com, and you can book a free call with me, yours truly. Basically, we'll hop on the call, I'll give you a plan, I'll look at your profile, I'll give you a plan, and I'll say, here's what we need to do to get you the matches, the dates, and the girlfriend that you want. So if you are interested in looking into how that works,

just go to datingtransformation.com, book a free strategy call today. I'll give you the plan, I'll help you fix the profile, and then down the road a ways, you'll be able to finally delete the apps, but for the right reason, because you found the one, which is what I want for you. I want you to help you get a girlfriend.

Okay, let's talk to Jonathan Badine, here we go. And welcome back to the How to Get a Girlfriend podcast. I'm your host, dating coach, Connell Barrett. I'm here to help you learn to flirt, gain confidence, and attract an incredible girlfriend, all by being authentic. No sketchy pickup artist moves needed. And today we have a pretty amazing, pretty special guest. I'm really psyched to welcome to the podcast Jonathan Baddine.

Jonathan isn't just the co-founder of Tinder, but he's the mastermind behind the iconic swiping feature that has changed the way online dating happens. Forever. Thanks to his work, billions of people have swiped, have matched, have happens forever. And he's really an innovator and we're lucky to have him. And he's gonna help you have some success with online dating and find some really great dates and have some success. So Jonathan, thank you so much for joining me on the How to Get a Girlfriend podcast.

Thanks for having me. It's awesome to be here. Let me start with a play devil's advocate about something. I'll tell you something I hear from a lot of my clients when I send them to tinder and to other online dating platforms they say ah tinder come on that's for hookups it's for casual flings that's not where I'm gonna find love it's not where I'm gonna find a girlfriend what's your response to that I'd say two parts to that. One, most relationships

probably started with a hookup. So just because people, a large contingent of users on Tinder, I think it's the majority, I don't know the latest numbers or whatnot, but they're actually looking for a relationship. Doesn't mean they're not open to a hookup, but there is that. On top of that, it is used for everything. The number of marriages that have happened is insane. I get invited to different weddings and stuff like that. It's really what you make of it. I think some of that stigma really came out of the fact that we launched the app on college campuses,

this sort of where we started. And that's kind of, that market, that's kind of what they do. They're a little bit more hookup centric and all. And so it kind of, that came from that, but it really isn't. It's whatever it is that you're looking for. You should be able to find it on Tinder and of course the other platforms. Absolutely. I have dated some wonderful women I met on Tinder and other apps, but we're going to talk about Tinder today for obvious reasons. And I had some flings and I had some real relationships and I had to your point I had a couple things that I that started off seemingly casual but then they became something a lot deeper.

So yeah something casual or what you might think is casual at the beginning can actually become something longer lasting right? Well it starts off low less pressure. It's a little bit easier to be your more authentic self when it's a low pressure like that. Yeah, I've also found it a lot easier to get a woman out on a date with you, looking at it from the straight male perspective. It's easier to get a lot of women out on a date with you if it just seems low pressure. It's like, hey, we're going to have fun, we're going to have a drink or two, we'll talk, we'll chat, who knows what might happen, as opposed to I must find my soul mate on this date. So there's nothing wrong with having it low pressure.

It's just a way to get more people out on dates with you. Absolutely. I can relate quite a bit to that. I know when I used to have a really hard time dating and went up before Tinder and you know, every time I did go out on a date, which was very rare, there would be such pressure on me, self-induced pressure thinking like, oh, is this my, when is, I gotta make the best of this because I don't know when the next date's gonna be,

and trying to make the most of everything. To the point, like I have literal sweat, like stains on my shirt and stuff. And then once we built Tinder, it made it easy enough for me to just kind of go on enough dates. Just, it was like, I didn't care so much anymore about is this the one or whatever. It's like, all I care about is going out,

having a drink or something, meeting this person, and if it works out great, awesome. If it doesn't, I'll go out with somebody tomorrow or next week, it's no big deal. And to the point where it kind of flipped. So in the future, it was sort of, a lot of the times the women I'd go out with would be the ones who were more nervous

and I was the one who was just chill because it was not a big deal to me at that point. Because you finally had options. Yeah, and I wasn't there to hook up or anything. It was just not... I wasn't putting my entire future into that night. That's so insightful what you just said. I didn't know that about you that you had a

relative scarcity of dates or dating options back in the day, is that right? Yeah, I would say so. I think it's just me being, you know, I think I probably could have got plenty of dates but I didn't have the confidence or the, you know, just it was me going up and hitting on a girl or something like that was not going to happen generally, which makes it a little hard to ask somebody out. And that's where I'm much more comfortable in a digital sense, a little bit of protection of a screen between me and a person to take that initiative then. Do you mean a favor? Do you have any memorable dates from before you came up with the idea for using a swiping,

