Transcript

Dating is down. So why is Hinge thriving? with CEO Justin McLeod

0:01 The very best founders I know are brilliant at building systems. They connect teams, they remove bottlenecks, and they eliminate single points of failure. And yet When it comes to their own wealth. Most are running a disconnected stack. A tax accountant here and a state attorney there, a wealth manager who doesn't talk to either one of them.

0:22 Creative planning was built to fix exactly that. One integrated team of tax professionals, state planners, investment specialists, all coordinated by a dedicated wealth manager who sees your full financial picture and keeps every piece working together. Proactive tax efficiency, state strategy, investments all under one roof. Creative planning where wealth works together. Learn more at creative planning dot com slash masters of scale.

0:53 Hey folks, Jeff Berman here. I am thrilled to share some of the new names who will be joining us at this year's Masters of Scale summit. This may be our biggest stage yet. Reed Hastings, Meredith Whitaker, Van Jones, Amjad Masad, and more. Will be there with us October 20th through 22nd in San Francisco. If you're building something great, or you want to build something great, We want you there with us too.

1:20 Join us at masters of scale dot com slash apply twenty six. That's mastersofscom slash apply. Twenty six. Dating apps. haven't served them particularly well. When an app is really designed for engagement and retention, but not necessarily

1:42 dates and relationships then it can make people feel like they're stuck and they're putting a lot of effort not getting what they want. We're number one dating app across ten different markets. One out of every ten engagements in the US is from him specifically. So there's so much opportunity out there and people are lonelier than ever. Everyone needs to be doing

2:01 more and better right now to help people find love and connection. Yeah. That's Justin McCloud, CEO of dating app Hinge. As other dating apps have been faltering of late, Hinge is continuing to grow rapidly. Justin returns to Rapid Response to explain how over the past year his app has been able to sidestep younger generation's fatigue with digital interaction and the saturation of choices for finding love online. Justin talks about the risks and opportunities of AI in online dating, his collaboration with renowned psychologist Esther Perrell, and why we need genuine human connection offline more than ever.

2:51 Whether you're coupled up, single, or somewhere in between. Get set for a lively exploration of the business of love in the twenty first century. And don't miss our lightning round at the end with tips on how to put your best foot forward when looking for a match. I'm Bob Safian, and this is rapid response

3:10 I'm Bob Safe and I'm here with Justin McCloud, CEO of Dating App Hinge. Justin, great to have you uh back on the show. Hey, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. You were last on the show about a year ago. Hinge's been doing

3:28 Great since then, revenue up twenty five percent. But I gotta say, a lot of the other major dating apps are struggling. It it what's the trouble in the industry? People not dating as much? I think people still want to date. I mean when we talk to People want

3:46 connection as much as ever. I mean, I think loneliness is as big a problem as it's ever been. Hinge is continuing to succeed. Revenue's up twenty five percent, but users are up twenty percent. We're number one dating app across 10 different markets. We just launched in Europe a couple of years ago and we're the number two dating app there. And so the the troubles in other places in the industry, I mean, they talk about like oh there's a cultural shift, young people dating less, you know, they're changing their behavior. I certainly think that young people have started to

4:14 Turn to other methods. thinking about how do I meet people in real life or how do I meet people in other ways because I think that dating apps haven't served them particularly well. And that has been my critique, and that's why I rebooted Hinge back in in twenty fifteen and why I tre try to create something so different. And an app is really designed. for engagement and retention and matches, but not necessarily

4:37 dates and relationships, then it can make people feel like they're stuck and they're putting a lot of effort not getting what they want. And the the driver behind your momentum, like oh over the last year, what what's different than the conversation we might have had a year ago? So when we were here last year, we were talking about AI and the potential that AI held. And I think over the last year We've started to implement features that have had a

5:04 a really big impact on our daters. For example, personalized matching or tuned to our dater's tastes, and we've completely overhauled our recommendation system since then using AI, and we've seen double digit gains in Um, both the effectiveness of our recommendation system as well as the efficiency of it. So people are getting more dates with less effort. But this is all like on the back end, the relationship that

5:31 users have with your app is not Necessarily based on around AI specifically, right? I mean I know you've you've sort of spoken out a little bit about AI's potential to A road. Connections.

