Whitney Wolfe Herd was a self-made billionaire before her 31st birthday. The cofounder of Tinder went on to serve the company as vice president of marketing, a role she held when she started receiving the derogatory texts from her boss and ex-boyfriend that prompted her to sue the company for sexual harassment.
Herd also asserted that Tinder had wrongfully stripped her of a cofounder title, which the company vehemently denied. The lawsuit was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum that was estimated to be around $1 million.
Herd then decided to take action that was far better than any settlement: she created Bumble, a dating app that directly competed with the company that had so blatantly wronged her.
"I just don't harbor resentment toward anything or anywhere or anyone—I'm too busy," Herd said. Indeed, whereas 90% of new dating apps fail, Bumble took off like a shot, primarily because it catered towards women. This female focus set it apart from the rest of the apps on the market and gave it the edge it needed to succeed.
Bumble, a dating app that relies on women to make the first move in an attempt to cut down on the rampant harassment and disparaging remarks to which Herd herself was no stranger, was downloaded over 100,000 times within its first month of going live. Now, Bumble has over 100 million users across six continents.
A month after Bumble’s IPO earlier this year, Herd’s company was worth over $14 billion, having raked in an impressive $582 million in revenue in 2020. Most of the profit comes from ad revenue and subscriptions that boost users’ profiles and make them visible to more potential matches, in addition to a few other perks.
More than just another dating app, Herd hopes the women that use Bumble feel that it adds order to the usual digital socialization chaos, and gives them a sense of power where it’s become the norm to feel powerless.