a dating swiping app? Do you remember any of the early dates you had early on that led you to create or co-create Tinder when you realized, you know what, I got to change some things here based on some problems I have, and that led you on the path to Tinder? Any dating stories from back in the day that are relevant to you? You know I wouldn't say that there were any specific stories that led to it and a lot of the impetus for Tinder was my co-founder had noticed some of the issues with the existing products that were out there but I you know I think just generally in

the troubles I had made me a little bit more open to the idea of trying to create something you know because between just meeting people in the world or using things that existed back then like Match.com or OkCupid and all, the kinds of things where I'd go out with people where it's very clear that they were just out for me to buy them a meal and essentially ghosting me afterwards and stuff like that. I think that was from my space back in the day. But I think to me, I kind of forget about that stuff. To me, the most memorable part was just how absolutely nervous I was.

And like I said, I'm not exaggerating about the amount of sweat that I had pouring off of me. So I think whether those things happened or not, sweat that I had pouring off of me. So I think whether those things happened or not, whether that would have deterred Tinder from being created, I don't know, but it sure did make me maybe slightly more motivated to figure out a platform that would work for me a little bit better. Well, what's amazing about Tinder or any online dating app, once you get it working for you, is it can give you lots of dates, lots of options, an abundance of options. And to your point from a couple of minutes ago, it can make it so much easier for you to relax on a date

because all of a sudden the stakes are not as high. If you have two or three more good leads in your inbox, in your queue, is that what you started to feel once you started getting some more dates from online dating? Oh, exactly. It was that. It was the fact I was, you know, I'm sure the first few Tinder dates were much like the, you know, pre Tinder dates. But after that, it was just like, oh, well, I've got another one tomorrow. And maybe in the back of my mind, I'm even thinking about that date tomorrow instead of the one that I'm on right now. Not that you should be very focused on whoever

you're with or whatever, but I mean, just like, it's just that there just isn't that pressure. You'd realize how many people there are out there, you know, especially in a big city like Los Angeles, but you know, you realize how many different options there are and you have a way, a means to find them. I remember, I felt the same way as you. I had very few dating options back when I first started working on my dating life, when I realized I needed to. I had a scarcity of options. If I had one date every three months, that was a really good quarter for me. So the pressure was on.

And I remember it was a combination of Tinder and Match. I was using those two platforms. And I remember one night through both of those platforms, mainly Tinder, I had three straight dates and three straight nights, and three different really cool, cute girls. And all three dates went pretty well. I think I made out with all three girls

in all three nights. And I walked home on that third night thinking, oh my gosh, I didn't know that I was that attractive to women. And I think I took all the credit at the moment. But it was the platforms that were making it that were making that they were giving me the beginnings of abundance, the beginnings of some options. And that felt amazing to my confidence. Well, it's you. It's just a matter of pulling you out. These platforms are nothing more than... In many ways, I see them as less as dating services and more as introduction services.

They're not there for you on the date. They're there to get you introduced to somebody for the date. And I think, you know, it's what you make of them and, you know, and how that affects you and allows you to come out of your shell or, you know, express yourself. A lot of guys struggle with what to talk about on dates, how to hold a good conversation. Do you remember, I'm going to ask you to summon your younger, singular self. When you first started getting some good options,

do you remember any tips that began to work for you, especially when you felt more comfortable? Yeah, I mean, I guess to me, it's always just a little bit about what you do and what your family. Obviously, you don't want to focus too much on what you do. That sometimes can be a bad thing to some, but it is a big part of our life. And try to figure out the other person's interests. For me, it was generally just trying to keep it sort of natural. Trying

to force something is where it probably wasn't going to go well. And so it was, yeah, I was just trying to learn about the person. And if the other person's interested and or if they're good at it, they're going to be asking you a lot of questions. And at some point you just really have to figure out like, wait, am I answering too many questions? I should probably be, you know, engaging the other person more too and learning. Yeah, one of the tips I share with my clients and I'll share right now with the listener is if you catch yourself asking more than three straight questions without her asking you a question, feel free to answer one of your own questions as if you had asked yourself.

So if you say, oh, where'd you go to college? Oh, what year did you graduate? Oh, what did you major in? Take a pause and say, okay, I'm going to answer that last question myself as if she asked me. That way you're not constantly trying to interrogate her. Is that quote unquote interview mode? I'm sure you've heard about that, right? constantly trying to interrogate her. information that I asked somebody else. Fair enough, fair enough. And okay, so let's go back to the story of how you came up with swiping. And we were talking right before I hit record about what the truth is. There's some myth about this that you got the idea for swiping in the shower, which maybe that's an apocryphal story.