5:46 Yeah, absolutely. So while there's so A lot of nuance to the question. We have implemented more Visible. you know, generative AI features like prompt feedback, for example, which is uh coaching users on how to

6:00 Craft better profiles. And it's'cause a lot of our users will Uh right. Answers to prompts that can be like one word or two words that really don't give you a sense of who they are, and we can give them feedback. And help them

6:14 basically to write a better prompt. And we've seen really great gains from that. We've seen that um we reduced the incidence of of poor quality prompt answers by more than a third, and we tripled the incidence of high quality prompt answers by giving people that kind of coaching. But yeah, when you talk about AI companions and actually starting to displace Relationships. Um and having people interact with AI and spending more time on their screens and less time in real life. I think that definitely is a problem and something that you're right, I have been very outspoken against.

6:43 Yeah, I mean it's tricky, right? You're sort of Running this balancing act where You're using AI. AI may be ways to strengthen the creation of these relationships, but you you have to Do it or you want to do it in a way that That doesn't displace the human to human experience.

7:01 Precisely. I mean AI is a technology, a very powerful technology. And just like any technology before we can use it in a principled, thoughtful, beneficial, healthy way. And we can use it in a very unprincipled, unthoughtful, unhealthy way. One of our principles around AI is that it really should stand behind us and not between us. It can help support us so that we have richer interactions with other people on hinge and move off the app. faster, but it certainly shouldn't be something that we start engaging with as an end in itself, just for entertainment or as

7:36 Um, I would say like artificial intimacy or artificial connection. Like I don't think that an AI chatbot should be your friend or certainly not your Boyfriend or girlfriend. But could be your dating coach.

7:51 self-help books or coaching but like can we give people nudges in the right direction? Uh and I I certainly think that we can. We don't want to put words in their mouths, which is not what we do. We're really mostly it's it's just recognizing that someone's Answer to a prompt. Could be give us more detail and we've and we usually honestly usually the the response is

8:12 Can you say more about that or tell a little bit more why that's true? Instead of writing things on their behalf, which could then introduce an idea that this is not authentic. It does sound a little bit like I'm talking to an AI therapist. Like an AI dating therapist you partnered earlier this year with Esther Perell. Who's a renowned psychotherapist to launch Your world props.

8:35 from her perspective or your perspective about therapy do or don't apply to To what you're trying to do with folks in their dating lives? I've had a longstanding relationship with a stair. Uh, and you know, I think she's been skeptical about dating apps and we've we've had our conversations about whether they're like how beneficial they are and the right way to implement them. And I think over time we've really earned her trust as a partner because we really to approach it in a very thoughtful

9:02 Uh way that's very human centric and very outcome based. And uh and so I think she trusted us, and especially because the prompts fit so well with her brand, you know, she has her game, Where should we begin? Where she writes prompts for people to have deeper conversations that Places like dinner parties or at the office. Right. And so it felt like a very natural fit. These these prompts are not about building your uh your

9:25 Your profile they're about. having conversation with someone to Get to know them better. Precisely. Essentially that's what we're trying to do on Hinge. I mean that's the purpose of a prompt on Hinge is to prompt you to talk about something so that you can start uh interaction and a conversation, form a connection, and then move offline. Uh and she had some great ideas for some prompts that she wanted to put on Hinge. They are very much in the spirit of inviting someone into your world.

9:50 Uh so You know, before we go out, you should listen to X or Um When I wanna feel more like myself, I go do why. And

9:59 that really helps people understand a bit, like what are I listening to? Where am I spending my time? And giving people a bit of a fuller picture about who you are. Mm. We mentioned in passing earlier this sort of a rising conversation about more in person experiences and and young people sort of choosing them or wanting that in some ways over digital interaction. Now you're you're a digital service, of course, but you've also talked about expanding into broader community building and in-person activation. I'm I'm curious how you think about sort of real world iterations, how important that might be to Hinge's future and

10:37 And where you're going with it. Well, we do millions of in person events every month and they're called dates and that ultimately is the purpose of of what we're doing. And that really is our wheelhouse. Listen, I'm all for people spending more time meeting together in person out in real life. We have a program called One More Hour because we support uh groups that gather together on a on a regular basis, we see the decline in time spent. together in person, especially among young people.

11:07 and the requisite t increase in anxiety and depression among that group. So the more people are spending time together out in real life and the less time on their devices, the better. And that very much mirrors the ethos of Hinge. where we really are trying to get you to spend less time on our app, more time out on dates and relationships, so that you'll find your person and then Ultimately go tell your friends to try hench.

