Hardware Podcasts

Hinge: Justin McLeod

How I Built This · 22 Mar 2021 · 1h 30m

What this episode covers

Justin McLeod, founder and CEO of Hinge, explains how a painful breakup with his college girlfriend, Kate, and his struggle with alcoholism inspired him to build a dating app focused on meaningful relationships rather than hookups. He details the company's evolution from a clunky Facebook canvas app to a simplified mobile platform, highlighting the strategic pivot to remove swiping in favor of prompted interactions to encourage thoughtful engagement. McLeod also describes the difficult 2015 relaunch, the subsequent failure of a hard paywall model, and the eventual acquisition by Match Group, which provided the resources to scale the 'designed to be deleted' brand.

Most relevant to

early-stage companies

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Match Group, McKinsey, Fortify
Products
Hinge, Tinder, Match.com, Facebook
Also
App Store

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