Tell us the truth. What's the story of how you came up with the right swipe? Well, first off, it is a cool story, but that's the not quite as true story, which is I had the epiphany, basically coming out of the shower, looking at a mirror that was all fogged up, and wiping the mirror only to reveal my face,

and thus the swipe was born. Sounds good. It sounds amazing. It sounds amazing. I'm sure it's going to be in a movie or something at some point. But it's slightly based upon the real story, which was I actually would not.

I actually came up with it prior to Tinder. And I came up with it for a flashcards, educational flashcards app that I had been thinking about problems with it. And it really had to do with trying to solve very specific problems. Like while you trying to study for your flashcards while walking the class one-handed,

eliminating buttons and trying to indicate whether you got the card right or wrong and all of those sorts of things. And I woke up one morning, just literally woke up, sat up in bed and was like, oh my God, I got it. And basically the swipe had been born for this flashcards app.

And I was like, I've got to make this thing, this is the best way to make a flashcards app. Fast forward a few months though, and that's actually when I had met Sean, my co-founder, Sean Radd, and we were showing each other our work and I showed him the flashcards app and all. And then when we ended up making Tinder, we just ended up with a interface that was a stack of cards. And it was sort of, it was, it was a serendipitous basically. And we just kind of, I ended up throwing the swipe in there. I would never have come up with it for Tinder because I wasn't trying to solve those problems.

You have a big heart and an X button in there. Didn't, you know, didn't need it. But, but it felt right to put it in there. And we didn't even tell people about it. We weren't trying to be sneaky or anything, really. It was just, it was like, if you figured it out, it's like figuring out, you know, command or control C on your keyboard instead of clicking the copy button or something. You know, it's just a keyboard shortcut. And it was, so it was not, it wasn't some big thing that we were like, we're gonna change the world with the swipe or whatever. It was, and it was a few months later that we had a college student write in and he said something

along the lines of that he and his buddies walking down the street or campus or something like that, that they would say, swipe right and swipe left as code about the ladies passing by. Wow, change out of Lexicon that early. Yeah, and that was the moment where to me, I was all of a sudden, I was like, oh my God, we tapped into something. And it wasn't long after that where we actually did start

including the swipe terminology in our marketing, in our Twitter accounts or Instagram and all of that sort of stuff. And so we started talking about it that way. But it was that was really only in response for from it sort of taking a life of its own. That's amazing. So the shower moment didn't happen. But what kind of the shower where the shower did come in was this like, so I woke up with this epiphany and I go in, I go into the shower and I'm standing there in the shower like going like I'm like does that work is that you know why hasn't anybody done this before you know so I was like it was I was like basically thinking through it you know completely

in the shower but there was no fogged up mirror you know but thank you for setting the record straight. Let's talk a little bit about what you've seen works for men on Tinder in terms of strategy. And let's start with authenticity. In a couple words, I'm all about be authentic, show women your true, real best self. Because in my experience and with my clients in my clients experience, the more generic the more the more you try to say the perfect right thing, the more a guy tends to get in his head and the more bland you come off. But if you really commit to being

you in an attractive but genuine way, that's not going to attract every woman, of course, but it's going to attract women who are more your type So for example, I'm a nerd. I love musical theater. I love the Beatles and Abraham Lincoln I'll talk I'll actually talk about some of these things on dates or with women Can you talk a little bit about? Authenticity of being yourself how that can and does work if you agree that it can and does work on tinder on dating apps I think it absolutely does. I mean ultimately it's only going to that's the only way you're going to succeed that it can and does work on Tinder on as well start off and get the people that you're, as you said, who are gonna be more interesting to you or and interested in you. But Tinder in many ways was really built

to try to drive authenticity. I don't think people realize this today as much, but some of the features that we originally did were including things like shared friends. That was sort of taken away from us at a certain point, but that was a big thing. And for sort of safety, and you could essentially vet people, but it was trying to show that authentic person. You didn't get to choose your name on there. You didn't get to choose the original version of Tinder. You couldn't even choose your photo.

It was your Facebook photo. And it was locked to that, trying to get that real photo that you share with your family and friends. It showed your shared interests with the person that, of course today it's useless, but based upon Facebook interests. You're not sitting there lying. These are the things that you liked on Facebook. You weren't doing it for the purpose of that. So I think that was really what we were trying to do. Of course, people have other ideas a lot of the time, but that is where we were really going because we think it is, we thought it was so important to show an authentic side of oneself. People are going to see through it if you're not.