11:29 Does the brand of Hinge need to sort of have a Community real world. I don't know, it iteration for itself. Aside from, you know, my personal date that I might be going on. Yeah, I think we are so precious and thought about our brand and we really try to do things that are really gonna have an impact and aren't just for show and to be able to do something at scale.

11:52 with quality across tens of millions of users, where people can get together in real life on a regular basis and still maintain the control of the experience and the brand is not territory that I I exactly know how to how to approach. There are lots of people out there doing in real life events and I, you know, applaud it, encourage it, we fund it, we're all for it, but it's just not our core competency. When you when you look at um the competition at the other app actually I don't even know how much you do look at the competition. I know some of it is in house within your parent company with Match Group, which also owns Match and Tinder and okay, Cupid and a bunch of others. Like

12:31 How much do you pay attention to the competition? Uh we really don't look to the competition. That's a mistake that I'd made. the first time around is spending way too much time thinking about the competition and what they were doing. And when I did the reboot of Hinge, I

12:46 steer the team to just pay attention to our customer. and our users who are out there trying to find dates and there's so much rich territory when we just try to deeply understand our users and the problems they're facing. And that is why I think hinge has become so innovative. And I think a lot of other dating apps are paying attention to us because you can see how they're all slowly introducing features that make them more and more similar to hinge. And that's why it's all the more important that we don't look at them, we actually look to our users and to emerging technology. And that's how we stay at the forefront of innovation. Mm.

13:19 Building. your business from this point is like there's a roadmap that you're on that you're implementing versus sort of like reacting and staying open and kind of Finding what whatever's next, or do you do you have like no no no we know where we're going. We know exactly where we're going next. I think we know big picture where we're going. I think we know high level that the the future and what AI is gonna enable is

13:44 much more uh personalized matching we can collect uh more data that's more nuanced and use it in a better way to create a much more efficient matching process. And We can help our users.

13:57 Uh put their best foot forward by giving them the right coaching and the right nudges. uh so that they fill out good profiles and and use the app well. Those I think are the two main vectors of work that we're focused on right now. And we have to stay really curious because the market's changing a lot, technology's changing a lot, and so how exactly that is going to manifest.

14:22 We don't know yet. And I think it We can't know because everything is changing so quickly. So that's why it's really important to have just a very nimble team, a very solid research organization. And continue just experiment. Mm-hmm.

14:35 Justin's focus on the rapid pace of change echoes what I'm hearing from leaders across all industries, and his efforts to balance where and how to best use AI, well, that's everywhere, too. So, what's the role of old school tactics in this environment? Things like word of mouth marketing, and how has the critique of DEI. impacted Hinges hiring practices. We'll talk about that plus a lightning round on the green and red flags in online dating profiles after the break. Stay with us. Hey, listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show because every Friday we release a second Rapid Response exclusively in the Rapid Response feed. The guests and topics are just as compelling and timely. From Ford CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from The Devil Wears Prada. It takes about 10 seconds to find, just search Rapid Response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode.

15:44 I hope to see you there. Humans will never be more intelligent than AI. There can be two types of companies. Those were great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't. How do we build a future? That is human centered.

16:00 I'm Rana El Calyubi. And on my podcast Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone. Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future. And we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives. Find pioneers of AI wherever you tune in. Before the break, hinge CEO Justin McCloud talked about how his dating app is managing to grow while competitors stagnate.

16:38 Now he takes us inside Hinge's unconventional approach to marketing, its commitment to DEI, and a lightning round on the do's and don'ts in dating profiles. Let's jump back in. You said that your best marketing is word of mouth where real couples sort of share how they met on hinge. And I have to I have to shout out one of our producers, Masha, who, you know, could sh share a success story of her own. She's uh she's a a hinge user and very very happily in a in a partnership now. H how do you measure sort of word of mouth against more traditional like marketing and ad campaigns. Are there metrics that you track? Like how do you how do you know?

