Whitney Wolfe Herd is the co-founder and CEO of Bumble INC. (inclusive of Bumble and Badoo). Wolfe Herd founded Bumble in the December of 2014 with the support of Russian billionaire Andrey Andreev and had premised the goal of the app on being female-focused, allowing women to take control and change pre-existing dating norms and rules.
Within the app, women have to make the first move within 24 hours of a match, or the match will no longer be there. This challenges traditional societal norms in the digital age and is arguably a large contributor to the success of the app.
In 2016, at the age of 22, Wolfe Herd had joined the Hatch labs and whilst joining she had become a part of the start-up Cardiff, which was led and managed by Sean Rad (founder of Tinder). The start-up was soon discarded, and Wolfe Herd then became a part of the development team for Tinder.
Soon after joining the team, Wolfe Herd had become the Vice President of the marketing team and was reportedly behind the name of the infamous dating app as well as being credited for advertising the app on college campuses which enabled the app to substantially increase its user base.
However, after growing tensions with company executives, Whitney resigned from Tinder in 2014. In the same year, she had also filed a lawsuit against Tinder for sexual harassment which she had detailed as “a pattern of threatening and abusive behaviour” notably from her ex-boyfriend and former boss, Justin Mateen. The case was resolved outside of the court as Tinder had denied any wrongdoing; Wolfe Herd reportedly received a settlement of $1 million.
After Wolfe Herd had left Tinder, she was not focused on developing a dating platform, however, a few months after the settlement, Andrey Andreev had contacted her about creating a new dating platform that was centred around being female-friendly.
In the same year (2014) Wolfe Herd was one of Business Insider’s 30 Most Important Women under 30; two years after she had been named as one of Ellen’s women in Tech; in both 2017 and ’18 she was on Forbes list of 30 under 30.
By the end of 2014, Wolfe had moved to Austin, Texas and had founded Bumble with the intentions of it being a female-focused dating app and by the following year of its launch, Bumble had reached 15 million conversations and 80 million matches. By 2017, Bumble had reached over 22 million users.
By the beginning of the second quarter of 2019, the parent company of Bumble – Magic Lab – was sold to The Blackstone Group whilst abdicating Andreev’s entire investment into both Bumble and Badoo. Consequently, Wolfe became the CEO of the newly inherited Magic Lab, which at the time had a valued figure of $3 billion and a user estimation of 75 million; Wolfe had acquired approximately 19% of the company’s stake ($570 million).
By 2020, Bumble had interchanged with the Magic Lab and took the title of being the parent company, and in the same year, Bumble had surpassed 100 million subscribers internationally. Fast forward to 2021, and Bumble has attained a $13 billion valuation and Whitney Wolfe Herd is the youngest self-made female billionaire after taking Bumble public. Her current net worth stands at $1.5 billion.
Conclusively, it is notable that Whitney did not have an easy introduction to the world of tech and dating platform apps. She has endured difficult work environments which have led to resignations and court settlements.
However, she has demonstrated such resilience and persistence throughout her journey and has consequently become the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire. The foundations and premise of Bumble have largely aided Wolfe in her success of the dating app and facilitated the increase in the user base.
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