It's going to at best turn somebody off away to at worst make somebody think you're creepy and you know and deceitful. Absolutely. I had a first date once this isn't in my book where I was trying so hard to be what I thought she wanted. Her name was Lauren. Her profile on Tinder was all about I want an adventure man Or I like a man who's into adventure outdoorsy-ness. So I'm on the date I'm lying through my teeth about how I love to go swimming with sharks in the Caribbean total BS

I have done that once but I'm not not. Yeah. What did you do? I do sharks in the Caribbean. I thought I invented lying about sharks in the Caribbean. No, I did it once. I'm not suggesting you should go do it, but it's not really. You actually swam with sharks in the Caribbean. Yeah, I did. Oh, I see what you mean.

I see. Okay. Well, you actually could have said it and been honest about it. I'm not the adventure person. Sorry. Sorry for interrupting. No, you're fine. You're fine, but I just said Oh, I'm gonna say what Lauren needs to hear and of course She friendzoned me she ghosted me not because she could probably tell I was lying She could probably but she could probably tell there's just something off about this guy But then once I started showing women and in fact, I had a second chance with her

I started leaning into that nerdy dorkyy, smart-ass I am, like a sweet, ginger nerd, but a little bit of edge through sarcasm. She liked that type. So yeah, I just had to drop the facade. What's so cool about Tinder, or what Tinder did in the world of dating is it said, hey, let's really let you show your freak flag Your authentic quirky whatever self you are and let's draw people in who like your type, right? Absolutely. And I think you know You really shouldn't try to predict what somebody else wants anyway because I mean like I think there's you look at it

You know, oh, I'm looking for somebody who's interested in the same things as me, right? That's the key to success of relationship. Or is it? Because they also say opposites attract. So I mean, like, you almost, you don't necessarily even know what it is. And so maybe, you know, it's not really worth it to try to predict what the other person is wanting

because, you know, it may not be that, or they may not even know what it is until they see what it is. Same for yourself, really. You struggle with dating, right? Sure, you have a good job and cool friends, but you just aren't sure how to flirt, the apps don't work for you, and sometimes women put you in the friend zone. It's frustrating.

Hey, I struggled with dating too. As an introvert and a total nerd, I didn't just live in the friend zone, I owned real estate there. But I escaped. Using the dating philosophy of radical authenticity, which I've used to help thousands of men in 17 countries find love. It's what I wrote about in my best-selling book, Dating Sucks But You Don't, and radical authenticity is why psychology today called me the best dating coach in best-selling book, Dating Sucks But You Don't, and Radical Authenticity is Why Psychology Today Called Me the Best Dating Coach in America. And now I want to personally help you attract your dream girlfriend.

So go to DatingTransformation.com and book a free call with me. On our call, I'll tell you how my one-on-one coaching will help you find your dream girlfriend and you'll be doing it by flirting with confidence and authenticity. No creepy pickup tricks needed. So go to datingtransformation.com, book a free call today and let my personalized coaching help you get a great girlfriend. Have you ever... actually back to Tinder and back to some of the features. Obviously the swipe right, the swipe left, that's the foundational iconic feature, but there's lots of other bells and whistles that have been on and off of Tinder over the years. Are there

any features you ever thought up that never made it on Tinder that you thought, oh man, that would have been a great idea, we should have done that? Oh, there's a billion. I mean that's actually one of the most frustrating things as time goes on, is that you just you build this You know everybody in that company just had a long list the the list of things that we wanted to make Just went on forever and And it was just a matter of picking which one are we gonna try?

so there's there's all sorts of things that That we that we wanted. Anything come to mind you thought oh man I wish I wish we would have tried that or that was a cool idea or maybe an idea that was so out there you couldn't do it. Well there's I think one of the my favorites that I wanted to do was a you know I won't go into full detail on it just in case anybody cares or whatever. But it was basically sort of a group dating bar hopping type of product that I thought would have been pretty cool trying to use Tinder, which was trying to essentially make Tinder useful at a time when Tinder isn't generally useful.

Because Tinder, for instance, one of the lower usage days are the days where people are out and busy and they've got things going on. It's the time when people have downtime, that's the time where they really use Tinder. So that was sort of the goal is to try to make Tinder useful at those times when you're out and about with your friends and all of that. Yeah. And the thing about the right swipe, and correct me if I'm wrong, Jonathan, but I feel like it comes down to it's fun.