17:24 I mean, first and foremost, we're making sure that our users on the app are actually getting out on dates and those dates are good. So that's the kind of most leading metric. We can do attribution surveys to understand what percentage of our users show up because they heard about it. um through an ad versus heard about it to a friend. Um, still the majority for us is people are hearing about hinge through friends and friends having success stories. But and on top of that, it it's helpful to be able to tell our story through our marketing. And

17:51 make sure that people understand that Hinge is the app that's designed to be deleted for people who are really thoughtful and want to uh find their person. It's especially useful as we launch new markets. Just a couple years ago we launched into Europe. We've already become the number two confined for number one spot in Europe. Uh we just launched Mexico this week. We're launching Brazil in the fourth quarter. And so marketing obviously plays a huge role as we go into those markets. uh marketing. I was thinking I I keep seeing hinge no ordinary love stories in the New York City subway where I am. Um which which in some ways are are like traditional ads that are about word of mouth. They're these sort of short accounts of the two different sides of how a hinge couple meets. But one of the things I noticed they're not

18:35 sort of classic rom com like me cute tales. There's usually some kind of a snafu or something. Yeah. Like w what what do you hope people take away from from Th from the campaign, from that idea. I think something that Hinge pushes back against is this idea of stylized love. Like this idea that there's one form of love. It's this like Rom, Cal, meat, cute. uh perfectly linear

19:00 Uh True love stories are are messier and have more twists and turns and fits and starts. And Uh, and we wanna bring that to reality. So the no ordinary love where we had writers write the love stories of uh our hinge users we'll have a campaign coming out very shortly

19:20 Which is version two of It's Funny We Met on Hinge, which is Something that I've always wanted to do since I started Hinge, which was to redo those kind of cheesy 1990s eHarmony ads where you had the couple standing on the white background telling their cheesy story. And we have incredibly diverse couples um telling just their raw stories about how they could have met somewhere, but they ended up meeting on Hinge. Again, just showing you the The the story of meeting on on Hinge is just a Um is different for everyone and is unique and is a kind of a Ultimately in a weird way kind of like a meet cute in its own way.

19:54 A funny trend I've read about Uh on Hinge, some women using Hinge to get their furniture built for free by their matches? Does it does your does your team endorse this activity? I mean it's funny to see how Hinge shows up in culture. Uh, that is like not an actual trend, but it's a funny story that showed up in the New York Post or whatever. Uh I mean, I'm sure there are some people who are out there doing it, but uh it's not a Like significant change, but a funny thing. That's not in that that's not as far as I know. But maybe I'll talk that's a good idea. Maybe I'll talk to our marketing team.

20:31 Hm. Mm. When when the world feels um overwhelming like it has through much of twenty twenty five. Do users interact with your app any differently? I mean d like

20:43 Economics and politics and geo politics. impact our our dating posture? Uh We see some evidence of, you know, heightened tension. We see some evidence of people thinking more about politics and what what their politics are and what their partners' politics are. Uh so

21:01 We see it in that way. But not in a not in a major way. Hm I mean I I know historically Hinges So to r reflect its user base in employee diversity. And and as DEI has come under fire this year. I is diversity

21:17 Still something the company wants to uphold is the way you you talk about it or deal with it. Uh adjust it at all? I it's a it's an absolute business priority for us because It's no coincidence that our Our employee base.

21:33 uh matches our user base, which matches the kind of broader um environment that we're in from whether you cut it by looking at LGBTQIA or whether you you look at it by race. Or gender. And getting the diverse employee base preceded us having a diverse user base. And it's precisely because we had the people in the house and were uh

21:54 in house and that we are actually building with Not four. our market. That Again, has been a a real key to our success.

22:03 And and you're not uh worried about being critiqued for not uh providing enough opportunities to uh to straight white men. Uh, I think that we provide opportunities to everybody. And um and we're gonna continue to do that. What's at stake for Hinge right now? Well, I mean I think that we are in a

22:25 You know, as you said, the the larger narrative right now is on the category as we're facing headwinds and that there's lack of innovation and all that. And I just We're continuing to really tell the story that it's just not the case at Hinge, that Hinge is continuing to grow significantly, that we're continuing to resonate with the next generation. That we're continuing to lead on innovation.

22:46 There is that you know, that idea of like, would you rather be a growing part of a shrinking or stagnant pie or you know whatever a smaller part of a growing pie. Obviously you want to be a growing part of a growing pie, but I'd rather be a growing part of a growing pie. Personally. So uh and I'm excited to see uh you know we have new new leadership at Match Group and I and I hope that the Um the rest of the category. Um You know.

