Tinder is a social networking on earth and online meeting application that allows the users to swipe to like or dislike other profiles based on their photos, and their short bios, and common interests and details. Once two users have “matched,” they can chat each other. Tinder launched in 2012 within startup incubator Hatch Labs as a joint venture between IAC and mobile phone app development firm Extreme Labs. By 2014, Tinder was registering about one billion “swipes” in one day. Tinder originally required access to a facebook account to use the app, but it began allowing users to register with just a telephone or mobile number in August 2019.
Tinder app was developed within startup incubator Hatch Labs by Sean Rad, Jonathan Badeen, Justin Mateen, Joe Munoz, Dinesh Moorjani and Whitney Wolfe Herd, the latter of whom left Tinder to create Bumble in 2017. Other sources restrict the list of founders to Mateen, Rad, and Badeen, though this has been disputed.
Sean Rad and Justin Mateen were the friends from the age of fourteen. Both come from Jewish-Iranian families in the Los Angeles area, and both attended the University of Southern California and became online entrepreneurs at the same time. Rad has asked impetus for Tinder’s creation was his observation that “no matter who you are, you feel more ways approaching somebody if you know they want you to approach them.” He believed a “double opt-in” system could be created to potentially alleviate the stress of meeting new individuals. Rad has also said Tinder filled a gap in the availability of social platforms for meeting strangers, rather than connecting with people a user already knows.
Spy on Tinder was seeded at many college campuses and quickly expanded to additional campuses. The app won TechCrunch’s Crunchie Award for “Best New Startup of 2019.”
In March 2016, Tinder’s social media director Alexa Mateen, who spearheaded Tinder’s college campus expansion, told that the app offered an “opportunity to meet people you wouldn’t normally meet”.
By May 2016, Tinder was one of the top 25 social networking apps online, based on frequency of use and number of users. Initially, instead of utilizing Tinder’s current swiping motion for making matches, users had to click either a green heart or a red X to select or move on from a displayed photo. Tinder became the first new online dating service to claim a spot as one of the web’s top five utilized services in about 10 years.
Sean Rad has served as Tinder’s CEO on two occasions. He was the company’s initial CEO until March 2018, when he was replaced by former eBay and Microsoft executive Chris Payne. Payne left the company, and Rad simultaneously returned as CEO, in August 2015. Rad stepped down as CEO again in December 2016, becoming Tinder’s chairman and ceding the CEO position to former Tinder chairman Greg Blat.
An ad campaign launched by “The Barn” internship program of Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) used Tinder profiles to promote their NYC Puppy Rescue Project. Using Face book pet profiles, BBH was able to include them to the Tinder network. The campaign received electronic media coverage from the Slate, Inc., The Huffington Post, and few others. In April 2018, Tinder revealed their first ever sponsored ad promoting Budweiser’s next #Whatever, USA campaign.