It's fun to turn online dating into a game, or at least it can feel like a game, and games are fun. Games feel good. It feels good to swipe right and get a match. Of course, who wouldn't like that? But also, isn't there something about the anticipation of the possibility that's just as addictive and just as fun? I think so. I think there's there's a little bit of that slot machine effect of like, you know, let me do one more. I remember back in college, hot or not was a thing, you know, wasn't for dating, but it was for – they added that later. It was just like, I'll stop once I get one more – when I see one more nine or something like that. There was a little bit of that

element going on. I think even just the swipe action itself ends up having an emotional connection to it where you're like, oh, hell no. Or, you know, like, hey. There is that sort of emotional connection to it. And I think that was, so it kind of, I think the sort of that interface and everything and in general, it kind of feeds into that sort of almost people watching kind of thing that we, that people like to do. And to me, I've, you know, I like to think of as a Disney fan, I always think of Mary Poppins and the, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. And so that was, you know, not necessarily that quote being, you know, very cognizant of it when we were creating

Tinder, but this idea of like, look, dating can be a difficult thing and going through all of these things, and let's see if we can try to make that process fun and sort of disguising the work. Because Tinder, I think compared to other platforms that predated Tinder, Tinder was a little bit more of a numbers game. It was a bit more go through a whole bunch of people and, you know, and that's going to ultimately, you know, whether swiping through a whole bunch of people and then going out on dates with a whole bunch of other people with people

That's the idea is you're gonna increase the chances of finding the person that's right for you and so Other platforms were a little bit more focused on you know diving into the person you'd spend more time on those and all and so We had to make something that was fun to get you through more people faster. Mm-hmm fun to get you through more people faster. The man listening to this episode, chances are his biggest, the biggest thorn in his paw of online dating, Tinder or whatever app he's on,

he's not getting very many good matches, if any. He's swiping and swiping and swiping and he's just very rarely, ever getting that it's a match What advice would you give that guy? What should he look at first to start getting some of those matches and start getting those great feelings you get when you start swiping right? And getting matches. Well, I think you know some of it starts with Trying to you know portray your best self whether that be you know Evaluate your you know your photos and your profile and everything, everything on there evaluated. You'll notice a lot that people put horrible

pictures up on there. I'm not saying you have to be a model or anything like that, but horrible quality photos, things like that, and run it by your friends, preferably women who can say, oh, that's not a good picture of you, or like, yeah, that's not really going to be interest a woman. So I think bringing people in to kind of help evaluate, I know it can feel uncomfortable sometimes to expose yourself to your friends and this side of you or whatever, but I think that's important. I think also just it's utilizing the tools that are there. There's a lot of tools that are in there from everything from sort of testing photos to

trying to determine which of your photos is the best. There's a lot of things for adding to your profile and all. And those little things, they can help. Somebody sees that you like something on there that they don't like, yeah, maybe it'll turn them off. But guess what? That's fine, it wasn't gonna work out with them anyway. Right.

But you're giving people, you're giving other people another reason to swipe right. And try to keep it a little bit lighthearted. Try to add a little bit of fun to your profiles. And then the paid features do work. I'm not saying go spend all your money on them. That's not the goal. And in fact, you know, Tinder was,

we tried to make the paid feature something that it would just break the system if everybody had it. But like, if it was something that we felt that everybody would truly benefit from having it, then it shouldn't be a paid feature. So the paid features we kind of saw as superpowers, and so they're useful, but you can get by just fine without them. So if you don't need them, I'm not suggesting... I make no money off of it now, so don't, I'm not trying to push anybody to go spend all their money on Tinder or any other of the platforms.

But you know, some of them do work. So it's worth trying and it might be worth trying, you know, last I read, you know, is the average data, online data is on three platforms. Maybe try a little something different on each platform too, and you know, which is your own A-B test. I think those are some ways it might help. Yeah, I think it's important to make sure that you're expressing that authentic self

in different ways on different apps, depending on the kind of woman you're looking to attract and the kind of app you're on. I have a Tinder profile. It's a bit more playful, edgy, more fun and light as if I was looking to date casually. I have a Hinge profile that is much more bread and butter kind of boyfriend material. I could mix and match those if I want to. So I think one of the, a lot of guys think, oh, you know, I think one of the biggest myths in dating is the apps just don't work. Dating apps just don't work. And I tell so many men, look, the problem

is not dating apps don't work. The problem is your profile doesn't work yet. Let's make some changes, some intelligent ones, so you can start getting the kind of success you want. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, there's a lot of proof that they do work that doesn't mean to say that things aren't difficult. They're difficult out the bars too. They're difficult everywhere. And it's a matter of portraying yourself in the best way that you can. Yeah, I think that was great advice about having some people, especially some single women or some women,

look at your profile and having a little bit of personality in your profile. I have a new client who came to me and I said, hey, let me see your Tinder. Just see why you're struggling. He's like, yeah, I have no idea. I guess women just don't like me. I looked at his profile.