23:13 There's there's so much opportunity out there, and people are lonelier than ever. And I don't wish ill upon any of my competitors. I think that everyone needs to be doing uh more and better right now to help people find love and connection. And if they're borrowing some of that fr and copying some from what Hinge is doing. That's okay, or that's to be expected. Listen, it wouldn't be my business strategy personally.

23:37 I think copying makes sense when you're the bigger player and the leader. then maybe you want to stop someone f you know, an up and comer, but if you're behind and you're copying the The The leader then

23:48 That's gonna be a hard game to win. Mm. But now of course you're the leader, so does that mean that you're You know. Uh looking at what others are doing, or you haven't seen much there that you That you want.

24:00 Yeah, I'm I'm paying attention less to the major other dating apps and thinking about little startups that are starting to use AI in more innovative ways. And I am paying a bit more attention to that. All right. Uh how do you feel about doing a quick uh lightning round? Are you game? Yeah, yeah, that's fine.

24:16 What is the uh dating app myth? That you most wish you could bust once and for all. Uh that meeting on an app isn't romantic. Because I think it's you know, everything that comes uh you know, how you meet is just is just such a tiny sliver of the everything that comes after when it comes to a relationship. And that's all the stuff that builds the romance. Um it's not necessarily the the me Q. So I wish

24:42 Um People weren't so obsessed with. How they meet versus who they meet. Yeah, you you need you need to update the uh You've Got Mail movie to be about about Hinge, right? There's gotta there's gotta be another way to do it. Yes. Hollywood has not is not giving you that uh that seminal film yet, huh?

25:00 Not yet, but I'll say, you know, I feel like it's becoming more ingrained in culture over time is the accepted way that people meet because the fact is it it just is the way most people are meeting. Actually I saw a stat recently that now one out of every 10 engagements in the US is from Hinge specifically. That's pretty exciting. All right, let me give you a uh another one. One green flag that you would look for on a profile. Well I've been married for quite a while, so I don't think about my green flags as much.

25:31 Maybe other folks who are who are dating or putting profiles together. What what would what would be something Green to look. Um I you know, I just think that someone who is Uh you know, willing to

25:45 who's putting in the effort and being vulnerable on our profile and gives you a way to actually start a conversation. Like I think those people are always gonna be the more Uh interesting, intentional, thoughtful. People. Mm. All right, and what about the other end of the spectrum? One red flag that should be like an instant swipe left.

26:04 I don't believe, first of all, in instant swipe left. I think everyone should take you know, everyone's a human being who deserves a moment of consideration. And Um But again, it's it's almost the opposite of that, which is that someone who's Uh

26:17 not willing to put themselves out there yet, do as one word answer to prompts and You know. Photos that don't really show who they are. It's just necessarily a red flag, but it's just hard to engage with someone who's not

26:30 doing enough to let someone in enough to to start a conversation. If you could add one outrageous Just for fun feature to hinge for twenty four hours. What would it be?

26:47 This is like making you look at all the things you said no to from your team over the years. And this has been an experiment that other apps have run, um, which I wish worked better, which is that you remove all the photos. From the app. uh and let people just match on people's Promps and The conversations.

27:07 And you do get a lot more activity and people are a lot more open minded. It's a Fine. Experiment to run. Mm but but it does matter to people what people look like.

27:18 It does ultimately matter what people look like. Yeah. It's all part of f chemistry and what people are looking for. And like I'm not I'm not here to like judge one way or the other that people take looks into account alongside a whole host of other things that matter. Mm-hmm. Well

27:34 Justin, great. As always, to match and chat with you about this stuff. Thanks so much for doing it. Thanks a lot, Bob. It's really good to see you. It's fascinating to dive into the world of online dating with Justin. It underscores more than just our human desire for connection, but how technology now mediates both matters of the heart and strategies for growth. I'm struck by Justin's conviction that you need a team as diverse as the customers you're trying to reach. After all, the wonderful thing about online dating is you might meet someone you wouldn't run into in your usual circles. It's a way to bring together people from very different backgrounds and these days

28:15 We could all use more of that in our love lives and our everyday lives. I'm Bob Safian. Thanks for listening. Rapid response is a wait what original. I'm Bob Safian. Our executive producer is Eve Tro. Our producer is Alex Morris. Associate producer is Mashumaku Tonina.

28:42 Mixing and Mastering by Aaron Bastanelli. Our theme music is by Ryan Holiday. Our head of podcasts is Le Tal Malad. For more, visit rapidresponesshow.com.