There was one photo, just one. it was a bathroom mirror shot, and that was literally his only photo, and all his bio said was, here's what I want. There was no personality, there was no humor, and there were no other photos to show what this gentleman, what it would be like to date him, and here's this a smart, sweet, wonderful guy. And he's mistaking his struggles on this dating app or on Tinder for him being unattractive. I'm like, no, dude, you're amazing. Your profile is terrible. Yeah, I think, you know, I think that's a a lot of people end up taking, taking it out on dating services, as well as online services in general because of either what you know the people on there or what they're doing and all and it's it's uh it is kind of what you make of it um it's not to say it's all perfect it isn't but um it is uh

there there are certainly ways to have a better profile than than that for sure There are certainly ways to have a better profile than that for sure. Yeah, it's really important. It comes down to the core foundational things, really good photos, attractive photos, and some personality and not just pure information on a profile. Absolutely. Absolutely. Do you have any favorite? These could be things that you saw on Tinder when you were there. Any favorite little prompts or bios that made you laugh over the years? Or because they were so good? Or maybe they were so bad? There are so many, I can't remember. I'll tell you though, I think one of my favorite

things though is that I don't even think it's on Tinder. It was a friend of mine that had put on his profile that Kinge has some sort of audio thing and he used an AI thing. I don't remember if it was Obama or somebody like basically an AI basically vouching for him and the little voice note thing. Nobody thinks that it's Obama or whoever it was doing it. It's just something that's like, it's not like nobody thinks that it's Obama or whoever it was doing it. It's just something that's like, it's a little fun and playful and it's something that he certainly attested to. So I thought that was fun and clever. It's different. It's just a nice kind of variety, a little pattern interrupt.

It's just a 8 my credit rating, it's just an 810 credit rating. So finding ways to have fun, finding ways to enjoy it. That gets back to something that when I was asking you about how the swipe right is all about fun, because it feels good. It feels good to swipe right and get a match. And I think what part of what Tinder's big innovation was and is, is that it just it made online dating for those who got at least reasonable results, made it fun, it injected fun into dating. And I think that's just so important because dating can be so unfun for so many people.

And I think it kind of all goes back, you know, you're talking about profiles and injecting fun into it. How important that is, you know, you're talking about profiles and injecting fun into it. How important that is because you're essentially trying to give an idea of what going on a date with you is going to be like. And you don't want to go on a date with somebody who you're not going to have fun with. So if you're able to inject some fun into your profile, it gives a hint of like, look, we're going to have some fun. That's just hugely important.

I agree. One of the biggest mistakes I see men making, other than bad photos or no good photos, they do their Zoolander photos. I don't mean ironically, they think they're being sexy. So it's like, here's my sexy Zoolander, or here's my brilliant, heartfelt Shakespearean thoughts about love and dating. And I'm just like, no, make her laugh. Make her smile. If you can make a woman smile,

if you can make her laugh on your Tinder profile because the prompt made her giggle, that's worth, that's like being six three with six pack abs for so many women. Exactly. Because you're telling them, hey, we're going to go out and have fun. We might not get married, but hey, it's Tinder. You're probably not going to get married. And if you do, bonus, right? Yeah.

It's like you're not going to be miserable, you know, all night. You know, that's, that's, that's I think what most people are just trying to avoid is misery. Yes. Don't fast forward. This is not an ad. It's a free thing that's going to help you flirt with confidence. Because I'll bet that you struggle with what to say to women and how to flirt, right? Well, let's fix that.

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Datingtransformation.com slash flirty30. You're about to start confidently flirting with women, going on dates, and soon getting a great girlfriend. Go get your flirty 30. A lot of men listening to this are introverts, naturally shy, naturally introverted. And do you have any tips on it could be Tinder tips or it could be a first date tip for a guy who's more in the introverted or shy side to still be able to have a great connection with a woman? I mean, I float somewhere in between. I think some people might call me introverted, some people might call me extroverted, kind of depends on the situation. But I think, you know, from my own experience, the places where I my introvertedness kind of showed was that that

sort of especially in those nervousness. And I think the more you practice, the better. And so, you know, go out on those dates and just feel like, you know, as much as possible. And you might even think like, hey, look, you know, the next five dates, they're going to suck. They're going to, they're all going to suck or something. Actually, don't, you know, hope for something good. But at the same time, like, don't, but like reduce the pressure on it and just use it as experience to get yourself more

comfortable. And the only way to do that is to not make the stakes high, I think. Yeah. Practice makes perfect. And there's a lot of people out there, there's a lot of women out there who are introverted too. So you know, it's that might be a good thing for you. But at the same time, it's going to make it a little bit harder for you to meet. So somebody's got to step up and try to act a little bit more extroverted to right and make it work. Someone's got to lead that dating dance. Exactly. It should be you listener. It should be you the man. That's my opinion. I can't have a Tinder insider, the ultimate Tinder insider

here without asking you about the algorithm. I've heard so many things. The ELO score, I don't know if that's real or not. I hear, oh if you're struggling on Tinder it's not your photos, it's the algorithm. The algorithm doesn't like you. Can you give us any inside baseball, any secrets from behind the curtain of the Tinder algorithm? Can can that be the reason why a guy is struggling on tinder if he's struggling or is it just about his profile? Any insider tips there are insights. Well, it's certainly you know There's algorithm. I don't even know what the current algorithm is is it it changes over time. There's um,

Including the uh, the elo thing real. That was a way of just of trying to better match people. And but there's a lot of things that end up going into it. And one of the things that really is what that really is heavily used we found over the years was like that really is heavily used, we found over the years was recency. So that one's an important one. You got to keep using it. And I'm not like, again, I'm not there. I'm not making money off of this. But just telling you kind of how things work is that you have to keep using the thing because we want to show other... We don't want to match somebody up. We didn't want to match somebody up with somebody who is not going to be there to answer them. Right.

The we were able to observe that the most that the better chance of of a conversation happening and thus ultimately success on Tinder was that conversation happening. And therefore, the more recently somebody used the app, the higher the chance of that happening. So that was actually one of the big levers that really there was. So that's one of those things. You do have to be active on there in order to get those matches.

I'm sure the algorithm can hurt some people and help people, but it's something that they constantly are looking at and trying to adjust because ultimately they want the same thing as you. They want you to meet people. I know some people, there's conspiracy theories out there about like, no, they don't want you to meet, they just want you on there all the time and that they want you to, they don't want you to meet, they just want you on there all the time and that they want you to, they're holding everything back until, start paying them.

None of that's true. I mean, the best advertising for Tinder was a successful use case, whether that be hookups or whether that be marriage or whatever. Those are the people that were gonna get the other people on the platform. So we didn't care if we lost some people to a wedding. That was amazing. That was how we were going to get more people in. So if you

blame the app, you're never going to be able to conquer the app. I will say that. I'm not saying everything's going to work for you exactly the way you want it to and that there might be something back there that's getting in your way on the algorithm or whatever, but ultimately, if you think that way, it's going to be really hard to improve yourself and make it better if you're blaming something else. Even if it ends up not being you, use it as an opportunity to improve it. Yeah. I come back to the basics of, well, you and I were talking about football before we got

on here. Go Lions, go Chiefs. Blocking and tackling, so important. It's the basics. Go Chiefs. Blocking and tackling, so important. And with Tinder or any dating app, blocking and tackling to me would be good photos, personality, showing up consistently in terms of messaging people, and doing the core foundational things that any digital platform will reward. Answering messages instead of going quiet and being responsive. And of course the good photos, the good profile and these foundational things. One of my old coaches told me back in the day, he said,

Connell, if you behave on Tinder the way you want others to behave like it probably does hurt you to have just one photo. Years ago we did research too, where we found like a certain number, that there were a certain number of photos, and obviously not every photo is equal to the next, but your likelihood of matching increased with every photo that you added to your profile, up to a certain extent.

I don't know what that, I don't remember what that number was but so that was ended up being kind of one of our goals is like try to encourage users to add photos up to this point to increase their chances of success and so I wouldn't be surprised if the algorithm you know takes things like that in you know factors that in but ultimately I don't know what it is at the moment. A couple final questions here, Jonathan, and I will let you get back to your day. You must

have some fun stories about strangers coming up to you and saying, Hey, you owe me a drink. My last date was a disaster. She ghosted me or the opposite. You know, I don't even I can't even imagine how many weddings you've been invited to. Any fun anecdotes of Tinder people either blaming you or praising you or both? It's usually praising. Every once in a while somebody will say something, but I think most people probably,

if they had bad experiences, they might keep it to themselves to be nice to me, I guess. There's just so many weddings. I think that now there's been so many that they kind of just blur together, but I just remember some of those early times when I was there.

And I remember when we first made Tinder that I was thinking to myself, hey, if this doesn't work out, if I meet somebody, or not me, if I, sorry, yes, if I meet somebody to myself, like, you know, hey, if this doesn't work out, if I meet somebody, or not me, if I, sorry, yes, if I meet somebody who met their husband or wife or something, 20 years from now, the whole thing will then, you know, worth it. And I'm pretty sure that's going to happen now. And it was just really early on those sort of first people that came up and like, oh, I met whoever.

Actually, the first time I had somebody tell me that they were getting married and like the app had not been out that long, that was a little bit scary to me. I'm like, we haven't been around that long. Are you sure you're getting married? But you know, it's, and I think some of the stories too

that have been really, some of the more proud ones to me that made me more proud of Tinder were the ones where relationships that would not have happened if it weren't for Tinder. It might be a racial difference or something like that where they're like, well, if you gave me the option to choose, I would never have seen the person I would have never have met. There's all sorts of crazy stories like that that have been pretty special. But I yeah I had a part of that. I really want to it's the Jason Kelsey one is the one that hit me the latest being you know fan of Travis Kelsey

and all and I was just like oh my god that you know I'm responsible for like Travis Kelsey's nephew niece or whatever. I don't remember. It's a jaw-dropping influence you've had on the world of romance and love and dating. If you think about it, billions of swipes, billions and billions, who knows how many babies, marriages, people falling in love, it's got to be hard to wrap your head around that. Or is it? It is, it is.

We also used to have some baby onesies that we used to send out that said Tinder tot on them. But so now that's what made it so special was is that you really were changing the lives of people in very meaningful ways. That's what it's all about. Yeah. Giving back and making things better for others. I never thought I was going to be a dating coach.

I just got into this world almost 20 years ago because I was struggling like you. I was just like, friend zone, girls don't like me, I'm a dorky, nerdy ginger. I got to fix this. I was just trying to find love and find some connection and now I think wow, all those friendzones, all that pain I went through, now I can help men occasionally, not occasionally but help men get girlfriends and occasionally have babies and families and it just lights me up. You're doing good work. I'm trying. I thought I'd end with a couple of fun little silly questions. I thought I'd just name a couple things, maybe some things in the culture, and ask you if you would swipe left on these things

or swipe right on these things. Are you up for it? Let's do it. Patrick Mahomes. Oh, that's a big swipe up, I guess. Actually, I'm going to cheat. That's a super like right there. Yeah, he's the goat. Well, he's the of current players.

He's going to be exactly swiping left or right on the Detroit Lions chances. To get there, right, for sure. But I've obviously got my my love that will hopefully stop them. We've been through a lot of pain us Lions fans. I just want that third one. You can have the next one. I don't blame you. How about movies real quick?

I'm just gonna throw some, I don't know anything about your movie tastes or music tastes. I'm just gonna throw some names at you. The Godfather. I'll swipe right, swipe right. Okay, The Godfather 3. You know, I might close the app and come back to it later.

How about The Beatles? Oh, The Beatles, I'm a big fan. Swipe right on that, for sure. Okay, how about? Ringo singing left or right? I've like some of his songs singing sure. Okay, swipe right on Ringo singing. Yeah. Okay, how about Justin Timberlake, um, I Justin Timberlake. I don't know. I guess right. I don't have anything against the guy.

You mentioned Disney. You mentioned going to Disney and you mentioned Disney a couple of times. What Disney movie or park or character would you swipe right on? Oh, not so much. Obviously Mickey Mouse. Don't want to make Minnie jealous, so I'd swipe right on her too. Yeah, I love all the parks.

Disneyland, Disney World, favorite Disney movies, I guess probably, I don't know, like Beauty and the Beast and a lot of the Pixar films and Yeah There's always something good there. Okay, and your ultimate swipe, right? What is your desert island slash ultimate swipe right or swipe up TV show? Ultimate show. Oh god, let's see if I was going

Show oh god, let's see if I was going One of my favorite dramas of all time really is one that a lot of people didn't watch is Colton catch fire I Remember that show it was on during the Breaking Bad era. I believe right it's really good that and your parenthood, but yeah comedies I'd go for let's see Arrested development not the Netflix stuff right coupling the British version the Parks and Rec I really liked too yeah those are coming up some of my favorites and comedies I think nice love Parks and Rec I'll leave you I'll give

you the final word Jonathan Jonathan. Any final parting words of wisdom or hope? Or keep it up, buddy. Go at it. For my listener, the introverted nice guy, he's struggling on the apps, but he's going at it. Any final words for this guy? I think I'll have to do something that's on brand that combines Disney, Pixar, as well as, well, my work, which is just keep swiping, just keep swiping, finding Nemo instead of swimming. Nice, I love it. Yeah, I tell my clients, it's all about constant, continual, intelligent action,

but then adjustments and then new action. So swipe, if that profile is working great Once you get a really great tinder profile that converts you don't have to really do anything else to it That's what's so beautiful about online dating. That's how I met my girlfriend. Jessamine is I got a great profile She swiped right on me here. I am but until you get there you got to keep swiping right and Or keep swimming as they say in Nemo in that profile. Jonathan Bedin, thank you so much for being here. This is a blast.

Thank you. Yeah, it was wonderful. Great. And thank you so much for listening. And don't forget, your dream girlfriend, she's out there and she's going to love you. But she's going to have to meet the real authentic you. So go out there, take authentic action, carpe datum, seize the date. Until next time.